General Assembly

Noting the importance of positive measures being pursued in New Caledonia by the French authorities to promote political, economic and social development, the Special Committee on Decolonization today invited all parties to continue advocating a framework for an act of self-determination in which all options were open and which would safeguard the rights of all sectors of the Territory’s population, in line with the 1998 Nouméa Accord.

BRUSSELS, 23 June (Division for Palestinian Rights) — The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People will convene the United Nations International Meeting in Support of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process, on 28 and 29 June 2011 in Brussels, Belgium. The theme of the Meeting is “The role of Europe in advancing Palestinian statehood and achieving peace between Israelis and Palestinians”.

In a busy day that kept issues of territorial disputes at the forefront, the Special Committee on Decolonization today adopted a consensus resolution reiterating that the way to end the “special and particular” colonial situation in the Falkland Islands (Malvinas) was through the peaceful, negotiated settlement of the sovereignty dispute between Argentina and the United Kingdom.

The Palestinian Rights Committee this morning approved the agenda of its upcoming Brussels meeting on advancing the Middle East peace process, as it also heard reports on previous international meetings, as well as on unemployment and access restrictions in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Bearing in mind that 25 July marked the 113th anniversary of the intervention in Puerto Rico by the United States, the Special Committee on Decolonization today adopted a consensus text calling on the United States to expedite a process that would allow Puerto Ricans to fully exercise their inalienable right to self-determination and independence, in line with General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV) (1960).

Resuming its 2011 session this morning, the Special Committee on Decolonization approved requests for hearings from several Non-Self-Governing Territories in the coming days and approved without a vote three draft resolutions concerning the transmission and dissemination of information on decolonization.

Paul De Lay, Deputy Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) hailed the world body’s expected adoption later today of a comprehensive strategy charting the global response to the deadly virus, including a commitment to halving sexual transmission of HIV by 2015, and a broader pledge to work towards increasing funding to tackle HIV/AIDS to between $22 billion and $24 billion per year by that time.

World leaders attending this week’s General Assembly High-level Meeting on HIV/AIDS must make bold commitments to reach the shared goal of zero new infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths, as the lives of all those living with or affected by the disease weighed in the balance, Assembly President Joseph Deiss (Switzerland) said at a Headquarters press conference today.

SAINT VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES, 2 June — The Caribbean regional seminar on decolonization had been a “lively” forum for sharing a range of views on the situations in the 16 Non-Self Governing Territories around the world, and the Special Committee on Decolonization must now undertake a self-analysis to better imagine its role in carrying out its work in the Third International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism (2011-2020), the Chair of the Special Committee said today.

SAINT VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES, 1 June — In their second day of discussion, participants in the Caribbean regional seminar on decolonization today pressed the Special Committee on Decolonization charged with monitoring implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples to take a more active role in unlocking long-standing political stalemates that had bedevilled progress around the world