Despite damage to thousands of homes and the closure of hundreds of schools, roads and health facilities amid a rising incidence of water-borne diseases, news of the severe flooding suffered by countries in Central America had not made international headlines, Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator Catherine Bragg said at Headquarters today.
In progress at UNHQ
Press Conference
At a press conference at Headquarters today, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, Prosecutor for the Hague-based International Criminal Court, said that the Libyan case had set “new standards” for international procedures and investigations.
Just over ninety days after the new Republic of South Sudan had become an independent country and had joined the United Nations as a Member State, the country was already managing to overcome some of the colossal challenges it faced, Hilde Johnson, Special Representative and Head of the United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS), said at a Headquarters press conference today.
Saying that the Security Council was, as usual, looking at a fairly busy schedule for the coming month, José Filipe Moraes Cabral (Portugal), its President for November, today outlined its programme of work comprising both new and traditional agenda items.
Without concerted action to slow climate change, prevent further environmental damage and reduce deep inequalities within and among nations, impressive human development gains in the last several decades, especially in the world’s poorest nations, could be halted and even reversed, according to a new report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) launched today at a Headquarters press conference.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today announced the release of his vision statement on his “Sustainable Energy for All” initiative, and announced the members of the High-Level Group that would spearhead the initiative.
Only the nations of the world could decide the fate of thousands of landmines, weapons and ammunition stockpiles scattered across Libya, said Max Dyck, Programme Manager of the Joint Mine Action Coordination Team in Libya, at a Headquarters press conference today. He was joined by Justin Brady, Acting Director, United Nations Mine Action Service.
Faiza Patel, Chair of the Human Rights Council’s Working Group on the use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination, told correspondents today about the Working Group’s visits to Equatorial Guinea, South Africa and Iraq.
As the world population officially reached 7 billion today, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for global solidarity to address pressing problems of climate change, economic crisis and inequality in order to make the world a better place for current and future generations. He pledged to work towards those aims this week during the Group of Twenty (G-20) Summit in Cannes.
As the United Nations launched the International Year of Cooperatives (2012) today, panellists at a Headquarters press conference laid out the benefits that financial institutions and other businesses using the cooperative business model could bring to a troubled global economy.