General Assembly: Meetings Coverage

The General Assembly would stress the importance of efforts to strengthen the scientific base of activities to address desertification and drought, according to one of five draft resolutions that the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) approved by consensus today.

The United Nations should move away from managing the Middle East crisis through repeated resolutions toward forging a lasting comprehensive political solution, the General Assembly heard today as it adopted six related relevant resolutions, all by recorded vote.

Sharing the deep “global frustration” that the two-State solution seemed ever more distant, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People today that the cost of the continued stalemate rose with each passing day, serving as the “complex and wrenching backdrop” – historic and present-day – against which the Palestinians had decided to seek non-Member Observer State status in the General Assembly.

Voting by an overwhelming majority — 138 in favour to 9 against (Canada, Czech Republic, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia (Federated States of), Nauru, Panama, Palau, United States), with 41 abstentions — the General Assembly today accorded Palestine non-Member Observer State status in the United Nations.

Concluding its current session, the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian, Cultural) today approved 24 draft resolutions on a wide range of human rights and social issues, including texts aimed at assessing progress made since the social development summit, advancing the rights of women and children, and eliminating racism.

The General Assembly would stress the importance of continued substantive consideration of the follow-up to and implementation of the Mauritius Strategy on the sustainable development of small island developing States, according to one of five draft resolutions that the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) approved by consensus today.

Recognizing the potential of sport to contribute to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, the General Assembly today adopted a resolution reaffirming that sport, among other things, contributed to an atmosphere of tolerance and understanding, and was a tool for education that could promote cooperation, solidarity, social inclusion and health.

The General Assembly would strongly condemn the continued widespread and systematic gross human rights violations by Syrian authorities and call on that Government to immediately end all such abuses and attacks against civilians, protect its population and fully comply with its obligations under international law, under the terms of a resolution approved today by the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural).

With Afghanistan facing a critical juncture in its modern history — the expected pullout of international security forces by 2014 — the international community must stand beside the war-torn central Asian nation and help to usher in a decade “marked less by aid and more by trade”, said General Assembly delegates today as they adopted a consensus resolution affirming their continued support for the country’s peace, reconciliation and development processes.

The Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) today approved its first ever draft resolution aimed at ending the practice of female genital mutilation, concluding a determined effort by African States and praised as historic by delegations.