United Nations

Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Briefs Council

While the long-stalled Middle East peace process was beginning to stir, with both Israel and Arab States showing interest in holding talks, the top United Nations political official told the Security Council today that forward momentum could be threatened in the wake of the sharp escalation of Israeli-Palestinian violence in the West Bank and Gaza.    » read more »

Calling the recent violence in Mogadishu “some of the worst that’s been seen in that city for the last 16 years”, John Holmes, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, said the country’s Transitional Federal Government must give humanitarian aid workers access to the capital, so they could distribute desperately needed food and water to the estimated 320,000 people forced to flee the fighting -- about one-third of the country’s population.    » read more »