General Assembly

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.

ADDIS ABABA, 30 April — As the United Nations International Meeting on the Question of Palestine wrapped up its session today,experts urged African Governments to share their negotiating and institution-building tactics, create a continent-wide solidarity movement, and launch a regional peace initiative to help Palestinians remove barriers to statehood.

ADDIS ABABA, 29 April — Welcoming the recent visit by the United States President to the West Bank and Israel and the subsequent resumption of $500 million in United States aid to the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon this morning said that now was the time for concerted action to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

The United Nations’ Department of Public Information must perform a balancing act in expanding multilingual coverage of issues within the existing financial and human resources and finding the right mix of traditional and new media to tackle emerging communication challenges, delegates told the Committee on Information today as it concluded its general debate.

The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People will convene the United Nations International Meeting on the Question of Palestine in Addis Ababa at the United Nations Conference Centre, on 29 and 30 April. The theme of the Meeting is “African solidarity with the Palestinian people for the achievement of its inalienable rights, including the sovereignty and independence of the State of Palestine”.

The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People met in Caracas, Venezuela, on 17-18 April, and issued the following Declaration:

Through new media, multilingual information platforms, and stronger partnerships with Member States, the Department of Public Information was conveying the United Nations’ message to global audiences in a more cost-effective and coordinated way, its senior communications official told the Committee on Information as it opened its annual session this morning.

The thirty-fifth annual session of the Committee on Information, the intergovernmental body charged with reviewing progress in the field of United Nations public information, will take place at Headquarters from 22 April to 2 May.

A frank and open exchange of views during the Disarmament Commission’s three-week session had helped to rebuild trust between delegations and set the stage to bridge longstanding differences of position and bring much-needed legitimacy to the United Nations disarmament machinery, speakers said today, as the body’s 2013 session drew to a close.

The Bureau of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People issued the following statement today, 16 April: