General Assembly

Acting on the recommendations of its Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary), the General Assembly today appointed officials to several of its subsidiary bodies for terms of office beginning on 1 January 2011, including its influential Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ), which plays a crucial role in managing the United Nations vast human and financial resources.

Draft resolutions that would have the General Assembly address the human rights situations in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Iran and Myanmar were approved by the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) today, but not before delegations debated the validity of such country-specific motions.

The General Assembly would demand that Israel stop exploiting, damaging, depleting or endangering natural resources in occupied Arab lands, by the terms of one of five draft resolutions approved today by its Second Committee (Economic and Financial).

Concerned about the extreme social and economic disadvantages that indigenous peoples have faced, the Third Committee approved a draft resolution today that would have the General Assembly organize a high-level plenary meeting in 2014 — to be known as the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples in 2014 -- to share perspectives and best practices on the realization of indigenous peoples’ rights.

Even though it suffered its first actuarial setback in 14 years during the biennium that closed in December 2009, the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund bounced back from the turmoil in global financial markets to post a 32.2 per cent jump in assets to $38.3 billion by March 2010, Secretariat officials told the Fifth Committee today.

The Peacebuilding Commission and the Government of Liberia set forth this morning the terms of their partnership to strengthen the rule of law, support security-sector reform and promote national reconciliation as the West African nation sought to consolidate peace and heal the historic rift between indigenous and “American” Liberians.

The General Assembly, gravely concerned by the critical humanitarian situation and socio-economic conditions of the Palestine refugees in the Gaza Strip, and underlining the importance of emergency assistance and urgent reconstruction efforts, would decide to extend the mandate of UNRWA until 30 June 2014, by one of nine draft texts approved today by the Fourth Committee, as it concluded the bulk of its work for the main part of the session.

The General Assembly would call upon the United Nations to promote ecotourism as an instrument to help realize the Millennium Development Goals, and to support similar efforts by developing countries, by the terms of one of three draft resolutions that the Second Committee approved by consensus today.

The General Assembly wrapped up its annual debate on achieving equitable representation in the Security Council today amid competing calls from diplomats for pressing ahead swiftly with drafting a new negotiating text that genuinely analyzed proposals already on the table, on the one hand, and cautioning that any immediate solution which excluded major voices from decision-making would only deepen entrenched divisions, on the other.

With just a bit of time remaining on its calendar, the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) today concluded its consideration for the session of the effects of atomic radiation with the consensus approval of a draft resolution commending the United Nations Scientific Committee for the valuable contribution it had been making since its inception to widen knowledge and understanding of the levels, effects and risks of ionizing radiation.