The world’s failure to control and eradicate tuberculosis -- a disease that has been around for more than 4,000 years -- was a human disgrace, Marcos Espinal, Executive Secretary of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) “Stop TB Partnership”, said at Headquarters today.
In progress at UNHQ
Press Conference
The Prime Minister of Tajikistan, Oqil Oqilov, told correspondents at a Headquarters press conference today that, despite the financial, energy and other difficulties his country faced, the Government was determined to overcome its problems and gradually utilize the entire potential of the country for achieving the global development goals on a timely basis.
“We are coming to an important juncture in the fight against impunity and those who commit aggressive wars,” said the Director of a network of 1,300 lawmakers from 117 countries from all regions of the world at a Headquarters press conference today, on the margins of the resumed session of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
Describing the lack of water and sanitation for billions of people around the world as a humanitarian tragedy and an affront to human dignity, a former President of the General Assembly urged donor countries this afternoon to scale up investment in both.
Christiana Figueres, Costa Rica’s nominee for Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, said today that she intended to bring her more than 15 years’ experience of working on climate change issues to bear should her bid succeed.
The Economic and Social Council’s focus in 2010 would be on providing substantive input for the September summit on the Millennium Development Goals, the organ’s President said today.
SG/SM/12792
Following is a transcript of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s press conference held in New York today, 16 March:
There had been no change of policy since 2007 on Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip and as a consequence, reconstruction activities in the enclave had barely started, the top United Nations humanitarian official said at Headquarters today.
With the approach of the 1,000 day mark since the start of the blockade against Gaza, an illegal economy was being imposed on the territory’s people, who now depended on goods imported through illegal tunnels, Filippo Grandi, the newly appointed Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, said today.
Women grass-roots activists should be given more clout in forming policies at both the local and international levels, speakers said today at a Headquarters press conference on the role of women food producers and their coping strategies in times of severe food insecurity.