UN Calendar |
January 10
Fourth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries
January 12
The one-year anniversary of the Haiti earthquake. At 4:45 p.m., the UN Secretary-General will take part in a wreath-laying ceremony in the General Assembly public lobby at UN headquarters in New York. Participants will be asked to solemnly observe silence for a period of 47 seconds, which was the duration of the earthquake.
January 13
Security Council will hold consultations on the UN Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia (UNRCCA).
January 14
Secretary-General will hold his first press conference of the year. Watch live coverage at www.un.org/webcast
Security Council is expected to adopt a resolution on the UN Operation in Côte d'Ivoire (UNOCI). It will also hear a briefing and hold consultations on Somalia.
January 27
International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust
*****
Security Council's January Calendar | |
New UN Reports | |
For a complete listing of reports, please visit:
UN Reports | |
| UN Washington Online | 
| |
|
|
 | | December 27, 2010 - Alain Le Roy (center, red tie), Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, arrives in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, to visit UN troops providing security at the Hotel Golf. The hotel is where Côte d'Ivoire's recently elected president, Alassane Ouattara, and his prime minister, Guillaume Soro, are residing while former President Laurent Gbagbo refuses to step down. UN Photo/Basile Zoma |
|
|
UN seeks to boost peacekeeping troops as Cote d'Ivoire crisis continues
The United Nations is seeking up to 2,000 additional troops for its nearly 9,000-strong peacekeeping mission in Côte d'Ivoire where the outgoing president's refusal to step down despite his opponent's electoral victory has sparked fears of renewed civil war.
 United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will send a request to the Security Council next week for between 1,000 and 2,000 additional forces for the UN Operation in Côte d'Ivoire (UNOCI), which has been supporting efforts over the past seven years to reunify the West African country, split by civil war in 2002 into a government-controlled south and a rebel-held north.
The new troops will fill the gap currently bridged by peacekeepers from the UN Mission in neighbouring Liberia (UNMIL) deployed on a temporary basis for the elections, which were intended to crown the reunification process but have degenerated into political deadlock and violence by supporters of outgoing president Laurent Gbagbo, who has refused to recognize his UN-certified defeat by opposition leader Alassane Ouattara.
Read more |
Sudan: UN in final push to deliver ballots for independence referendum in South
With preparations for next week's independence referendum in Southern Sudan in their final stages, the United Nations is seeking to ensure that every last voter in the more than four-million-strong electorate will have a ballot, no matter how remote and inaccessible the location.
 A helicopter from the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) this week airlifted ballot papers, voting screens and other material into the road-less Tali region in Central Equatoria State, for distribution to a dozen voting centers for the January 9-15 referendum - the culmination of a six-year peace process that ended two decades of civil war between the north and south.
UNMIS has already delivered material for more than four million voters in Southern Sudan, each ballot carrying two pictures: one hand, signifying independence, and two hands, standing for unity.
Read more |
Darfur: UN-African mission to boost civilian protection, support for peace process
The head of the United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force in Sudan's troubled region of Darfur has said that the mission will continue to strengthen its operations this year to improve security and provide better protection to civilians, while supporting efforts to resolve the conflict there.
 "We will continue to enhance our operations on the ground and are constantly liaising with local authorities and monitoring the situation to heighten our security awareness and ensure full preparedness on our part," said Ibrahim Gambari, the Joint AU-UN Special Representative in Darfur, and head of the mission, which is known as UNAMID.
"This year will be very critical for the future of UNAMID, the future of Sudan, maybe the future of Africa, and we have to be prepared," Mr. Gambari said in a speech to UNAMID staff in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, nearly a year after he took over as the head of the mission.
Read more |
|
Week in Pictures
Christmas in Darfur
December 25, 2010 - South Sudanese Christians celebrate Christmas mass at El Fasher church in North Darfur, Sudan. Many in their community have recently left Darfur. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), more than 55,000 displaced Southern Sudanese have returned home over the past few weeks, ahead of the region's referendum on independence. Read more about how the UN-African mission is protecting thousands displaced by recent clashes. UN Photo/Olivier Chassot _______________________________
UNMIS Delivers Ballot Materials to Tali Payam, South Sudan
January 2, 2011 - Voting materials are unloaded from a UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) helicopter in Tali Payam, a district inaccessible by road, in Southern Sudan's Central Equatoria state. The district is receiving the materials less than a week before Southern Sudan holds a long-awaited referendum on self-determination. UN Photo/Tim McKulka |
|
Week in Numbers
40 PERCENT
The top United Nations envoy for Somalia has urged that restrictions on aid delivery, partly owing to a rejection of Western assistance by Islamic militants, be lifted so that those who need help amid an impending drought can receive it. The Horn of Africa nation is already facing a dire humanitarian crisis in which 3.2 million people, more than 40 percent of the population, is in need of aid. Read more
2.5 BILLION
According to preliminary figures released by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), airlines of the 190 ICAO Member States carried approximately 2.5 billion passengers in 2010, up 6.3 percent over the depressed levels of 2009 caused by the global financial crisis. Domestically, in 2010, markets overall grew by 6.9 percent over 2009. Growth rates of 1.5 percent, 3.6 percent and 4 percent in North America, the Middle East and Africa, respectively, were offset by rates of 15.1 percent in the Asia/Pacific region, 15.9 percent in Latin America and 12.2 percent in Europe. Read more
$200 MILLION
The United Nations and its partners have launched a 20-year, $200 million environmental recovery program in southwest Haitithat aims to benefit more than 200,000 people and show that sustainable rural development, from fisheries to tourism, is indeed practical. Lessons learned during the execution of the project, covering a land area of 780 square kilometers, about half the size of Greater London, and a marine area of 500 square kilometers, can be extended to the rest of Haiti, the poorest, least stable and most environmentally degraded country in the Western Hemisphere. Read more |
|
|
About the United Nations in Washington
As the United Nations office in Washington, D.C, the UN Information Center serves as the focal point for UN news and information to advance understanding of the UN and its work, and to serve as a resource for United States government officials, NGOs, civil-society organizations and the American people.
United Nations. It's your world.
|
|
|
