General Assembly: Press Release

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is the first international human rights treaty of the twenty-first century. On 10 May, Colombia became the 100th country to ratify this Convention. In doing so, it joins the ranks of those countries that now support greater access, backed by their legal systems, for citizens with disabilities to fully participate in the lives of their communities, including the political process and health and education services.

Talks on a new 10-year programme for the world’s poorest nations are under way as Heads of State and Government, lawmakers, civil society organizations, the private sector and chiefs of international agencies gather in Istanbul, Turkey, early this month.

The thirty-third annual session of the Committee on Information, the intergovernmental body charged with reviewing progress in the field of United Nations public information, will be held at Headquarters from 27 April to 6 May. During the two-week session, delegations are expected to undertake a wide-ranging review of the Department of Public Information and its three subprogrammes — the News and Media, Outreach and Strategic Communications Divisions.

The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People will convene the United Nations Seminar on Assistance to the Palestinian People at the Scandic Marina Congress Center in Helsinki on 28 and 29 April 2011.

The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People will convene the United Nations Latin American and Caribbean Meeting in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace on 29 and 30 March in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Under-Secretary-General Sha Zukang called today for collective action to address rising social tensions, ecological pressures and economic crisis, as representatives from around the world gather to prepare for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, scheduled to take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June 2012, with a preparatory meeting in New York on 7-8 March.

The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People will convene the United Nations International Meeting on the Question of Palestine. The Meeting will be held at the United Nations Office at Vienna on 7 and 8 March.

The Bureau of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People adopted on 14 January the following statement on Israel’s illegal settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem:

Amid mounting concern that the United Nations was losing ground to smaller and more agile groupings, the General Assembly — during the main part of its sixty-fifth session — was repeatedly urged to redeploy its heavy political capital and near-universal membership to regain its pre-eminence, and breathe new life into the very principles that had called the Organization into being: peace and security, friendship among nations and international cooperation.

The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People will hold a special meeting in observance of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People in Conference Room 2 of the North Lawn Building at 10 a.m. on Monday, 29 November, in accordance with General Assembly resolution 32/40 B of 2 December 1977.