Palestine question – Cttee on Information – Report on 27th session (excerpts)

Committee on Information

Report on the twenty-seventh session

(18 April-3 May 2005)

A/60/21

ISSN 0255-190X

Note

Symbols of United Nations documents are composed of capital letters combined with figures. Mention of such a symbol indicates a reference to a United Nations document.

  Chapter I 

    Introduction

1.   In its resolution 34/182 of 18 December 1979, the General Assembly decided to maintain the Committee to Review United Nations Public Information Policies and Activities, established by its resolution 33/115 C of 18 December 1978, which would be known as the Committee on Information, and to increase its membership from 41 to 66. In section I, paragraph 2, of resolution 34/182, the Assembly requested the Committee on Information:

   “(a)   To continue to examine United Nations public information policies and activities, in the light of the evolution of international relations, particularly during the past two decades, and of the imperatives of the establishment of the new international economic order and of a new world information and communication order;

   “(b)   To evaluate and follow up the efforts made and the progress achieved by the United Nations system in the field of information and communications;

   “(c)   To promote the establishment of a new, more just and more effective world information and communication order intended to strengthen peace and international understanding and based on the free circulation and wider and better balanced dissemination of information and to make recommendations thereon to the General Assembly;”

and requested the Committee and the Secretary-General to report to it at its thirty-fifth session.

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Chapter III 

    General debate

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26.   Several speakers welcomed the Department’s efforts to promote the “dialogue among civilizations and cultures” and commended the Department for launching its “unlearning intolerance” seminar series, which has so far included seminars on anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. According to one speaker, the seminar on anti-Semitism had been “a very good step towards a situation in which Jews everywhere feel that the United Nations is their home too”. Another speaker asked the Department to explore different ways and means, including utilizing the potentials and capacities of United Nations information centres in different regions and countries, to promote a culture of dialogue, respect and understanding among people. Another speaker spoke appreciatively of the annual seminar organized by the Department on the question of Palestine, which this year will take place in Cairo (13-14 June 2005).

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