Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's message on World Health Day
"Combat Antimicrobial Resistance: No Action Today, No Cure Tomorrow" 29 March 2011 - The discovery of antibiotics and other antimicrobial medicines has been responsible for some of the most dramatic advances in human health. Before these drugs were introduced in the 1940s, infectious diseases took…
Interview with Staffan de Mistura, Special Representative for Afghanistan
28 March 2011 – Staffan de Mistura took up his current assignment as the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in the country (UNAMA) in January 2010. Some of his previous UN appointments include stints as the Deputy Director of…
‘Reconciliation should start within families’ says High Peace Council at Uruzgan meeting
30 March 2011 – More than 300 tribal elders and Afghan officials from Uruzgan met on Sunday with members of the High Peace Council to discuss peace and reconciliation efforts. “We should start the reconciliation efforts within our families, the in the villages, towns, districts and provinces,” the…
Government hails Taliban decree on schools
29 March 2011 - Taliban “supreme leader” Mullah Mohammad Omar has issued a decree instructing insurgents not to attack schools and intimidate schoolchildren, according to the Afghan Ministry of Education (MoE). IRIN story “In his message to a Taliban military council in Khost Province [southeastern…
Despite progress, gap grows between Afghanistan and wealthier countries, UN panel reports
30 March 2011- The world’s poorest countries are making progress but the gap between them and their wealthier counterparts is getting larger, according to a United Nations report released on Tuesday. Afghanistan is one of the 48 Least Development Countries (LDCs) which has positive growth in the…
Afghan asylum-seekers hit by tighter immigration rules
31 March 2011 - There were fewer Afghan asylum-seekers in 2010 and this could, in part, be due to tighter immigration controls in destination countries, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the Afghan Ministry of Refugees and Returnees. IRIN story The number of Afghan asylum-seekers in “44…
Statement attributable to UNAMA Spokesperson Dan McNorton
1 April 2011 - "We can confirm that the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) operations centre in Mazar-e-Sharif, in northern Afghanistan has been attacked today following a demonstration. We can also confirm that there have been United Nations personnel deaths. The situation is…
Secretary-General statement concerning the attack against the UNAMA compound in Mazar-e-Sharif
1 April 2011 - I condemn in the strongest terms the outrageous and cowardly attack against the United Nations office in Mazar-e-Sharif in Afghanistan. Our reports are still preliminary, but it appears that three United Nations international staff as well as four international security officers were…
Statement by UN Security Council President Nestor Osorio (Colombia)
1 April 2011 - The members of the Security Council condemned in the strongest terms the violent attack against the United Nations operations centre in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan, on 1 April 2011, which resulted in the death and injury of United Nations staff. The members of the…
UN strongly condemns deadly attack against staff in Afghanistan
2 April 2011 - The Security Council and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon have strongly condemned today’s attack in Afghanistan in which a large crowd of demonstrators angry at the burning of a copy of the Koran by a United States group stormed a United Nations compound and killed a number of people…
Readout of Secretary-General's telephone conversation with President Karzai
2 April 2011, Nairobi - The Secretary-General spoke by telephone today with H.E. Mr. Hamid Karzai, the President of Afghanistan. The Secretary-General told President Karzai he was saddened and shocked by the attack on the UN offices in Mazar-e-Sharif, in which three UN staff and four UN security…