Meetings Coverage

The Doctrine of Discovery had been used for centuries to expropriate indigenous lands and facilitate their transfer to colonizing or dominating nations, speakers in the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues stressed today, urging the expert body to study the creation of a special mechanism, under United Nations auspices, to investigate historical land claims.

Following the 12 April military coup in Guinea-Bissau, it was critical for all international partners of the troubled West African country to agree on a joint international response to facilitate a peaceful restoration of constitutional order there, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative told the Security Council this morning.

Indigenous peoples must be involved “every step of the way”, and only with their free, prior and informed consent, in all efforts to define priorities and programmes for their sustainable and culturally appropriate development, Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro said this morning, opening the eleventh session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

Delegates offered a range of views on how to better manage the United Nations budget for both active and closed peacekeeping missions, as the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) opened the second part of its resumed sixty-sixth session this morning and adopted its programme of work.

Reiterating its strong and unequivocal condemnation of terrorism, the Security Council today acknowledged the “changing nature and character” of that scourge and emphasized the need to enhance global coordination to prevent attacks, disrupt criminal networks, and cut off avenues of financing for increasingly determined and sophisticated terrorist groups and individuals.

Concluding its annual two-week session, the Committee on Information today reaffirmed the 1946 resolution establishing the Department of Public Information to promote an informed understanding of the work and purposes of the United Nations among the peoples of the world and, towards that goal, called on the Department to expand multilingualism, partnerships, efficiency, communications infrastructure and the use of new technology, especially in developing countries.

Expressing outrage over the continued killing and detention of journalists worldwide, top United Nations officials called on Governments this morning during an observance of World Press Freedom Day to better protect practitioners of traditional and new media alike, and to end impunity against attackers.

Condemning the repeated incidents of cross-border violence between Sudan and South Sudan, including seizure of territory, support to proxy forces and aerial bombing, the Security Council this morning decided that Sudan and South Sudan must immediately cease all hostilities, withdraw forces, activate previously-agreed security mechanisms, and resume negotiations under threat of sanctions.

In the wake of the Israeli Government’s announcement to grant legal status to three settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank, the Security Council must resolve to condemn Israel’s illegal settlement activity, Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer of Palestine to the United Nations, told the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People this afternoon.

The Meeting of States Parties to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights today elected Yadh Ben Achour (Tunisia) to the Human Rights Committee, replacing one member who had passed away before completing his four-year term of office.