Message of the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, 26 June 2010

VIENNA, 26 June (UN Information Service) - As we prepare for this September's United Nations Summit on the Millennium Development Goals, we must recognize the major impediment to development posed by drug abuse and illicit trafficking. As this year's theme stresses, it is time to "Think Health, Not Drugs".

Drug abuse poses significant health challenges. Injecting drug use is a leading cause of the spread of HIV. In some parts of the world, heroin use and HIV have reached epidemic proportions. Drug control - including prevention and measures to reduce the harmful effects of drug use - is therefore an important part of the battle to combat HIV/AIDS.

VIENNA, 23 June (UN Information Service) - The economic crisis took a heavy toll on jobs and incomes around the world, but its impact does not threaten achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) target of cutting the rate of extreme poverty in half by 2015, the United Nations reports today in its annual MDG accounting. The report highlights a number of successes, while also assessing the human impact of lack of adequate progress on many of the Goals.

The Millennium Development Goals Report 2010, launched today by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, helps to set the stage for a September summit at the UN. It comes out only days before accountability for aid commitments is discussed by the Group of 8 at their meeting hosted by Canada.

VIENNA, 23 June (UN Information Service) - Updated data on mortality rates among mothers and young children are likely to encourage G8 leaders, who at their meeting later this week will make this health issue -- long considered a neglected area of international development efforts -- a 2010 priority.

According to the United Nations annual assessment of progress on the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), released today, the number of deaths among children under the age of 5 has dropped from 12.6 million in 1990 to an estimated 8.8 million in 2008, corresponding to a decline in the mortality rate from 100 deaths per 1,000 live births to 72 in 2008 (a 28 per cent decline). But progress is falling short of the MDG target under Goal 4, for a two-thirds reduction in childhood mortality rates between 1990 and 2015, and millions of children continue to die each year at a tragically young age.

17 June 2010 – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today he hopes Israel’s announcement that it will ease the blockade on the Gaza Strip to allow more civilian goods to enter the territory will lead to an improvement in the lives of the 1.5 million Palestinians living there.

“The Secretary-General is encouraged that the Israeli Government is reviewing its policy towards Gaza, and he hopes that today’s decision by the Israeli security cabinet is a real step towards meeting needs in Gaza,” his spokesperson said in a statement.

Message on World Refugee Day, 20 June 2010

Vienna, 20 June (UN Information Service) - On this observance of World Refugee Day, we must note a troubling trend: the decline in the number of refugees who are able to go home.

In 2005, more than a million people returned to their own country on a voluntary basis. Last year, only 250,000 did so - the lowest number in two decades. The reasons for this include prolonged instability in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and southern Sudan.

The theme of this year's observance -- "Home" -- highlights the plight of the world's 15 million refugees, more than three-quarters of them in the developing world, who have been uprooted from their homes by conflict or persecution.