General Assembly

Abdou Salam Diallo was elected Chair of the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) on 1 October.

Ibrahim Dabbashi, Permanent Representative of Libya to the United Nations, was elected Chair of the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) on 1 October.

John W. Ashe (Antigua and Barbuda) was elected President of the sixty-eighth session of the General Assembly on 14 June 2013, while serving as Permanent Representative to both the United Nations and the World Trade Organization since 2004.

The world should not ease the pressure on Iran’s nuclear programme as that country positioned itself to “race across the red line” before the international community could prevent it from building nuclear bombs, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said today as the General Assembly concluded its week-long general debate.

As the General Assembly entered week two of its annual debate, Canada’s Minister for Foreign Affairs said he rejected the “pernicious notion” that human dignity could be “sliced up, compartmentalized or compromised”, since it was impossible, in a pluralistic society, to protect some human rights and freedoms while infringing others.

For small island developing States, the devastating impacts of climate change struck at the very heart of their survival, and without renewed political efforts to mitigate their reach, those nations would continue to suffer dramatic setbacks in their economic and social well-being, several world leaders warned today, as the General Assembly moved into the fifth day of its annual debate.

Strategies used in the global fight against terrorism came under scrutiny today as the General Assembly entered the fourth day of its general debate. The Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation said that a common argument had been deployed recently to prove that the use of force was the most effective method to address problems, although all experience of such interventions had demonstrated that it was ineffective, meaningless and destructive.

Recognizing that women’s economic empowerment contributed greatly to the effectiveness of post-conflict prosperity, the Peacebuilding Commission today urged Governments, as well as international and regional organizations, to improve female participation in all stages of peace processes, from conflict resolution to post-conflict planning.

Today’s Africa would not be divided or deterred by those wishing to disrupt its progress, the President of Ghana told the General Assembly today as it continued its annual debate.

Reflecting the growing complexity of contemporary global security threats and the often bipolar nature of the nuclear disarmament debate, speakers in the General Assembly today grappled with the challenging elements of the process and the often divergent political interests that constrain it.