The Economic and Social Council today adopted a decision (document E/2017/L.4), by which it recommended that the General Assembly decide on enlarging the membership of the Executive Committee of the Programme of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) from 98 to 101 States at its seventy-first session.
The First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) met today for a brief organizational meeting to adopt its agenda and work programme for the seventy-first session of the General Assembly.
Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message on World Habitat Day, observed on 3 October:
Members of the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today urged each other to work together during the current session as they tackled a complex and ambitious agenda that included forming an outline for the Organization’s two-year multi-billion-dollar budget for 2018-2019 and financing of the new blueprint for global advancement known as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message on the International Day of Non-violence, observed on 2 October:
The Emergency Relief Coordinator told the Security Council today that the last seven days had seen an intensification of attacks across Syria. He said that nowhere had the fighting been more intense than in besieged east Aleppo, where estimates are that more than 320 civilians were killed and 765 injured in the first days.
Warning that “Syria is bleeding and its citizens are dying” in increasing numbers and with increasing ferocity, the United Nations top humanitarian official urged the Security Council today to find common humanity and restore the cessation of hostilities to protect civilians, save lives and end the “unbridled horror”.
The Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) today approved its work programme for the seventy-first session, which covers topics ranging from the decolonization of the remaining Non-Self-Governing Territories, to peaceful uses of outer space, to the plight of Palestinian refugees and Israel’s practices in Occupied Arab Territories.
Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message to the Baku International Humanitarian Forum, delivered by Cihan Sultanoglu, Assistant Administrator and Director, Regional Bureau for Europe and the CIS, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in Baku today:
Following are UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remarks at the memorial ceremony for Shimon Peres, former President of Israel, in New York today:
