Recent talks had brought Georgia and the Russian Federation no closer to ending their longstanding political stalemate, said a top Georgian official, speaking at a Headquarters press conference today. The Minister for Foreign Affairs of Georgia, Grigol Vashadze, said that “no substantial breakthroughs” had been made at the just-concluded fifteenth round of the negotiations, first launched in Geneva following a military conflict in 2008.

The operations centre of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) in Mazar-i-Sharif has been attacked today following a demonstration, with several staff killed. Briefed on the incident, the Secretary-General called it “outrageous and cowardly” and condemned it in the strongest terms.

A UN aircraft crashed at 1300 hours GMT today on landing in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There were 29 passengers plus the air crew on board the aircraft, which originated from Kisangani. A crisis task force set up by MONUSCO, the Mission there, is working at the crash site and there are no exact figures on casualties at this point.

Néstor Osorio, Permanent Representative of Colombia, which holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council, said today that the 15-nation body would tackle a “loaded” agenda this month, while also keeping a wary eye on the ripple effects of the popular protests sweeping North African and the Middle East.

The UN mission in Côte d’Ivoire started an operation yesterday aimed at protecting civilians after forces loyal to Laurent Gbagbo have intensified and escalated their use of heavy weapons against the civilian population in Abidjan. As the Secretary-General explained, in accordance with Security Council resolution 1975 (2011), he instructed the mission to take the necessary measures to prevent the use of heavy weapons against the civilian population, with the support of the French forces.

The Security Council is holding a high-level debate on Haiti today, chaired by the President of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos Calderón. At that meeting, the Secretary-General said that he was encouraged that the second round of polling was peaceful and urged the next Government to build on President Préval’s legacy of political tolerance and respect for human rights.

Aid to thousands of civilians across Côte d’Ivoire was running out as “extremely serious human rights violations” continued unabated, said the United Nations top humanitarian officer at a Headquarters press conference today.

This morning, the Secretary-General held a meeting at breakfast in Washington, D.C., with members of the United States House Foreign Affairs Committee, led by Chairman, Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and ranking member, Representative Russ Carnahan. He discussed the situation in Côte d’Ivoire, Libya and other trouble spots and told the Committee that the United Nations does each day what no country can do alone.

Over the tragic 30-year arc of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, solid progress had been made in raising awareness about the disease and bringing down infection rates, but monies devoted to tackling it were drying up, the price of the drugs to treat it were skyrocketing, and rampant discrimination had left at the margins of life-saving interventions communities critical to the fight, civil society representatives said at a Headquarters press conference today.

With the successful conclusion in Haiti of legislative and presidential elections signalling renewal and the rise of a new political generation, there were solid reasons for optimism about the country’s future, nearly 15 months after the devastating earthquake, Edmond Mulet, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Haiti, said today at a Headquarters press conference.