SG on DRC: Today SG Ban Ki-moon renewed his call for the Great Lakes regional grouping to help resolve the security crisis in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo during the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region, held this week in Kampala, Uganda.
Syria Short Medications: The UN World Health Organization (WHO) stated today that Syria is experiencing critical shortages in medicines and pharmaceutical products, according to reports it has received. WHO reports that, among the most urgently needed medicines, are drugs to treat tuberculosis, hepatitis, hypertension, diabetes and cancer, as well as haemodialysis for kidney diseases.
UNICEF: A new report by UNICEF today warns that a high prevalence of physical abuse is causing long-term damage to the lives of far too many children in East Asia and the Pacific. The report, Child Maltreatment: Prevalence, Incidence and Consequences in East Asia and Pacific, analyzes a series of studies undertaken by experts and academics over the past decade on child maltreatment in the region.
Somalia Action Plan: The Transitional Federal Government of Somalia and the UN signed an action plan on Monday, committing the national army and allied groups under its control to end the killing and maiming of children in armed conflict. The action plan came in response to the SC’s call in Resolution 1882 from 2009 for concrete and time bound action plans to halt and prevent the killing and maiming of children by parties listed in the SG’s Annual Report on Children and Armed Conflict.