Press Conference

Despite the weakening and scattering of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), it continued to be one of the gravest violators of children’s rights and must be stopped, a top United Nations official said, as she introduced a United Nations report on the subject to correspondents this afternoon.

Significant progress had been made in only four of 90 internationally agreed environmental goals and objectives assessed by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), said an official today upon the release of the Programme’s latest report in its flagship Global Environment Outlook (GEO) series.

Through the direct engagement of its Member States, the General Assembly had been able to respond promptly to many important and serious situations during its current session, the President of the 193-nation body said today at a Headquarters press conference on a wide range of issues, including the upcoming Rio summit on sustainable development, the crisis in Syria, and combating violence against women.

Following is a transcript of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s press conference on the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), held in New York, 6 June:

It was the Security Council’s responsibility to devise a new strategy to arrest Sudanese President Omer al-Bashir and his aides who had been indicted for serious crimes in Darfur, the International Criminal Court’s top prosecutor said this afternoon at a Headquarters press conference.

As the Security Council navigated “a very packed schedule” in June, it was critical for the body to maintain “unswerving support” to international mediation efforts in Syria in the face of terrible recent events, the representative of China, which hold’s the Council presidency for the month, said this afternoon.

With the start of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Brazil looming, countries were still far from agreeing on a summit declaration or plan of action, a civil society activist said today at a Headquarters press conference.

Transparency and intergovernmental coordination for recovery from the economic crisis were the priority of the Mexican presidency of the G-20, the Group of the world’s 20 largest economies, in preparations for the upcoming summit in Los Cabos, Mexico, a representative of the presidency said this morning.

As a deeper understanding of sustainability issues gained momentum around the world, companies of all sectors were stepping up efforts to build environmental and social considerations into management strategies and policies, although much remained to be done to fully realize corporate sustainability and translate commitments into tangible action, correspondents were told at a Headquarters press conference today.

Nations meeting in Rio this month must come together on ambitious sustainable development goals backed by specific implementation agreements to ensure the survival of oceans, the decent subsistence of farmers whose fields were drying up and other urgent priorities, representatives of non-governmental organizations said this morning.