Secretary-General

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appointed the Chairperson and five members of the Advisory Board of the Capital Master Plan (CMP).

The Secretary-General expressed his condolences to those who lost family and friends in Chile's earthquake and has been in touch with the UN’s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), based in Santiago, for an assessment of the earthquake and information on UN staff.

Stevie Wonder, the popular singer and Grammy Award-winning songwriter, promised to use his creative talents in support of the United Nations mission and persons with disabilities during a press conference at Headquarters today.

Up to 70 per cent of women at some point in their lifetime experienced physical or sexual violence by men, most from someone they knew, which meant that men had a crucial role in ending such abuse -- as fathers, friends and decision-makers, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today at a Headquarters press briefing, following the launch of a major initiative to engage politicians, activists, religious and community figures in that charge.

“The near poor are becoming the new poor” as a result of the global financial crisis, the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations said today at Headquarters, as she announced the development of the United Nations Global Impact and Vulnerability Alert System, or “GIVAS”.

“The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are more than a set of targets – they are a solemn promise to the world’s poorest and most vulnerable,” United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro said today at a Headquarters press briefing to launch the 2009 report of the MDG Gap Task Force.

The upcoming United Nations Summit on Climate Change would be crucial in providing much-needed political momentum for negotiations on the issue as the deadline for an international deal loomed, Janos Pasztor, Director of the Secretary-General’s Climate Change Support Team, said at Headquarters this afternoon.

The States parties to the Convention on the Law of the Sea today heard briefings by the heads of the three bodies established by the treaty -- the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, International Seabed Authority and the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf -- as they continued their annual session.