General Assembly: Meetings Coverage

Reaffirming that everyone should enjoy the human right to education, the General Assembly this afternoon called on Member States to ensure that right for all affected populations in all phases of emergency situations, and urged them to implement strategies and policies towards that goal as integral to humanitarian responses.

In her first address to the United Nations in 53 years, Queen Elizabeth II lauded the Organization today for its work over the past six decades in fostering peace, reducing poverty and providing emergency aid to millions of people, while calling for leadership in tackling new and emerging challenges.

The United Nations African Meeting on the Question of Palestine closed today in Rabat, Morocco, with a call to the Security Council to act to prevent the further deterioration of conditions in East Jerusalem due to Israeli efforts to unilaterally change the character of the City.

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.