The head of United Nations peacekeeping operations reported to the Security Council today that the initial rollout of the newly authorized security force for Abyei was under way, with some 500 Ethiopian troops headed to the disputed area straddling Northern and Southern Sudan, the flashpoint for recent violence between the two sides.

The Palestinian people had completed their two-year state-building programme, fulfilling a substantial part of their “contract” with the United Nations, and it was now time for the international community to uphold its end of the deal so that they would see the Organization admit their viable and independent State during the General Assembly’s sixty-sixth session, Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer for Palestine, told the Palestinian Rights Committee today.

While some strides had been made to increase access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation — now regarded as a fundamental human right — efforts must be redoubled to provide access to safe water to the more than 1 billion people without it and basic sanitation services for the more than 2 billion still in need, urged experts and delegates in the General Assembly this afternoon.

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message, delivered by Oscar-Fernandez Taranco, Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs, to the Sixth General Meeting between the United Nations System and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and its Associated Institutions, in Georgetown, Guyana, today, 28 July:

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message for the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, to be observed on 9 August:

On 28 July 2011, the Security Council Committee pursuant to resolutions 1267 (1999) and 1989 (2011) approved the addition of the two entries specified below to its Al-Qaida Sanctions List of individuals and entities subject to the assets freeze, travel ban and arms embargo set out in paragraph 1 of Security Council resolution 1989 (2011) adopted under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations:

Frustrated at operating procedures that had left the United Nations Conference on Disarmament vulnerable to “hostage-taking” by a single Member State, delegates addressing the General Assembly today debated options for reforming — or even abandoning — that “dysfunctional” body, while others countered that the 12-year impasse reflected the need to take a stand against a “clear pattern” of selective and discriminatory negotiations.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today announced the appointment of Haile Menkerios of South Africa as his Special Envoy for Sudan and South Sudan.

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women concluded its work today by adopting observations and recommendations arising from its consideration of eight country reports that it took up during its forty-ninth session.

As the General Assembly concluded its debate today on challenges to achieving the human right to water and sanitation in the context of the Millennium Development Goals, delegates shed light on their nations’ struggles to resolve the practical implications of that quest.