Realizing the shared vision of “leaving no one behind” of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the African Union’s Agenda 2063 is contingent on the international community’s ability to mobilize resources, transfer technology, and forgive debt, delegates told the General Assembly today.
The Economic and Social Council today elected, by acclamation, Valentin Rybakov (Belarus) from the Eastern European States as Vice‑President for the 2019 session, completing its Bureau.
Despite insecurity and violent extremism spreading across Mali’s borders, the United Nations peacekeeping chief cited reasons for hope, including Mali’s successful presidential elections, the signing of the new Pact for Peace and a drop in peacekeeper deaths, as he briefed the Security Council today.
Gravely concerned over escalation of violence on the Gaza border and settlement activity in the West Bank, the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process told the Security Council today that the international community could no longer allow prospects for a two‑State solution to slip away.
Reform efforts currently under way are designed to help the Department of Public Information become more agile in operation and have a greater impact on communications, both within the United Nations and in relation to external stakeholders and the public, the Organization’s head of public information told the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) as it began its consideration of questions relating to information today.
Exchanging views on ways to break a languishing disarmament impasse, including by assuring all non‑nuclear‑weapon States against the use or threat of atomic bombs, delegates of the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) today began a thematic discussion on nuclear weapons.
Millions of people risk being left behind due to the impact of rapid technological change, the General Assembly heard today as speakers called for increased cooperation to harness the positive and transformative power of technology to improve the livelihood of people around the world.
The recent “shocking” case of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi is only one of thousands of enforced disappearances and the international community must stand firm in denouncing such crimes, the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) heard today as it continued its debate on human rights.
Speakers in the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today welcomed a 5.2 per cent reduction in the projected cost of replacing semi‑permanent office blocks at the United Nations Office at Nairobi that date back to the 1970s, but expressed concern that a seismic mitigation retrofit and life‑cycle replacements project at the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) premises in Bangkok is running the risk of going over budget.
Protection of diplomatic and consular representatives — as well as the security and inviolability of diplomatic and consular missions, their archives, documents and communications — is one of the pillars upon which international relations rests, speakers stressed while voicing concern at rising attacks on missions and personnel around the world, as the Sixth Committee (Legal) took up the matter today.
