One year ago, his Holiness, Pope Innocent ill preached a Crusade against what he called "the cancer of heresy" spreading unchecked through our land.

It is a pity for the Conference to be haggling over its programme of work while turning a deaf ear to the issue of fissile materials, which continue to pile up and can spread unchecked.

Over the past two decades, the scourge of HIV/AIDS has been spreading unchecked around the world, resulting in more than 40 million infections and more than 21 million deaths.

If unchecked, spreading desertification will threaten future improvements in human well-being and possibly reverse gains in some regions.

The emergence of many armed conflicts, both new and latent, and the re-emergence of some that had been thought to be resolved, are to a great extent fuelled, among other factors, by a growing inequality between nations and by extreme poverty, which is spreading unchecked in almost all regions of the world.

Nonetheless, the unchecked spread and illicit trade in conventional arms and ammunition are helping to sustain conflicts that are destabilizing many States and entire regions.

Mr. Chua (Malaysia): In Malaysia, we are very conscious of the devastation that the unchecked spread of HIV can cause to our people.

The unchecked spread of the HIV/AIDS pandemic therefore poses a threat to the goal of the reduction of global poverty by half by the year 2015.

It should take appropriate action to halt the deterioration of the environment, the diminishing of resources and the unchecked spread of terrible diseases in the developing countries.

The situation in the occupied Palestinian territories will undoubtedly lead to a humanitarian disaster resulting from the economic siege, the unchecked spread of disease and the virtual collapse of public health and security forces.