General Assembly

The General Assembly would encourage Member States to approach the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancún, Mexico, with a view to achieving a substantive, balanced and ambitious outcome,according to one of seven draft resolutions approved by consensus today in the Second Committee (Economic and Financial).

Concluding its work for the current session today, the Third Committee approved eight draft resolutions involving issues ranging from the follow-up to the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action to monitoring the use of mercenaries and combating defamation of religions. These approvals brought the total number of texts that the Committee will forward to the General Assembly for adoption during the sixty-sixth session to 58.

Abdou Salam Diallo of Senegal was today elected Chairman of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. Mr. Diallo’s nomination by Oumar Daou (Mali) was seconded by Hamidon Ali (Malaysia) as B. Lynn Pascoe, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, facilitated the election.

Non-communicable diseases related to tobacco use, unhealthy diets, physical inactivity and the harmful use of alcohol have emerged as a serious macroeconomic and development challenge around the globe, exacerbating poverty and requiring urgent attention to curb related productivity loss and rapidly rising health-care costs, General Assembly delegates said today.

On the eve of the completion of its work for this session, the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) approved six resolutions today, including one that would have the General Assembly reaffirm that States must ensure that their efforts to combat terrorism comply with their international human rights obligations, and another that would have it emphasize that no religion should be equated with terrorism.

The global economic and financial crisis had highlighted the need to reform the international financial system and architecture, and added a new impetus to ongoing international discussions on that subject, the General Assembly would stress, according to one of three draft resolutions approved without a vote by the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) today.

Resolutions that would have the General Assembly declare an International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, as well as establish an open-ended working group to strengthen the protection of human rights of older persons, were among the nine texts approved today by the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural).

Barely seven weeks away from crucial referendums in Southern Sudan that will determine whether the country will split into two nations, the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today considered the Secretary-General’s request for $85.7 million for the United Nations Mission in the Sudan (UNMIS), as it provides assistance in creating a safe, free and secure voting process.

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.