UN Calendar |
February 25
The Secretary-General briefs the Security Council on developments in North Africa and the Middle East in the afternoon, in a closed meeting that is to be followed by consultations. In that meeting, the Secretary-General will once more underscore his grave concern about the violence taking place in Libya. He then intends to speak to reporters at the Security Council stakeout, at around 4:20 p.m. Watch live coverage at www.un.org/webcast
February 28
The Special Committee on the Charter of the United Nations and on the Strengthening of the Role of the Organization holds its 260th meeting in the Economic and Social Council Chamber in New York.
The second session of the Preparatory Committee for the United Nations Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty begins in New York through March 4.
The Human Rights Council begins its 16th session through March 25.
March 1
Alain Le Roy, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, and Yury Fedotov, Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and Director-General of the United Nations Office in Vienna (UNOV), will be the guests at the Noon Briefing to brief reporters on the new UNODC/DPKO Joint Plan of Action.
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Security Council's February Calendar
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February 22, 2011 - Abdurrahman Mohamed Shalgham (center), Permanent Representative of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya to the United Nations, speaks to correspondents following Security Council consultations in New York on the situation in his country. Mass protests have been met by violent government crackdown in Libya in the last week, as a wave of anti-government protests sweeps across North Africa and the Middle East over the past month. UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe |
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Secretary-General condemns Qadhafi's actions against protestors, calls for punishment
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has condemned Libyan President Muammar Al-Qadhafi's actions against protestors as possible crimes against humanity, calling for the punishment of those who "brutally shed" the blood of innocents.
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February 23, 2011 - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon spoke on the phone with Amre Moussa, Secretary General of the League of Arab States, from his office in New York, on the violent government response to mass protests in Libya. Mr. Ban has engaged in conversations with several leaders in the region since unrest first erupted in Tunisia in January. UN Photo/Paulo Filgueiras |
"I have strongly condemned, again and again, what he has done. It is totally unacceptable," Mr. Ban told reporters on February 23 after rushing back early from a trip to Los Angeles to confer with his senior advisers on the Libyan crisis at United Nations Headquarters in New York.
"I am sure that the international community is considering a broad range of options," he said, referring to his own extensive appeal he made to the Libyan leader in a long telephone call on Monday to end violence immediately. "He has not heeded to that... the government of Libya must meet its responsibility to protect its people...
"At this critical juncture, it is imperative that the international community maintain its unity and act together to ensure a prompt and peaceful transition."
Describing Monday's 40-minute phone conversation with Mr. Qadhafi, Mr. Ban said, "It was not an easy conversation. I told him, bluntly, that the violence must stop - immediately."
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Related Headlines
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Vital to keep borders open for people fleeing Libya, UN agency stresses
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UN in Washington
The Secretary-General's Special Representative for Iraq, Ad Melkert, met with White House and congressional representatives this week. In an interview with Reuters, he noted protests in Iraq and across the Arab world show the need to resolve long-standing disputes between Arabs and Kurds in northern Iraq before they trigger conflict. "As long as these issues are lurking and are unresolved, they at any moment in time can just be the trigger for conflict and polarization," he told Reuters. "And what we see today on the streets just shows that this can happen overnight, and you should try to prevent that."
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UN celebrates birth of powerful new agency for women and girls
Luminaries from the worlds of politics, entertainment, business, the media, music and film joined the United Nations on February 24 to celebrate the birth of a powerful new agency giving voice to women and girls worldwide.
 UN Women - formally known as the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women - was established in July 2010 by the General Assembly, merging four previous UN bodies dealing with women's issues.
"With the birth of UN Women, we welcome a powerful new agent for progress on gender equality and women's empowerment," said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
UN Women will be working with an annual budget of at least $500 million - double the combined resources of the four agencies it comprises, namely the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW), the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues, and the UN International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (UN-INSTRAW).
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UN Human rights situation in Côte d'Ivoire getting worse, says UN report
A new United Nations report highlights an ongoing pattern of human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, abductions and excessive use of force, in Côte d'Ivoire since the November election and warns that the situation is only getting worse.
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January 24, 2011 - Choi Young-Jin (facing camera, yellow tie), Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Côte d'Ivoire, meets with a delegation of Ivorian traditional leaders to explain the method for certifying the results of November 2010's contested presidential elections in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire UN Photo/Basile Zoma |
"With the political stalemate now going into the third month, the human rights situation in Côte d'Ivoire is becoming more precarious," UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, states in her report on the human rights situation in the West African nation.
The report, which was commissioned by the Human Rights Council and covers events up to January 31, 2011, documents a trend in rights violations, with almost 300 people killed, most as a result of extra-judicial killings committed by elements of the security forces loyal to Laurent Gbagbo.
The outgoing president refuses to leave office despite opposition leader Allasane Ouattara's UN-certified victory in the November 28 presidential run-off. |
Clasping Oscar UN won, Ban calls on Hollywood to play supporting role in raising awareness
Wielding an Oscar that the United Nations won more than 60 years ago for a film on children with disabilities, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is seeking to mobilize Hollywood to help the world body fund and spread its humanitarian message to every corner of the globe.
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File Photo: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (right) meets Kiefer Sutherland, protagonist of popular television series "24", at a reception for the Global Creative Forum in Los Angeles, California last year. UN Photo/Mark Garten |
"From this early film to today we know the power of the creative community," he told the Global Creative Forum dinner on February 22 in Los Angeles, holding the golden statuette of a knight standing on a reel of film and gripping a sword, which the UN won in 1947 for the film called 'First Steps.' "You have a tremendous reach. That is why I am here."
Mr. Ban stressed that he was not asking his listeners to make a documentary about how great the UN is. "I am telling you that the real drama is out there, where we work, every day. The UN reaches people in the world's corners where no one wants or dares to go. I am here because we have real stories to tell," he said.
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Week in Pictures
Memorial Ceremony for U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke
February 17, 2011 - John Kerry, United States Senator from Massachusetts and Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, speaks at the memorial service, "A Life Remembered", for renowned American diplomat Richard C. Holbrooke at UN headquarters in New York. Mr. Holbrooke passed away on December 13, 2010. UN Photo/John McIlwaine
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Zero Emissions Vehicles Round off Global Tour in Geneva 
February 24, 2011 - Sergei Ordzhonikidze, Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG), sits aboard one of the electric vehicles from the Zero Emissions Race shortly after the race's finish at UNOG, Switzerland. The "zero emissions" vehicles, powered by renewable energies like solar, wind, wave and geothermal, drove across the globe in 80 days, through 16 countries, for a total of 3,000 kilometers. UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferre |
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Week in Numbers
1.2 BILLION
With 20 years of strong investment producing "stunning" gains for children up to the age of 10, including a 33 percent drop in under-five mortality rates, the United Nations is calling for equal focus on the world's 1.2 billion  adolescents to break entrenched cycles of poverty and inequity. In its 2011 State of the World's Children report released today, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) cites one startling example: in Brazil the lives of 26,000 children under one were saved between 1998 and 2008, leading to a sharp decrease in infant mortality, yet in the same period 81,000 adolescents aged 15-19 were murdered. "Surely, we do not want to save children in their first decade of life only to lose them in the second," UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake says in a foreword to the report, entitled 'Adolescence: An Age of Opportunity.'
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