Financial indicators for 2011 were encouraging, with 29 Member States having paid in full all assessments due, said Angela Kane, Under-Secretary-General for Management, at a headquarters press conference today. Briefing correspondents on the United Nations financial situation and joined by Assistant Secretary-General and United Nations Controller Jun Yamazaki, Ms. Kane said that unpaid assessed contributions totalled $3.2 billion.

The Secretary-General expresses concern that a significant number of people were killed or injured during the incidents along the Blue Line, in the occupied Golan and in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. He is acutely conscious of the unsustainable status quo in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The tenth session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues would give delegates an opportunity to review more than 200 recommendations made over the last decade in discussing such issues as the role of indigenous peoples in the sustainable development debate, Forum Chair Mirna Cunningham said at a Headquarters press conference today.

Governments, multinational corporations and the banks supporting them financially must respect international environmental standards in their extraction of natural resources or construction of giant infrastructure projects in biologically diverse lands, members of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues said at a Headquarters press conference today.

The 10-year Programme of Action adopted at the close of the Fourth United Nations Conference on the Least Development Countries gave new momentum to global efforts to improve the lot of the world’s most vulnerable, impoverished nations, Gyan Chandra Acharya, (Nepal), Chair of the Group of Least Developed Countries, said at a Headquarters press conference today.

The UN refugee agency reports that hundreds of people — including Somali, Ethiopian and Eritrean refugees — who had fled from Libya to Tunisia and Egypt are returning to Libya to board boats headed for Europe. To date, some 14,000 people have arrived by boat in Tunisia and Malta from Libya.

While some strides had been made by the international community in protecting the basic human rights of indigenous peoples, significant breaches of those rights still existed around the world, said prominent indigenous representatives at a Headquarters press conference today.

The United Nations is calling for an additional $233 million to help as many as 2.1 million civilians affected by conflict in Libya. The funds are intended to last until the beginning of September. An initial flash appeal for $160 million was issued in early March.

A larger role for the State was needed to ensure that the high growth rates of African economies translated into more jobs and less poverty for its citizens, two United Nations officials said today as they launched the 2011 Economic Report on Africa.

The Security Council will send a mission to Ethiopia, Sudan and Kenya, to deal with the peace and security issues in the region. The mission will depart from New York later today. The Secretary-General will travel to Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Ethiopia and France; he leaves New York tomorrow.