Very good progress had been made so far in the United Nations-mediated negotiations on the long-running Cyprus dispute, including a broad measure of agreement on the three “chapters” of governance and power-sharing, the economy, and European Union matters, Alexander Downer, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Cyprus, said at a Headquarters press conference today.

The Secretary-General has appointed Tayé-Brook Zerihoun of Ethiopia as Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs. He replaces Haile Menkerios of South Africa, who has been appointed, for a one-year period, as the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Sudan.

A global effort to scale up investment in clean, efficient energy and bring affordable energy services to the 1.6 billion people worldwide currently lacking them would go a long way towards stopping climate change and achieving the Millennium Development Goals, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today.

Briefing correspondents today on the upcoming 2010 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the President-elect of the Conference said that, while he was aware of the “landmines” that would make his task during the Conference much more challenging, he and his Government had invested much time, effort, energy and resources in order to contribute to the “global undertaking for a peaceful world”.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is teaming up with the non-profit group One Laptop per Child to distribute computers to nearly half a million Palestine refugee children at UNRWA-run schools by 2012. Today, officials, as well as teachers and children, are celebrating the deployment of the first 2,100 laptops at the Rafah Co-Education Elementary School D.

While indigenous people continued to suffer in the face of massive development projects that stripped their lands of precious traditional resources and displaced their communities en masse, “we are at the dawn of a new sunrise”, Carlos Mamani, Chairperson the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, said today at a Headquarters press conference.

The Secretary-General has appointed Atul Khare of India as Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations. Mr. Khare replaces Edmond Mulet of Guatemala, who was appointed on 1 April as Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Haiti for one year. Mr. Khare most recently served as the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Timor-Leste.

The key goal of the upcoming Review Conference of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court was “to complete negotiations on defining individual responsibility for the crime of aggression”, William Pace, Convenor of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court, said today at a Headquarters press conference ahead of the Review slated for 31 May to 11 June in Kampala, Uganda.

The Secretary-General opened the Review Conference for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty this morning, saying that the world’s people expect action to protect them from the destructive power of nuclear weapons and to build a safer, more secure world.

The Secretary-General spoke this morning to Mayors for Peace, which brings together some 4,000 mayors and city officials around the world, including the Mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Secretary-General said that the United Nations should be the new “ground zero” for nuclear disarmament, adding that he will carry that message with him when he visits Hiroshima in August.