{"id":230153,"date":"2016-06-17T06:00:49","date_gmt":"2016-06-16T20:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=230153"},"modified":"2016-06-17T06:00:49","modified_gmt":"2016-06-16T20:00:49","slug":"fiji-achieves-1st-pacific-region-united-nations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/fiji-achieves-1st-pacific-region-united-nations\/","title":{"rendered":"Fiji achieves 1st for Pacific region at United Nations"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_230157\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-230157\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Peter-thompson-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"Thomson\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-230157\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-230157\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Thomson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>NOUMEA, New Caledonia<\/strong>\u2014The Pacific Community has welcomed the election of Fiji\u2019s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Peter Thomson, as President of the next session of the UN General Assembly. <\/p>\n<p>In congratulating Ambassador Thomson, the Pacific Community Director-General, Dr. Colin Tukuitonga, said this was a momentous occasion for the Pacific Islands in the international arena. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are proud and delighted by the election of Fiji Ambassador Peter Thomson to the eminent position of president of the 71st UN General Assembly,\u201d Dr Tukuitonga said. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis reflects the confidence of the international community in Ambassador Thomson to take up this high profile role and oversee the continued revitalization of the work of the General Assembly. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s significant in that it\u2019s the first time a representative of the Pacific Islands region has become the president-elect and acknowledges the contribution of Small Island Developing States to the UN family. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a well-deserved appointment, and SPC stands ready to assist Ambassador Thomson with information and technical support about the Pacific region, as needed,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p>The president-elect is due to formally take up the role at the start of the next session of the UN General Assembly in September 2016. <\/p>\n<p>Ambassador Thomson has stated that climate change will be a priority issue for him. <\/p>\n<p>SPC was formally granted Permanent Observer status to the UN in December 2014 following the adoption of a resolution by the UN General Assembly. <\/p>\n<p>The resolution enabling SPC to participate as an observer in the sessions and work of the General Assembly was sponsored by Ambassador Thomson on behalf of the Fiji delegation following a decision taken at the 8th Conference of the Pacific Community.<\/p>\n<p>Fiji is one of 26 country and territory members of the Pacific Community.<strong> (PR)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NOUMEA, New Caledonia\u2014The Pacific Community has welcomed the election of Fiji\u2019s Permanent Representative to the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":230157,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[12059,12060,465,166],"class_list":["post-230153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-ambassador-thomson","tag-general-assembly","tag-new-caledonia","tag-spc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}