The conservation and sustainable use of biological resources was not only crucial in ensuring that local and indigenous communities continued to reap their benefits, but also in creating opportunities for sustainable development and poverty eradication, Izabella Teixeira, Minister for Environment of Brazil, said at a Headquarters press conference today.

The Secretary-General opened the sixty-fifth session of the General Assembly this morning, warning that we are seeing a new politics of polarization at work. Amid such uncertainty and so much confusion of purpose, he said, we naturally seek a moral compass. The soul of global governance involves taking a collective stand, principled and pragmatic, against forces that would divide us. That is why the United Nations remains the indispensable global institution for the twenty-first century.

The Millennium Development Goals on health would be reached by 2015 if the international community sustained and expanded its level of dedicated resources and effort, said the head of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria at a Headquarters press conference today.

The newly appointed Executive Director of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres, told correspondents today that Governments are converging on the need to mandate a full set of ways and means to “launch a new wave of global climate action” ahead of a major conference to be held in Cancun, Mexico, in November.

At a Headquarters press conference today, Bolivian President Evo Morales Ayma touted his country’s newly minted ability to flourish without foreign intervention and highlighted the economic progress his country has made since regaining control of its natural energy resources from foreign interests nearly five years ago.

The Secretary-General opened a high-level meeting on revitalizing the work of the Conference on Disarmament and taking forward multilateral disarmament negotiations this morning, saying much remains to be done both on weapons of mass destruction and conventional weapons, and the political will of Member States was the decisive factor.

At a Headquarters press conference today, Amre Moussa, Secretary-General of the Arab League stressed that a viable and serious process of negotiations for a peace settlement could not continue if Israeli settlement building in the Occupied Territories did not cease.

President Dimitris Christofias of Cyprus declared today that he was “absolutely ready” for a fair and viable solution to the “Cyprus problem” as soon as possible.

Ministers of small island developing States addressed their nations’ most pressing vulnerabilities today, at a headquarters press conference held to coincide with the General Assembly high-level review of the Mauritius Strategy agreed upon five years ago to help chart a path to sustainable development.

The head of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) called this afternoon on the international community to counter hatred, intolerance and discrimination against Muslims everywhere, saying that the acts of few extremist fanatics were being used to associate Islam with terrorism.