Meetings Coverage

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) this morning began its second resumed session -- a four-week session largely dedicated to the funding of peacekeeping-related activities – with speakers urging the Secretariat to avoid a piecemeal approach to strengthening safety and security arrangements in the field, just as the Secretary-General is preparing to present a comprehensive report on security policies at the United Nations this year.

“Let us be united in our efforts to negotiate a powerful outcome document,” General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann said this morning as he appealed for Member States’ support and involvement in the few short weeks before the 1-3 June Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development.

The Security Council today condemned the renewed military incursions in eastern Chad of Chadian armed groups, coming from outside, and demanded that rebel armed groups cease the violence immediately.

At the end of the first week of its annual two-week session, the Commission on Sustainable Development was warned by its Chairperson that it must go further to overcome differences or it would risk falling short of its goal of fashioning critical global policies to address agriculture, drought, desertification, land use, rural development and sustainable development in Africa.

Cautioning against increasing attempts to suppress Internet access, stifle Web-based journalism and censor news reporters, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today urged Governments to uphold freedom of opinion and expression for all journalists, bloggers and media professionals, “as a matter of principle, and because a free press is essential for building a better world”.

Parliamentarians’ contribution to Israeli-Palestinian peace could only be a quiet, modest, unpretentious, bottom-up approach based on informed, impartial, balanced and genuine engagement between parliamentarians of the world and Israeli-Palestinian parliamentarians, out of whose ranks emerged the national leaders and main actors responsible for the actual task of peace-finding and making, the Cyprus Meeting heard today.

The Committee on Information concluded the general debate of its thirty-first annual session today, with Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information Kiyo Akasaka pledging to “build on our achievements” and improve impact and performance.

Legislators from Egypt, Israel, Cyprus, United States, United Kingdom and the Palestinian Legislative Council today considered prospects for re-starting the peace process in the wake of the military assault on Gaza, and their role in the new political landscape, as the United Nations International Meeting in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace continued.

One year ago, exactly, Lebanon had been taken “to the brink of civil war and back”, Terje Roed-Larsen told the Security Council today, but, since then, thanks to an agreement between Lebanese political leaders brokered by the Emir of Qatar, the country’s domestic, political and security situation “has improved markedly”.

The International Meeting in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace concluded this evening with a firm endorsement of the special role of national parliaments and inter-parliamentary organizations in advancing the faltering peace process.