16 February 2012 – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today called for concerted efforts to help Afghanistan extricate itself from the scourge of drug production, use and trafficking, noting that the country’s stability remains at stake with an estimated 15 per cent of its income accruing from trade in illicit drugs.
A United Nations human rights official yesterday called on Latin American countries to tackle the problem of prison overcrowding in the wake of an overnight fire at a jail in Honduras that killed hundreds of inmates.
The deadly violence in Syria threatens to permanently divide the country along sectarian and ethnic lines, a senior United Nations official warns, urging community and religious leaders and civil society groups to lead the way in reducing communal tensions.
From an International Security Assistance Force Joint Command News Release