Actress and Grammy-nominated singer Melba Moore said at Headquarters today that she would engage the corporate world, the media and fellow celebrities in carrying out her duties as a new United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for the Permanent Memorial to honour the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

The Secretary-General addressed the General Assembly’s meeting on HIV/AIDS this morning. He said that, from its birth, the campaign against AIDS was much more than a battle against disease. It was a cry for human rights. It was a call for gender equality. It was a demand for the equal treatment of all people.

Tackling the myriad challenges posed by the HIV/AIDS pandemic required less finger-pointing about which Governments had not met their commitments and more sincere efforts to promote global cooperation and secure new and innovative sources of funding, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan of Nigeria said today. “The only issue is that we are not receiving what we were supposed to receive,” he said at a press conference held after the opening of the General Assembly High-Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS.

Strong political decisions were needed to ensure the execution of the International Criminal Court warrants for the arrest of President Omer al-Bashir of Sudan and other powerful Government figures, Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said at a Headquarters press conference today. “Our warrants are not going away,” he said, following his briefing to the Security Council on the situation in Sudan.

Environmental protection rules needed much more rigorous enforcement, and it was to be hoped that next year’s United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) would take a holistic approach to incorporating “green economy” into an oceans-oriented agenda, whereby important marine-based resources could be thought of in terms of a “blue economy”, according to David Freestone, Lobingier Visiting Professor of Comparative Law and Jurisprudence at George Washington University.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has condemned the Syrian authorities’ unrelenting violent crackdown on peaceful protestors across the country. She called it “utterly deplorable for any Government to attempt to bludgeon its population into submission, using tanks, artillery and snipers”.

Introducing the student leaders of the 2011 Global Model United Nations Conference, planned for Incheon, Republic of Korea, 10-14 August, the Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information said today that such events helped mobilize students to engage in United Nations issues.

the Secretary-General welcomes the “Kampala Accord” signed yesterday concerning Somalia, which will enable the Transitional Federal Institutions to work constructively in the interest of the Somali people. He calls on the Somali parties to act resolutely to complete the outstanding transitional tasks.

Paul De Lay, Deputy Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) hailed the world body’s expected adoption later today of a comprehensive strategy charting the global response to the deadly virus, including a commitment to halving sexual transmission of HIV by 2015, and a broader pledge to work towards increasing funding to tackle HIV/AIDS to between $22 billion and $24 billion per year by that time.

In a statement issued over the weekend, the Secretary-General expressed alarm at the escalation of fighting in Southern Kordofan, Sudan, which has left thousands homeless. He called on all concerned to cease hostilities and provide their full cooperation to the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS).