Meetings Coverage

The Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) concluded its substantive work for the General Assembly’s sixty-seventh session today, adopting a draft resolution by which it endorsed a procedural report on the work of the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations.

Liberia should be proud of its achievements, but 10 years was too short a time in which to reverse the effects of a war that left a nation shattered and overturn more than a century of social and political exclusion, as well as poor governance, the Security Council heard today.

Reform of the international financial system should include reducing its overreliance on credit rating agencies and increasing competition among them, speakers said today, as the General Assembly held its first ever thematic debate on the role of those institutions as arbiters of creditworthiness.

The Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations concluded its 2013 substantive session today, adopting a procedural report on its work.

Education was a primary tool for building a culture of peace, and the United Nations had rightly placed it at the forefront to that end, speakers said today as the General Assembly held a high-level forum on that topic.

Iran had remained silent to inquiries about its ballistic missile launches and an intercepted arms shipment, the Chair of the Security Council Committee charged with monitoring sanctions on that country said today.

Hailing Kazakhstan’s steps to outlaw nuclear weapons testing and advance global nuclear disarmament, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and General Assembly President Vuk Jeremić (Serbia) today urged all Member States that had not yet done so to sign and ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.

The General Assembly invited Member States this morning to support the proposed establishment of the Eurasian Connectivity Alliance with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) as a way to improve the development of regional telecommunications transit routes in the Trans-Eurasian region.

Security Council members today hailed the progress made in implementing the historic April agreement between Serbia and Kosovo as the senior United Nations official delivered his latest briefing amid calls for leaders on both sides to stay the course.

The Security Council today extended the mandate of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon until 31 August 2014, with no major operational changes.