HELSINKI, 29 April — With plans nearly complete for welcoming a sovereign, independent Palestinian State into the community of nations this September, the Chairman of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People today urged the Quartet of Middle East peace mediators to “help make the sun set on the occupation permanently”, by rapidly finalizing the permanent status parameters so that direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations could proceed without delay.

The Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (the “Commission”) held its twenty-seventh session at United Nations Headquarters from 7 March to 21 April 2011, pursuant to the decisions taken at its twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth sessions as well as pursuant to General Assembly resolution 65/37 A. The plenary part of the session was held from 28 March to 5 April.

A panel discussion on “Getting the Facts Right”, to be held at United Nations Headquarters on Wednesday, 4 May, will seek to draw lessons from the recent past from the perspective of “If we had known then what we know now”. The event, to be held in the Dag Hammarskjöld Auditorium, from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., will promote the launch of the 2007 edition of the United Nations Yearbook, which has been released for the first time as an e-book.

Speakers affirmed the importance of adequately, efficiently and accountably funding United Nations peacekeeping operations as the General Assembly’s Fifth Committee opened the second part of its resumed session this morning.

Advertising agencies from Sweden, Hungary and China, among other countries, will be honoured for public service advertising on Thursday, 5 May, during the 2011 New York Festivals/United Nations Department of Public Information International Advertising Awards at Skylight West in New York City.

Recalling the “heinous” terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania, as well as the numerous attacks perpetrated by the Al-Qaida network around the world, the Security Council welcomed today the news that Osama bin Laden would never again be able to perpetrate such acts of terrorism.

Whether measured by greenhouse gas concentrations, deforestation rates or declining fish stocks, current unsustainable consumption and production patterns threatened to exceed the capacity of global ecosystems and the world community must accelerate efforts to pursue environmentally sound economic growth and “meet our commitments to future generations”, a top United Nations official told the Commission on Sustainable Development today, as it opened its nineteenth session.

The following is a message of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, as delivered by Ján Kubiš, Executive Secretary, United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (ECE), to the Astana Economic Forum, in Kazakhstan, today, 3 May:

The following statement was issued today by the Spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon:

Speakers lauded last year’s launch of the global field support strategy and called for its further implementation as the General Assembly’s Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) this morning considered cross-cutting administrative and budgetary aspects of financing United Nations peacekeeping operations.