Meetings Coverage

Approaching the end of its four-week second resumed session, the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today took up the proposed budget for the United Nations Office to the African Union, estimated to require $10.6 million, with speakers expressing regret at its late submission by the Secretary-General, leaving barely a day to consider possible gaps, as described by the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions.

Recommending special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council for two groups today, the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations also postponed consideration of 62 other applications pending receipt of additional information.

Amid high stakes and intense negotiations to bring the 2010 Review Conference for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to a successful conclusion, delegations of States parties to the landmark 1968 accord began pouring over the details of a draft final document distributed early this evening, with a view to adopting it by consensus on 28 May, the last day of the Conference.

Government officials and environmental experts alike weighed in on the effectiveness of the 1995 Fish Stocks Agreement and put forward diverse — sometimes divergent — ideas for improving its implementation, as the Conference to review the landmark global instrument continued into its third day.

Intercultural dialogue was crucial in preventing and ending conflicts, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the Security Council today as he opened a meeting on that subject, with Prime Minister Saad Hariri of Lebanon presiding.

A United Nations meeting in support of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process stressed the importance of the two-year State-building plan put forward by Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, aimed at developing institutions and strengthening the foundation for the future State of Palestine, and considered that the entire international community should be ready to recognize the new State once statehood had been declared by the Palestinian Authority at the appropriate time.

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today took up proposals to give the Secretary-General authority to commit $380.4 million in the next six months to the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) and $246.6 million in the next six months to the United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad (MINURCAT), whose most recent budgets reached $732.4 million and $690.8 million respectively.

Opening its 2010 resumed session today, the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations recommended consultative status with the Economic and Social Council for nine non-governmental organizations and postponed consideration of more than two dozen others pending receipt of more information.

Amid reports that three quarters of the world’s fish stocks were in distress and nearing depletion while marine ecosystems continued to deteriorate, the Conference tasked with reviewing implementation of the landmark 1995 United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement today focused on boosting compliance with regional fisheries management organizations, assessing flag State performance, controlling illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and adopting port State measures.

The Security Council decided today to extend the mandate of the United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad (MINURCAT) until 31 December 2010, and called upon the Secretary-General to complete the withdrawal of all components of the Mission by that date.