General Assembly: Meetings Coverage

Human trafficking was a “vicious chain that binds victims to criminals”, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today during the General Assembly’s high-level meeting on the United Nations Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons.

The United Nations financial situation “was healthy” at the end of 2012 thanks to the efforts of many Member States and continued to depend on those States meeting their monetary obligations “in full and on time”, the Organization’s top management official told the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) this morning.

Acting on the recommendation of its Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary), the General Assembly this morning decided to adjust for the first time in a decade reimbursement rates to countries contributing troops to United Nations peacekeeping operations as part of a broad package to create a credible, predictable and equitable reimbursement system.

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today was briefed by the United Nations Controller on the preparation of the 2014/2015 programme budget that would reflect a $100 million reduction to the $5.49 billion previously outlined by the Secretary-General.

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) this morning took action on a contentious text concerning reimbursement rates to troop-contributing countries that had delayed conclusion of the earlier part of its resumed session, and began the second part of its session, which is aimed at approving a peacekeeping budget for the year 2013/14.

Concluding its two-week annual session this afternoon, the Committee on Information emphasized that public information and communications should be at the heart of the United Nations’ strategic management, with a “culture of communications and transparency” permeating all levels so the Organization could best promote an informed understanding of its work among people around the world.

The increasing violence across the world against traditional and new media journalists alike undermined the very foundation of democratic societies, good governance, freedom of expression, and the right to receive and impart information and ideas, as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, said top United Nations officials and journalists today during an observance of the twentieth anniversary of World Press Freedom Day.

Meeting in a brief plenary session this morning, the General Assembly adopted, as amended, a consensus resolution on the modalities, format and organization of its upcoming high-level meeting on the appraisal of the United Nations Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons, deciding that it would take place on 13 and 14 May.

ADDIS ABABA, 30 April — As the United Nations International Meeting on the Question of Palestine wrapped up its session today,experts urged African Governments to share their negotiating and institution-building tactics, create a continent-wide solidarity movement, and launch a regional peace initiative to help Palestinians remove barriers to statehood.

ADDIS ABABA, 29 April — Welcoming the recent visit by the United States President to the West Bank and Israel and the subsequent resumption of $500 million in United States aid to the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon this morning said that now was the time for concerted action to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.