dialogue

Three days of informal briefings came to an end yesterday, after nine candidates for the position of the next United Nations Secretary-General answered all together some 800 questions from the UN membership and the public on how, if selected, they would lead the world body.

The third and final session of informal briefings to hear the views of three more candidates for the position of the next United Nations Secretary-General is taking place at UN Headquarters in New York today, focusing on how they would tackle some of the world’s most urgent issues should they be selected to replace current UN chief Ban Ki-moon in January 2017.

The United Nations today formally closed the year it had dedicated to bridging the gulf between the world’s various cultures, with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warning that bigotry and intolerance still cast a long, dark shadow over planet Earth.

Dialogue and cooperation are critical in today’s world, where a range of shared challenges require common approaches by countries and organizations, says Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today appealed for a rejection of extremism, underscoring that the international grouping of over 100 countries known as the Non-Aligned Movement, or NAM, has an invaluable role to play in promoting greater understanding.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today called for calm in Fiji following the ruling by the Pacific archipelago's Court of Appeal that the December 2006 removal of the elected Government was unlawful and the appointment of the interim Government unconstitutional.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has voiced his deep sadness at the inter-communal violence in the Nigerian city of Jos which has resulted in the loss of life, the displacement of people and the destruction of property over the past several days.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has lauded Europe’s commitment to the values of cross-cultural tolerance, dialogue, respect and understanding, all of which “must be pillars of the better world we are trying to build.”

Globalization has made dialogue between the world’s civilizations crucial, but such a process must be based on the full panoply of human rights, the head of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has said.

Nurturing an understanding between peoples is a central pillar of the global response to violence of every kind, particularly when it is based on bigotry and intolerance, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today as the UN General Assembly moved into the second day of its debate on the issue of "dialogue among civilizations."