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9 October 2013
Guy Ryder, the Director-General of the International Labour Organization said at the opening ceremony of the Third Global Conference on Child Labour in Brasilia that ‘we will not meet the 2016 target (of eradicating child labour) and that is a collective policy failure.’ He called on the international community to not move its attention away from the struggle to end the scourge, adding ‘the call from Brasilia must be for a renewed, collective effort.’
In spite of a drop in the number of child labourers since 2010, Mr. Ryder warned that globally, the number of child labourers is still very large. He said that progress is not happening fast enough, and noted that child labour is not only a problem of poor or developing economies, but it affects all states.
Source: International Labour Organization | ILO Director-General calls on countries to boost efforts to fight child labour
9 October 2013
Besides the almost 100 United Nations and chemical weapons experts that will be deployed over the coming months in a joint mission (with the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons), to oversee the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon noted that a staging area and support base will be established in Cyprus (due to the dangers on the ground in Syria), and that the UN contribution will primarily be for logistics, security, liaison, medical support, communications and administration.
Ban Ki-moon called upon UN member states ‘to offer their full support to the work of the Joint Mission including through the provision of financial, material, technical and operational assistance’ to carry out last month’s Security Council resolution on the elimination of Syria’s chemical weapons material and equipment. In phase three (from 1 November to 30 June 2014), the joint mission will be expected to support, monitor and verify the destruction of a ‘complex chemical weapons programme involving multiple sites.’ In this phase, ‘it is highly probable that assistance by other Member States will be required in the areas of the provision of both technical and operational advice, support and equipment, as well as security and possibly other areas in order to successfully complete the destruction and/or removal activities within the allotted time’, according to the Secretary-General.
Source: UN News Centre | Ban seeks 100-member joint mission to oversee destruction of Syrian chemical weapons
4 October 2013
The United States and Japan have concluded an agreement to broaden their security alliance. The agreement expands Japan’s role in the region, while affirming the US’ determination to remain a dominant presence in the region. It provides a basis for positioning surveillance drones, as well as navy reconnaissance planes, which will be used to patrol waters in the region, including those around disputed islands. Japan will expand assistance to Southeast Asian countries to help them resist Chinese territorial claims. The agreement also calls for trilateral cooperation between the United States, South Korea and Japan to face common threats, like North Korea’s nuclear programme.
Source: The New York TImes | U.S. and Japan Agree to Broaden Military Alliance
3 October 2013
UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres said regarding Syrian refugees that found refuge in neighbouring states that it is his ‘duty to ask the international community to realize that this burden is far too heavy to be borne by only the neighbouring countries, and to put in place more – and more robust – measures of sharing this burden.’
He said that ‘more international solidarity with host countries and communities is now a must’, meaning not only ‘assistance through humanitarian organizations. It must also mean emergency development support – structural assistance – to neighbouring States, most importantly in health, education, housing, water, and energy supply.’
Helen Clark, Administrator of the UN Development Programme, added that ‘the challenge now is to ensure that our collective response to this complex crisis is both humanitarian and developmental in approach. The humanitarian needs are very stark, but the developmental challenges exacerbated by the crisis in the sub-region cannot be ignored.’
Source: UNHCR | UNHCR head says international community must share burden of Syrian refugees
Source: UNDP | Helen Clark: Speech at UNHCR Executive Committee High Level Segment on “Solidarity with Syrian refugees and host countries”
2 October 2013
Wilfred P. Elrington, foreign minister of Belize, noted on goal 8 of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on global partnership for development in his speech to the UN General Assembly that ‘the rich countries have not even been able to bring themselves to honour their commitment to contribute even the 0.7 per cent of their gross domestic product as official domestic assistance to poor countries.’
He said that in addition, resources being provided by the international and other financial institutions and by private donors ‘fall far short’ of what is needed by poor countries to attain the MDGs. Therefore ‘careful analysis must be undertaken to ascertain why it was that our rich development partners failed to live up to their obligations under the partnership to provide the promised development aid and expertise to poor development partners’ and ‘new mechanisms must be devised to ensure that the post-2015 development agenda does not suffer a similar fate’ according to Elrington.
Alva Romanus Baptiste, minister for external affairs of Saint Lucia stated that the post-MDGs period ‘must be driven by common aspirations, shared goals and a unified vision of a secure and serene world’.
Source: General Assembly of the United Nations | General Debate of the 68th Session | Belize | H.E. Mr. Wilfred Elrington, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade | 30 September 2013
Source: General Assembly of the United Nations | General Debate of the 68th Session | Saint Lucia | H.E. Mr. Alva Romanus Baptiste, Minister of External Affairs | 30 September 2013