General Assembly

HELSINKI, 28 April — The United Nations Seminar on Assistance to the Palestinian People this afternoon focused its discussions on the progress towards obstacles that might undermine the Palestinian Authority’s two-year plan to build an independent State, with speakers warning that the Authority’s efforts were held back by the physical and political restrictions imposed by Israeli occupation.

Stressing the important role of the global network of United Nations information centres in carrying out regional strategic communications campaigns, the Organization’s top communications official this afternoon called for the requisite resources to strengthen those centres and the Department of Public Information as a whole.

HELSINKI, 28 April — With the Palestinian Authority making steady progress towards completing its State-building programme by August, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today called for “serious and effective” international assistance to the Palestinian people, a speedy re-launch of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, and an end to internal Palestinian divisions, all of which would be vital in the months ahead.

To best support United Nations initiatives in peace, development and human rights at a time of financial austerity, information services were developing a “new agility” through broad collaborations and the use of a variety of media, the Organization’s top communications official told the Committee on Information as it opened its annual session this morning.

The thirty-third annual session of the Committee on Information, the intergovernmental body charged with reviewing progress in the field of United Nations public information, will be held at Headquarters from 27 April to 6 May. During the two-week session, delegations are expected to undertake a wide-ranging review of the Department of Public Information and its three subprogrammes — the News and Media, Outreach and Strategic Communications Divisions.

The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People will convene the United Nations Seminar on Assistance to the Palestinian People at the Scandic Marina Congress Center in Helsinki on 28 and 29 April 2011.

The Disarmament Commission had failed to capitalize on the momentum created by a host of achievements in the disarmament field of during 2010, Hamid al-Bayati (Iraq), its Chairman, said today as the body concluded its twelfth consecutive fruitless substantive session.

Palestinians were ready, willing and would prefer to reach a peace treaty with Israel by September — the deadline set by United States President Barack Obama and endorsed by the European Union to end protracted negotiations — paving the way for Palestinian independence and United Nations membership, Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer of Palestine, said today in the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.

The United Nations Disarmament Commission elected Liseth Ancidey of Venezuela this morning as Chair of its Working Group 3. The election followed consultations within the Group of Latin American and Caribbean States.

Updating the press on the latest developments regarding the work of the sixty-fifth General Assembly, Joseph Deiss, the 192-member body’s President, today highlighted a host of upcoming topical debates and took questions on the push for Palestinian statehood, as well as on the status of the negotiations to reform and expand the Security Council.