General Assembly: Press Release

John W. Ashe (Antigua and Barbuda) was elected President of the sixty-eighth session of the General Assembly on 14 June 2013, while serving as Permanent Representative to both the United Nations and the World Trade Organization since 2004.

With the goal of injecting new energy into the global effort to implement sustainable development, world leaders will gather at the United Nations today for the inaugural session of the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development.

World leaders will gather at the High-level Meeting of the General Assembly on Disability and Development on 23 September to consider and adopt a resolution that calls for disability-inclusive development that affords persons with disabilities opportunities for full and productive employment and decent work, as well as access to basic social services.

The United Nations General Assembly will consider the impact of increasing ocean acidification on the marine environment and on people as the theme of this year’s informal consultative process on oceans, to be held from 17 to 20 June.

The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People will convene the United Nations International Meeting in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace in Beijing, China, at the Sofitel Wanda Hotel, on 18 and 19 June. The theme of the Meeting is “Reviving the collective international engagement towards a two-State solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”.

QUITO, 30 May ‑ At the conclusion of its three-day review of development and trends associated with the decolonization process today, participants in the 2013 Caribbean Regional Seminar exchanged views on the event’s impact and considered the way forward in promoting the goals of the Third International Decade.

QUITO, 29 May ‑ On its second day, the Caribbean Regional Seminar on the Implementation of the Third International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism discussed developments and trends in the decolonization process of Non-Self-Governing Territories.

QUITO, 28 May ‑ In a message to the Caribbean Regional Seminar on the Implementation of the Third International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon encouraged participants to review recent developments as well as trends that are likely to influence developments in the upcoming period.

The Special Committee on Decolonization will hold its Caribbean Regional Seminar in Quito, Ecuador, from 28 to 30 May.

Following up on a key issue that emerged at the “Rio+20” Conference last June — how developing countries can obtain clean, environmentally sound technologies to advance sustainable development — the United Nations General Assembly is convening a series of discussions aimed at identifying options that could be employed to establish a mechanism that facilitates the flow of technologies around the world.