Meetings Coverage

By secret ballot, the General Assembly today elected by a margin of four votes Peter Thomson of Fiji as President of its seventy-first session, also selecting, in consecutive meetings, Bureaux members of its six Main Committees.

Opening its 2016 substantive session today, the Special Committee on decolonization, approved without a vote two draft resolutions on the dissemination of information with Non-Self-Governing Territories, and then commenced targeted discussions on the question of Gibraltar.

The Security Council today decided to extend until 15 December the mandate of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), under the leadership of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and in full accordance with the principles of national ownership.

All facets of United Nations peacekeeping missions had a vital role to play in keeping civilians safe, speakers in the Security Council said today, as high-ranking officials, including a Head of State and several ministers, participated in a wide-ranging open debate on the protection of civilians in the context of peacekeeping operations.

The General Assembly’s three-day high-level plenary meeting on HIV/AIDS concluded today amid calls for redoubled efforts and greater funding to eradicate the epidemic by 2030, as called for in the Sustainable Development Goals.

Following an amendment on the review of working methods and other related matters, the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations today adopted the report of its 2016 May-June session, during which it recommended to the Economic and Social Council 188 organizations for consultative status and deferred 235 for further consideration at its regular session in 2017.

The Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court today criticized the Security Council’s continuing failure to help bring to justice those indicted for atrocity crimes in Darfur, Sudan, more than a decade ago.

With 2 million people newly infected with HIV/AIDS last year and more than 20 million still lacking antiretroviral treatment, eradicating the disease by 2030 would require the right mix of prevention, treatment and care policies, speakers in the General Assembly said today amid calls for continued international support to complement national funding.

The threat posed by Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da’esh) and its associates to international peace and security remained high despite military setbacks in Iraq and Syria, financial pressures and international efforts to defeat them, the senior United Nations political official told the Security Council this afternoon.

Recent developments in several high-profile cases before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia were strong indications that its work was on track for completion by the end of 2017, although full cooperation with the court’s decisions and orders would be critical to ensuring grave crimes did not go unpunished, the Security Council heard today.