The inaugural United Nations Ocean Conference opened today with a call for urgent action to improve the health of the world’s seas, now in peril after decades of pollution, overfishing and the unattended effects of climate change that were decimating marine life, and in turn, livelihoods.
The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today approved, without a vote, a draft decision on the programme budget implications of a General Assembly draft resolution aimed at strengthening the United Nations system’s ability to help Member States implement the Organization’s Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy.
In a single round of voting today, the General Assembly elected Côte d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Kuwait, Peru and Poland as non-permanent members of the Security Council for the next two years.
The General Assembly recognized today the right of return of all internally displaced persons and refugees in Georgia and their descendants, regardless of ethnicity, to their homes throughout that country, including Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali region/South Ossetia.
Despite global gains in the fight against the HIV and AIDS epidemic, some 1,800 young people a day were being newly infected with the virus and prevention rates among adults around the world had stalled, the General Assembly’s President said today.
The General Assembly today elected Miroslav Lajčák, Slovakia’s Minister for Foreign and European Affairs, as President of its seventy-second session, while also selecting members to the Bureaux of its six Main Committees.
Delegates today expressed support for a budget proposal to establish a new counter-terrorism office, as the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) took up reports on the Organization’s Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy and on peacekeeping missions in Abyei and Lebanon.
Taking up three texts on the role of professional translation, and cooperation between the United Nations and the International Organization of la Francophonie, the General Assembly adopted two draft resolutions and a draft decision today.
KINGSTOWN, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, 18 May — The Caribbean Regional Seminar on Decolonization had produced innovative ideas on a broad range of issues with a view to advancing progress towards self-determination for the remaining Non-Self-Governing Territories, participants said today at the conclusion of the event’s third and final day.
KINGSTOWN, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, 17 May — The United Nations must break its long impasse and tailor effective approaches to self-determination that would lead swiftly to a future based on the aspirations of people living under colonial rule, delegates said today, as the Caribbean Regional Seminar on Decolonization entered its second day.
