General Assembly: Meetings Coverage

As the General Assembly today wrapped up its annual debate on the question of Palestine and the situation in the Middle East, several delegations urged the international community to end six decades of “collective failure” to answer the Palestinian question through a peaceful settlement.

As the United Nations observed the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People today, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed deep concern that talks between Israel’s Prime Minister and the Palestinian President on a two-State solution had been suspended for almost a year.

Nearly a year after Israel’s military offensive into the Gaza Strip which left some 1,400 Palestinians dead and pushed an already desperate humanitarian situation into crisis, the question of Palestine was at a critical juncture, and sustained focus was needed to both revive stagnant peace talks and create conditions for broader peace in the Middle East, General Assembly delegates said today, as they launched their annual debate of those and related issues.

The Second Committee (Economic and Financial) approved by consensus today three draft resolutions relating, respectively, to sustainable mountain development, cyber security and landlocked developing countries.

Alarmed at the increase in racist violence and xenophobic ideas in many parts of the world, the General Assembly would express unequivocal condemnation of all forms of racism and racial discrimination by one of five draft resolutions approved today as the Third Committee concluded its work for the current session.

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) this morning made recommendations to the General Assembly on the final administrative liquidation budget of the recently-terminated United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG).

After calling a do-over vote for technical reasons, the Third Committee today approved the wording of a decision that would have the General Assembly welcome the outcome document of the Durban Review Conference and endorse its provisions, while deciding to implement the Review’s outcome as part of the wider implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action.

Profoundly concerned that the situation of children in many parts of the world remained critical, the Third Committee approved a draft resolution that explicitly recognized the right of young people to be heard in all matters affecting them today, on the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

While early and concrete successes underlined the importance of the young Peacebuilding Commission and Peacebuilding Fund ‑‑ established at the General Assembly’s 2005 World Summit to help countries emerging from conflict hold on to fragile reconstruction gains ‑‑ broader support and resources were needed, notably from the private sector, to enable those bodies to realize their potential, Assembly delegates said today as they considered progress achieved thus far.

The General Assembly, gravely concerned by the findings of the Secretary-General’s Board of Inquiry and the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza conflict, would stress the need for “serious follow-up” by all parties of the recommendations addressed to them, by one of 11 draft texts approved today by the Fourth Committee as it concluded its work for the session.