General Assembly: Meetings Coverage

The General Assembly today voted unanimously to create a new body for accelerating gender equality and women’s empowerment, crowning four-years of tough negotiations to streamline and raise the profile of the United Nations activities to promote the rights of women and girls.

As the United Nations African Meeting on the Question of Palestine opened today in Rabat, Morocco, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and other participants stressed that resolving the status of Jerusalem was priority for peace in the Middle East, and that unilateral Israeli activity to change the facts on the ground there must cease.

Recognizing the crucial role of the Decolonization Declaration to the expansion of the United Nations membership, the General Assembly adopted a decision today to commemorate on 14 December 2010 the fiftieth anniversary of resolution 1514 (1960), which contains the landmark document.

In one round of balloting today, the General Assembly elected Xue Hanqin (China) as a member of the International Court of Justice, in an election run independently of but concurrently with the Security Council.

The sixteenth Meeting of States Parties to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women this morning elected by secret ballot 12 members of the 23-member body, which monitors compliance with the Treaty.

Concluding its 2010 session, the Special Committee on Decolonization unanimously approved today a draft resolution, which, if adopted by the General Assembly, would pave the way for the Third International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism beginning in 2011, as well as a draft decision by which the Assembly would designate 14 December as the day for commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples.

After hearing petitioners on the question of the Falkland Islands (Malvinas) as well as a statement by the Foreign Minister of Argentina, the Special Committee on Decolonization recommended today that the General Assembly reiterate its call for direct negotiations between Argentina and the United Kingdom over that Non-Self-Governing Territory.

Acting on the recommendations of its Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary), the General Assembly this afternoon adopted a peacekeeping budget of $7.2 billion for the period from 1 July 2010 to 30 June 2011.

Expressing deep concern that colonialism had not yet been totally eradicated 50 years after the General Assembly adopted the seminal Declaration on Decolonization, the “Special Committee of 24” unanimously approved today a draft resolution reaffirming the obligations of all administering Powers to create the necessary economic, social and other conditions to enable Non-Self-Governing Territories under their purview to achieve genuine self-government and economic self-reliance.

Speaking out against the militarization of Guam by the United States, several petitioners today called upon members of the Special Committee on Decolonization to visit the Non-Self-Governing Territory and see the situation for themselves as soon as possible.