Acting by consensus as it began its resumed 2009 session this morning, the Special Committee on Decolonization approved three draft resolutions, on dissemination of decolonization information; the question of sending visiting and special missions to Non-Self-Governing Territories; and on information from those Territories transmitted under Article 73 e of the United Nations Charter.

The Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1521 (2003) concerning Liberia on 5 June 2009 decided to remove the name of the following individual from the list of individuals subject to the travel restrictions imposed by paragraph 4 (a) of resolution 1521 (2003) (the travel ban list):

In the Security Council this morning, the head of the United Nations Integrated Peacebuilding Office in Sierra Leone (UNIPSIL) called for international support for the United Nations unified post-conflict strategy in the country, while he praised its political leadership for an agreement that he said kept recent political violence from spiralling out of control.

“Our shared challenge is to begin implementing transformative changes on the ground and to create irreversible momentum towards an Israeli-Palestinian agreement,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today in a statement at the opening of the United Nations Asian and Pacific Meeting on the Question of Palestine.

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message to the United Nations Asian and Pacific Meeting on the Question of Palestine, delivered by Noeleen Heyzer, Executive Secretary, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, in Jakarta today, 8 June:

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message to the X Prize Global Conference, “Incentive 2 Innovate”, delivered by Amir Dossal, Director of the United Nations Office for Partnerships, in New York today, 8 June:

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

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

The United Nations Asian and Pacific Meeting on the Question of Palestine this afternoon heard presentations of four experts, including Israeli and Palestinian, on the theme “International efforts aimed at achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting settlement of the question of Palestine”.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is pleased to announce the appointment of Christopher Woodthorpe as Director of the United Nations Information Centre in Canberra. In addition to Australia, Canberra covers Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. Mr. Woodthorpe assumed his new duties on 13 May 2009.