Press Conference

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.

The aim of an independent review of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was to ensure the quality of its future reports, the co-chair of the scientific institute charged with that task said today.

The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) was ready to resume full responsibility for security in the earthquake-devastated country, as non-Mission troops began withdrawing, the top United Nations official there said at a Headquarters press conference today.

There was no doubt that policing was the same all over the world, requiring the treatment of everybody with respect, dignity and in accordance with their human rights during every contact, top police official Ann-Marie Orler said at Headquarters today.

United Nations officials announced today the planned launch of the seven-step “Women’s Empowerment Principles” at a conference with international business leaders, where organizers are expected to present the latest research on gender equality and business performance.

Calling for the speedy establishment of a United Nations-backed mechanism to monitor and investigate laws discriminating on the basis of gender, the head of the global civil society organization Equality Now said at Headquarters today that ensuring equality before the law would go a long way towards ending the legal discrimination that still condemned so many women worldwide to poverty and continuous abuse.

Having suffered an earthquake of “historical proportions”, Chile was returning to normality though it faced huge reconstruction needs, Heraldo Muñoz, the country’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, said at a Headquarters press conference today. “Chile’s standing up; we’re recuperating slowly,” said Mr. Muñoz, who was joined by Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, and Amir Dossal, Executive Director of the United Nations Office for Partnerships.