General Assembly: Meetings Coverage

The Special Committee on Decolonization met this morning to continue its 2024 session. On its agenda were preparations for the 2024 Caribbean regional seminar.

The Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations met this afternoon to complete the work of its 2024 session after nearly four weeks of meeting mostly in working groups.

Meeting on the International Day to Combat Islamophobia, the General Assembly adopted a resolution calling for measures against such a phenomenon despite reservations expressed by some Member States about the text’s narrow focus on one religion and the cost of creating a senior United Nations position dedicated to the matter.

The United Nations Secretariat should seek to absorb the envisaged costs of preparations for the entry into force of the agreement on the sustainable use of marine biodiversity in the high seas and for the first meeting of signatories, the Vice Chair of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) told the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today.

The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People met this morning to elect officers and hear remarks by the Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine, Riyad Mansour.

A team handling the liquidation of the United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in the Sudan (UNITAMS) could be smaller, the Chair of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) told the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today, as he recommended that the Mission’s proposed budget for 2024 be reduced accordingly.

Managers who don’t implement the recommendations of oversight bodies — including on staff recruitment from unrepresented and underrepresented countries — should be held accountable, speakers told the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today during a discussion on strengthening the United Nations culture of accountability.

The use of the Security Council veto by the United States to block an Algerian draft resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza only emboldens Israel to continue its crimes against the Palestinian people, speakers warned the General Assembly today, stressing that the humanitarian situation in the enclave is catastrophic and worsening as a result.

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today examined the resources required to operationalize a new institution tasked with finding the fate and whereabouts of all missing persons in Syria, as several delegates raised objections to establishing and funding the mechanism approved by the General Assembly in 2023.

Lamenting the Security Council’s inability to call for a ceasefire while the entire world demands one, speakers in the General Assembly today drew attention to the mounting death toll and famine in Gaza, while Israel condemned the United Nations for collaborating with terrorists.