Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the African Union Chairperson today appointed an experienced official from Burkina Faso as the new joint AU-UN Chief Mediator for Darfur as they seek new momentum in their efforts to resolve the five-year conflict.
The head of the panel set up to review United Nations staff security worldwide in the wake of last year’s deadly Algiers bombing has underscored the need for vigilance amid growing threats to the Organization.
The Security Council today extended by 18 months the mandate of the monitoring team set up in 2004 to help track the application of the world body’s sanctions against the Taliban, Al-Qaida and their operatives.
The United States should take immediate steps to ensure that the death penalty is applied fairly and justly in states where it is practised, a United Nations human rights expert said today, voicing particular concern that officials in the state of Alabama “seem strikingly indifferent to the risk of executing innocent people.”
The price tag of addressing climate change is not as great as believed, the head of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) emphasized today.
The United Nations has reached “a critical juncture” in the implementation of its development agenda, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today, with soaring oil and food prices, turmoil in the financial markets, inequality and climate change all threatening to strike hardest at the world’s poorest people.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today that the world must galvanize its will and reach a new agreement on measures to fight climate change by the end of 2009.
The humanitarian situation inside Afghanistan is getting worse, with civilian casualties rising and food prices soaring, the United Nations relief chief said today, calling for the international community to revise its assistance plans to the strife-torn country.
A “plateau” has been reached in achieving a safe, decent and healthy workplace, despite major economic, scientific and technical progress, according to a report released today by the UN International Labour Organization (ILO).