Who Form 8865 Committees 2023-2024

All right, good afternoon. The Secretary-General spoke this morning at the opening of the organizational meeting of the 2019 session of the Special Committee on decolonization. He noted that decolonization helped transform the UN membership, propelling its growth from 51 original member states to 193 today. The Secretary-General said that the story is still being written as 17 non-self-governing territories remain, with each deserving attention to achieve decolonization. He emphasized that the voice of the people should be heard and the cooperation of all concerned, including the administering power, is vital. The Secretary-General's speech has been shared with you, and it is important to flag that the Secretary-General's high-level advisory board mediation will hold its third meeting tomorrow at UN Headquarters. The advisory board was established in September 2017 and is composed of nine women and nine men, current and former global leaders, senior officials, and renowned experts. It aims to bring together a range of experience, skills, knowledge, and contacts. Two new members joined the board in January of this year, Seema Samar of Afghanistan and Juan Gabriele Valdez of Chile. The first meeting took place in November 2017, while the second was held in Helsinki last June. The Secretary-General also met with Petro Poroshenko, the President of Ukraine, yesterday to discuss the latest developments concerning the conflict in eastern Ukraine, as well as the areas of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. They exchanged views on humanitarian and human rights-related issues. The Secretary-General reiterated the UN's strong support for ongoing efforts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict in eastern Ukraine, including the Normandy Four, the trilateral contact group, the OSCE, and other key actors. The Secretary-General also underlined the UN's commitment to the sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity of Ukraine. In other news, in New York, the...