General Assembly

The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People will convene the United Nations International Meeting in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace in Beijing, China, at the Sofitel Wanda Hotel, on 18 and 19 June. The theme of the Meeting is “Reviving the collective international engagement towards a two-State solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”.

States parties to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination elected nine members to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination today, replacing colleagues whose four-year terms are set to expire on 19 January 2014.

QUITO, 30 May ‑ At the conclusion of its three-day review of development and trends associated with the decolonization process today, participants in the 2013 Caribbean Regional Seminar exchanged views on the event’s impact and considered the way forward in promoting the goals of the Third International Decade.

QUITO, 29 May ‑ On its second day, the Caribbean Regional Seminar on the Implementation of the Third International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism discussed developments and trends in the decolonization process of Non-Self-Governing Territories.

QUITO, 28 May ‑ In a message to the Caribbean Regional Seminar on the Implementation of the Third International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon encouraged participants to review recent developments as well as trends that are likely to influence developments in the upcoming period.

Palestinians were “exerting every possible effort” to ensure the success of current efforts to re-start peace negotiations with Israel, their lead negotiator told the Palestinian Rights Committee today.

The Special Committee on Decolonization will hold its Caribbean Regional Seminar in Quito, Ecuador, from 28 to 30 May.

The increasing violence across the world against traditional and new media journalists alike undermined the very foundation of democratic societies, good governance, freedom of expression, and the right to receive and impart information and ideas, as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, said top United Nations officials and journalists today during an observance of the twentieth anniversary of World Press Freedom Day.

Concluding its two-week annual session this afternoon, the Committee on Information emphasized that public information and communications should be at the heart of the United Nations’ strategic management, with a “culture of communications and transparency” permeating all levels so the Organization could best promote an informed understanding of its work among people around the world.

Following up on a key issue that emerged at the “Rio+20” Conference last June — how developing countries can obtain clean, environmentally sound technologies to advance sustainable development — the United Nations General Assembly is convening a series of discussions aimed at identifying options that could be employed to establish a mechanism that facilitates the flow of technologies around the world.