António Guterres

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan has joined the UN Secretary General’s “Circle of Leadership” on prevention and response to sexual exploitation and abuse in the UN peace operations. According to a UN press release, Imran Khan is the 70th among incumbent or former heads of state and government to join this Circle. The Circle of Leadership represents a symbol of Members’ commitment to strengthen measures to prevent sexual exploitation and abuse, to respond rapidly and decisively to credible reports of such acts, and…

Government forces shelled Syria's last major rebel bastion, hours after UN chief Antonio Guterres warned the Security Council any full-blown offensive in Idlib risks triggering a "bloodbath".

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has said the “deliberate and unprovoked” ceasefire violations by India along the Line of Control and the Working Boundary could escalate dangerously, if not put to an end. He was talking to the United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres who called on him on the sidelines of BOAO Forum for Asia. The prime minister said the violations by India were moving towards a dangerous escalation resulting in martyrdom of innocent civilians, a press release issued here from the…

BOAO: Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Tuesday urged United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres to use his good office to highlight unprecedented Indian atrocities in Indian held Kashmir.  . During a meeting on the sidelines of BOAO Forum for Asia in China, the prime minister expressed deep concern over the deteriorating situation in Indian Occupied Kashmir (IoK) and the mindless killing of innocent Kashmiris by the Indian occupation forces, according to a statement issued by PM House. He conveyed grave…

NEW YORK: UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has expressed concern over the killing of around 20 people in clashes with Indian forces in occupied Kashmir.  Speaking to reporters at the regular noon briefing at UN Headquarters in New York, the secretary-general spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said: “Civilians have to be protected wherever they are, whether it is in Gaza, whether it is in Jammu and Kashmir, whether it is in Yemen. It is a basic principle.” “Any loss of civilians needs to be investigated wherever they…

GENEVA: UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called on Monday for a new global effort to get rid of nuclear weapons, drawing a cautious response from envoys of atomic-armed powers at odds for decades over nuclear disarmament. Speaking to the Conference on Disarmament at the U.N. complex in Geneva, Guterres said many states still wrongly thought that nuclear weapons made the world safer. “There is great and justified anxiety around the world about the threat of nuclear war,” he said. “Countries persist in clinging…

GENEVA: United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on Monday for warring sides to implement a 30-day ceasefire across Syria, in line with an appeal by major powers at the weekend. U.N. aid agencies are ready to deliver life-saving aid and evacuate critically wounded from the rebel-held Damascus enclave of eastern Ghouta, where 400,000 people have been living under siege, Guterres said. “Eastern Ghouta cannot wait, it is high time to stop this hell on earth,” Guterres told the U.N. Human Rights Council,…

MUNICH: World leaders must lay the groundwork on how countries respond to cyberattacks that have proven to be a daunting threat, whether by state actors or criminal enterprises, UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said on Friday. "It is clear we are witnessing in a more or less disguised way cyberwars between states, episodes of cyberwar between states," Guterres said during one of the opening speeches at the Munich Security Conference. "It's high time to have a serious discussion about the international legal…

TOKYO: United Nations chief Antonio Guterres Thursday warned the world against "sleepwalking into war" over North Korea, as he called for diplomatic efforts to banish nuclear weapons from the Korean peninsula. Speaking on a visit to Japan, Secretary-General Guterres said: "The worst possible thing that could happen would be for us all to sleepwalk into a war that might have very dramatic circumstances." The UN Security Council has imposed three rounds of sanctions over the past year against North Korea over its…

MANILA: Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi faced rising global pressure Tuesday to solve the crisis for her nation's displaced Rohingya Muslim minority, meeting the UN chief and America's top diplomat in the Philippines. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres told the Nobel laureate that hundreds of thousands of displaced Muslims who had fled to Bangladesh should be allowed to return to their homes in Myanmar. "The Secretary-General highlighted that strengthened efforts to ensure humanitarian access, safe, dignified, voluntary…