Meetings Coverage

The General Assembly would urge donors to increase voluntary funding to the United Nations Environment Programme, including to the Environment Fund, according to one of eight draft resolutions that the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) approved today.

While generally lauding the aim of the United Nations initiative to expand the pool of civilian experts providing immediate aid to countries emerging from conflict, delegates in the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) this morning said the plan lacked specifics on its servicing and resource requirements, as well as performance and development benchmarks.

The President of the new global mechanism for criminal tribunals tasked with prosecuting war crimes committed during the Balkan wars of the 1990s and the 1994 Rwanda genocide today told the Security Council that making criminal justice sustainable in the long run greatly depended on demonstrating that it could be efficient, effective and affordable for the international community.

As the international community considered responses to the multiple crises in Mali, including authorization of an African-led military force, Malians themselves needed to be at the centre of efforts to restore their democracy to health and fully recover their territory, the United Nations political affairs chief told the Security Council this morning.

The General Assembly would stress the need to increase the share of new and renewable sources of energy in the global mix as an important contribution to universal access to sustainable modern energy services, according to one of four draft resolutions that the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) approved by consensus today.

Yemenis had learned that the “gun as a tool to answer the legitimate aspirations has passed, and a peaceful solution can emerge from the ashes of conflict”, the United Nations top official in that country told the Security Council today in a briefing on recent developments.

Twenty-seven donors today announced contributions, or their intention to contribute, to the 2013 budget of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), as officials estimated that the chronically underfunded Agency would begin the year facing a deficit of some $69 million.

Opening its 2013 organizational session, the Disarmament Commission today elected its new Chair and decided to hold its 2013 substantive session from 1 to 19 April, which would kick off its next three-year cycle.

The General Assembly, faithful to the recommendations of its First Committee (Disarmament and International Security), where delegations in a high-stakes debate championed common positions but fell short of bridging age-old divides over how best to neutralize the nuclear-weapon threat, cast a wider net of nuclear-weapon-free zones, and open a passage to negotiations in the Conference on Disarmament, today adopted 58 texts, requiring 39 separate recorded votes in all.

With women caught in the crossfire in Mali, Syria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and other conflict-affected countries, the world must ramp up support and efforts to ensure their vital voices were heard, heeded and included in peacekeeping and peacebuilding, and beyond, top United Nations officials told the Security Council today during a day-long debate on women and peace and security.