General Assembly

The Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations today agreed to reconvene in about a month to conclude its 2013 session, based on the recommendation of the body’s Chairperson, who sought more time for delegations to thoroughly consider fresh proposals aimed at breaking a weeks-long deadlock.

Member States have completed a first round of discussions aimed at articulating a set of new set of sustainable development goals that will shape the United Nations development agenda. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon opened a two-day inaugural meeting of the new General Assembly working group tasked with proposing new universal sustainable development goals that should build on the success of the Millennium Development Goals while inspiring and galvanizing action.

Presenting the first ever documentary on Yasser Arafat at the United Nations today, the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People paid homage to the late leader, whom members said fought unceasingly for the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.

With a multi-billion-dollar trade in conventional weapons still threatening the lives of millions of civilians around the world, the time had come for States to overcome past setbacks and deliver on a robust, legally binding arms trade treaty, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told a packed room at Headquarters as the Final United Nations Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty kicked off this morning.

The Chair of the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations today urged delegations to identify solutions and “a way forward to conclude our work”, as she adjourned the meeting until “not later than 28 March of this year”.

ROME, 28 February — A robust, financially stable Palestinian Authority was vital to ensuring enhanced international engagement, a viable Palestinian economy and sustainable human development in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, speakers said this afternoon as the United Nations Seminar on Assistance to the Palestinian People wrapped up its work.

ROME, 28 February — As the United Nations Seminar on Assistance to the Palestinian People continued today, experts highlighted the complex challenges of developing a self-sustaining economy under occupation and outlined programmes aimed at rebuilding the severely eroded Palestinian agriculture sector, ensuring high governance standards and generating donor support for reconstruction of Gaza.

ROME, 27 February — With cash-starved Palestinian institutions standing on “political quicksand”, and mounting tensions in the West Bank over settlement construction and the recent death of a Palestinian prisoner in Israeli custody, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged the parties to refrain from actions that could undermine the prospects of reopening long-stalled peace negotiations.

ROME, 27 February — The situations that triggered humanitarian strife in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip — severe restrictions on movement and constraints on livelihoods — were man-made: the consequence of Israel’s occupation, experts said today as the United Nations Seminar on Assistance to the Palestinian People held its first plenary session.

Opening the 2013 substantive session of the Special Committee on Decolonization, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today called on that body to devise “fresh and creative” approaches in mobilizing the political will needed to eradicate colonialism, saying it had no place in the modern world.