Meetings Coverage

RIO DE JANEIRO, 20 June — With the planet increasingly under stress from climate change and a human population exhausting life’s vital resources, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today urged delegates gathered in Rio de Janeiro to face “an existential reality”: the old model of economic and social advancement was broken and it was time to agree on a new blueprint to end poverty, ensure social equity and protect the environment.

The General Assembly today, acting on the recommendations of its Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary), adopted a peacekeeping budget of just more than $7 billion for the period 1 July 2012 to 30 June 2013.

The 24-member Committee that monitors implementation of the 1960 Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples in 16 Non-Self-Governing Territories approved by consensus today an omnibus draft resolution on the questions of American Samoa, Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Guam, Montserrat, Pitcairn, Saint Helena, Turks and Caicos Islands and United States Virgin Islands.

The Security Council held a discussion today with the military commanders of key United Nations peacekeeping operations in Africa, the Middle East and Haiti, who highlighted important strategies for ensuring unity of command and synergy of efforts among the Organization’s 120,000 peacekeepers that would allow for their diverse qualities, skills and experience to have a “multiplying effect” on achieving common operational goals.

Sporadic clashes, military operations and announcements of settlement construction in the West Bank were challenging the positive environment created by recent fragile forward steps in the Israeli-Palestinian talks, the Security Council was told today, during a briefing on recent developments in the Middle East.

The Special Committee on Decolonization today approved three draft resolutions dealing with various aspects of its work, as it continued its session at Headquarters.

The Special Committee on Decolonization today called on the United States to expedite a process that would allow Puerto Ricans to fully exercise their inalienable right to self-determination and independence, requesting the General Assembly to consider the question of Puerto Rico comprehensively in all its aspects.

An “eighteenth century attitude” prevailed in continued efforts by Spain to incorporate the disputed territory of Gibraltar – against the will of the Gibraltarian people - that Territory’s Chief Minister told the Special Committee on Decolonization this morning, as it considered the questions of Gibraltar, the Western Sahara and the Falkland Islands (Malvinas).

Following statements by petitioners and an impassioned plea by the President of Argentina to leave behind an “outdated story” of prejudice and cliché, the Special Committee on Decolonization today reiterated that ending the “special and particular” colonial situation relating to the Falkland Islands (Malvinas)* required a peaceful, negotiated settlement of the sovereignty dispute between Argentina and the United Kingdom.

Determining that the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons remained a threat to international peace and security, the Security Council this morning extended the mandate of a Panel of Experts — established to analyse incidents of non-compliance with its resolution 1718 (2006) concerning the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea — until 12 July 2013.