General Assembly

Among the 17 resolutions and two decisions adopted this afternoon on the recommendation of the Sixth Committee (Legal) by new language within a text on measures to eliminate international terrorism, the General Assembly expressed concern at the increase in kidnapping and hostage-taking for ransom and/or political concessions.

The General Assembly must take a more decisive role in the selection and appointment of the Secretary-General, improve its coordination with other United Nations organs, and ensure its resolutions were fully implemented in order to truly live out its intended role as the Organization’s chief policymaking forum, delegates stressed today as they considered ways to revitalize the 192-member body.

Four days after Haiti held a first round of elections and nearly a year after a devastating earthquake hit the impoverished Caribbean nation, Secretariat officials proposed a budget of more than $850 million for the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) at today’s meeting of the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary).

Concluding its sixty-fifth session today, the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) approved 15 draft resolutions, including one on agriculture development and food security, by which the General Assembly would stress the need to enhance production, productivity and sustainability, while calling for the timely realization of the 2009 G-8 commitment to mobilize $20 billion over three years for sustainable agricultural development.

The General Assembly would stress the importance of responsible borrowing and lending, while urging all lenders and borrowers to integrate debt sustainability analyses into their decisions in order to help maintain sustainable debt levels through a coordinated and cooperative approach, according to one of seven draft resolutions that the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) approved by consensus today.

Convinced that a just, lasting and comprehensive settlement to the question of Palestine — the core of the Arab-Israeli conflict — was imperative for lasting Middle East peace, the General Assembly today stressed the urgent need for sustained international involvement, including by the Middle East diplomatic Quartet, to support both parties in resuming stalled peace negotiations.

Despite a mood of pessimism among Palestinians and Israelis alike, the coming year should be the one in which a just and lasting peace would finally be achieved in the Middle East, in line with United Nations resolutions, Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro said today, the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, on behalf of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today debated the Organization’s ongoing efforts to overhaul an outdated information and communications technology system and carry out an enterprise resource planning project called Umoja, so it could deliver its services around the world more quickly and efficiently.

Sixty-three years after the General Assembly’s historic adoption in 1947 of resolution 181 (II), partitioning Palestine into two States – one Arab and one Jewish - the independence of the Palestinian Arab State continued to be unjustly obstructed and the rights of Palestinians “flagrantly denied”, the Permanent Observer of Palestine told the world body, as it considered that “painful and persistent” issue in the broader context of Middle East peace.

The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People will hold a special meeting in observance of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People in Conference Room 2 of the North Lawn Building at 10 a.m. on Monday, 29 November, in accordance with General Assembly resolution 32/40 B of 2 December 1977.