Failing to rectify persistent governance and security issues in Gaza and the slow pace of reconstruction six months after the conflict with Israel had fostered an increasingly worrisome “toxic” environment, a top United Nations official told the Security Council today.
By a unanimous vote this morning, the Security Council extended the mandate of the United Nations Integrated Peacebuilding Office in Guinea-Bissau (UNIOGBIS) for a period of 12 months, welcoming recent progress made towards the country’s peace, security and stability.
Continuing its 2015 session today, the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations tackled a plethora of peacekeeping concerns from the use of new technology and civilian protection mandates to pre-deployment planning and training to troop reimbursement rates.
Concluding the general debate for the session, speakers at the Special Committee on the Charter of the United Nations and on the Strengthening of the Role of the Organization emphasized the urgency of revitalizing both the United Nations and the Special Committee itself through real political will and by fostering substantive deliberations on key agenda items.
Expressing the Security Council’s grave concern at the tragic events and violence in eastern regions of Ukraine, the 15-member body today unanimously adopted a resolution endorsing last week’s ceasefire agreement.
Despite a year-long security crisis and amidst ongoing humanitarian concerns in Iraq, there was now cause for “paranoid optimism” in the Middle Eastern country, Special Representative to the Secretary-General for Iraq Nickolay Mladenov told the Security Council today.
The Special Committee on the Charter of the United Nations and on the Strengthening of the Role of the Organization opened its 2015 session today with delegations debating questions related to economic sanctions, as well as institutional reform.
Over the past year, the United Nations’ 120,000 peacekeepers had carried out their work in “highly fragile” conditions — from asymmetric attacks in Mali to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa — laying bare the need for the Organization’s flagship enterprise to be adequately equipped for changing security realities, the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations heard today, as it opened its 2015 session.
The Security Council today demanded that Houthi rebels in Yemen “immediately and unconditionally” withdraw from Government institutions, safely release President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and all others from house arrest, and engage in good faith in United Nations-brokered negotiations designed to keep the fracturing Middle Eastern country on a steady path towards democratic transition.
Concluding its fifty-third session today, the Commission for Social Development approved by consensus four draft resolutions for adoption by the Economic and Social Council that addressed issues of African development, ageing, youth and the rights of persons with disabilities.
