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Citing a range of challenges to peace in Africa and elsewhere around the world, in his address to the General Assembly today, Mozambique’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Oldemiro Baloi, highlighted the need for reform of the United Nations, as well as the revitalization of the Assembly itself.

The year and a half of deadly violence in Syria is clear testimony of the need to reform the United Nations to strengthen its preventive capabilities, European ministers told the General Assembly today.

The inability of nuclear weapons to guarantee a country’s security or independence was highlighted in the speech of Kazakhstan’s Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs, Kairat Umarov, to the United Nations General Assembly today.

The need for reform of the United Nations, illicit drug trafficking and the situation in Afghanistan were among the topics covered in the speech by Tajikistan’s Foreign Minister, Hamrokhon Zarifi, to the UN General Assembly today.

African ministers at the United Nations General Assembly to day called for expanding the Security Council to include permanent representation for their continent and stressed the vital role of socio-economic development in ensuring peace.

Speakers representing a trio of Southeast Asian countries called for reform of United Nations bodies today, with Cambodia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Singapore’s Foreign Affairs Minister framing their arguments for change mainly around development and economic urgencies, and Malaysia’s Foreign Affairs Minister focusing more on what he characterized as failures of the UN Security Council.

New Zealand today called on the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council to give up their veto rights on issues involving mass atrocities, saying their inability to act in Syria was depriving them of credibility in the eyes of fair-minded people.

Addressing the United Nations General Assembly, Sudan’s Foreign Minister, Ali Ahmed Karti, today highlighted, among other issues, his country’s role in reaching a key framework agreement for cooperation – particularly in security, the common border and economic relations – with South Sudan, at talks this week in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital.

From the podium of the General Assembly, Uruguay’s Foreign Minister Luis Almagro today called on the United Nations to step up its aid to developing countries, particularly middle income countries.

In a call for greater international focus on the problems of developing small-island states, Tuvalu’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Apisai Ielemia, today told the United Nations General Assembly that the time had come for special recognition of countries such as his.