Stressing that social security was a human right, a senior ILO official today spotlighted the issue of social protection and its importance in poverty eradication at a Headquarters press conference on a United Nations-backed programme aimed at promoting investment in and access to essential services and social transfers for poor and vulnerable communities.

The border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia, which erupted in exchanges of fire earlier this month, must be resolved through bilateral negotiations, Thailand’s Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said at a Headquarters news conference today.

Inspired by the International Year of Reconciliation, 2009, a Madrid-based non-governmental organization announced today that its international school award competition for 2011 would aim to teach children around the world about the importance of peace and reconciliation in resolving conflicts. “We wanted to do something special about peace,” Joaquín Antuña, President of Peace and Cooperation, said at a Headquarters press conference.

The Secretary-General met with President Alan García of Peru in Lima today. Speaking at a joint press conference, he said Peru has seen considerable progress in consolidating democracy and attaining the Millennium Development Goals. The challenge now is to spread these gains equally to the country’s most vulnerable people, especially in rural areas, where the majority of indigenous peoples live.

Nearly half of the 145 journalists placed behind bars in 2010 found themselves in Chinese and Iranian prisons, making those two countries among the most dangerous for journalists working around the world, the executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists said today at a United Nations Headquarters press conference.

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, says that the High Commissioner will formally ask the Egyptian Government to accept a mission from the Office. The aim of the mission is to assess the situation and find ways to help the transition to democracy from a human rights point of view.

A quiet revolution in the use of social protections had occurred in countries across the global South over the last 10 to 15 years, Michael Cichon, Director of the ILO Social Security Department, said today at the launch of the report “Successful social protection floor experiences” on the occasion of the World Day of Social Justice.

The top United Nations humanitarian official today drew attention to ongoing crises in two Eastern African countries — Kenya and neighbouring strife-torn Somalia — where failed rains and worsening droughts were putting pressure on millions of beleaguered people across a region in no position to bear added anguish.

The Secretary-General attaches great importance to the forthcoming mission to Côte d’Ivoire by the five-member high-level panel established by the African Union’s Peace and Security Council to facilitate a peaceful solution to the post-election crisis in Côte d’Ivoire. He urges all Ivorian parties to extend their full cooperation to the high-level panel.

The dangerously high volatility of global food prices would be a major target of the French presidency of the Group of 20 (G-20), which would actively promote concrete solutions during 2011, France’s Agriculture Minister pledged at a Headquarters press conference today.