The discussion focused on the 20th biannual report of the Secretary-General on the threat posed by Da’esh to international peace and security. “Terrorism remains a significant and evolving threat to global peace and security, one that no State can confront in isolation,” said Under-Secretary-General Vladimir Voronkov, Head of the UN...
Signed in 2018 to end years of conflict, the Revitalized Peace Agreement, initially set a three-year timeline for elections and the formation of a democratic government. The transition has been extended four times, with key political, security, and governance benchmarks remaining unfulfilled. Under the latest extension, announced by the authorities...
Briefing ambassadors in New York on Tuesday, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini warned that the laws passed in October last year in the Knesset jeopardize the lives of millions of Palestinians and risks undermining the fragile ceasefire in Gaza. They require that UNRWA cease its activities in the territory of the...
As fighting intensifies between the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group and Congolese forces, UN chief of Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix underscored the critical state of the battle for eastern DRC’s regional capital Goma, describing the crisis as “volatile and dangerous”....
Khaled Khiari, Assistant Secretary-General for peacebuilding and political affairs, briefed ambassadors two days after the DPRK, commonly known as North Korea, fired off what it described as a new type of intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missile (IRBM) loaded with a hypersonic glide vehicle. He cited an official statement from Pyongyang which...
Khaled Khiari, Assistant Secretary-General in the UN Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA), presented the latest quarterly report on the implementation of Council resolution 2334 (2016). It calls for Israel to immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the OPT, including East Jerusalem, and for immediate steps to...
Bintou Keita, who also heads the UN Stabilization Mission in the DRC, known as MONUSCO, reported on the instability in North Kivu and Ituri provinces, particularly operations by four armed groups: ADF, M23, CODECO and Zaïre. She applauded efforts to quell the violence there and in the wider region, highlighting...
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreed in 2015 lays out the rules for monitoring Iran’s domestic nuclear programme and paved the way for US sanctions to be lifted. It was agreed by Iran, the five permanent members of the Council (China, France, Russia the United Kingdom and the...
The discussions at the international anti-corruption conference, convened in Atlanta by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), held between 11 and 15 December, built on the ground-breaking Global Report on Corruption in Sport, produced by the UNODC in 2021, which pointed to a dramatic increase in illegal betting, fuelled by the...
Rosemary DiCarlo, UN Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, was briefing a meeting of the Security Council, which also coincided with the 32nd anniversary of Ukraine’s independence. “I would like to congratulate the Ukrainian people today and take this occasion to stress, once again, that the UN’s commitment to Ukraine’s...
Cities and towns have become the drivers of economic growth and now account for more than 80 per cent of global GDP. Yet, in 2020, over one billion inhabitants of urban areas were still living in slums or informal settlements, predominantly in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. As urban populations grow,...
Briefing the Security Council on the state of the JCPOA, Ms. DiCarlo set the tone for the discussion by stating, “diplomacy is the only way to effectively address the Iranian nuclear issue.” The 2015 deal sets out rules for monitoring Iran’s nuclear programme and paves the way for the lifting of...