Meetings Coverage

Commending Liberia for its successful elections in 2011 and encouraging its efforts to further national reconciliation and economic recovery, the Security Council this morning extended the mandate of the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) for one year, until 30 September 2013, reducing its military strength in three phases and authorizing the Secretary-General to implement the first phase of that reduction — 1,900 personnel — between October 2012 and September 2013.

Faced with conflicts in the Arab world and other global challenges, the General Assembly had “stood strong, active and responsive” over the past year, making key advances in dispute settlement, United Nations reform, disaster prevention and sustainable development, Nassir Abdulaziz al-Nasser ( Qatar), its outgoing President, said today, as the sixty-sixth session drew to a close.

The United Nations, as the global human rights standard-bearer, must step up efforts to realize the rights of persons with disabilities, both at the national level and in its own work, speakers stressed today, as the fifth Conference of States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities drew to a close.

With the world’s people exhausted from war and angered by short-sighted Government policies that padded military budgets and gutted social programmes, senior United Nations officials and eminent peace advocates today opened the High-level Forum on a Culture of Peace stressing that education, youth outreach and women’s empowerment were the keys to wiping out poverty, injustice and exclusion.

Investing in children with disabilities during the early stage of their development was among the many practical measures that Member States should take, United Nations officials and delegates said today, as the fifth Conference of States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities continued.

The General Assembly today reaffirmed its central role on the “question of equitable representation on and increase in the membership of the Security Council and related matters”, amid growing demands to crystallize areas of convergence on an issue that has laid bare the difficulties of revitalizing the United Nations’ twentieth-century peace and security architecture.

The General Assembly today welcomed Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s highly-anticipated report on strengthening the role of mediation in peaceful dispute settlement, adopting a consensus resolution encouraging Member States to make use of the newly-published United Nations guidelines on effective mediation.

Strongly condemning last night’s attack that killed the United States Ambassador to Libya, the top United Nations political official warned the Security Council today that the horrific event was evidence of a persistent security vacuum and a sobering reminder of the many serious challenges that must be confronted by all those committed to supporting the North African country’s transformation.

The Security Council, welcoming the preparations in Sierra Leone for the presidential, parliamentary and local elections on 17 November, and underlining their importance as a “key benchmark” for peace consolidation in the West African country, extended the mandate of the United Nations Integrated Peacebuilding Office there until 31 March 2013 to, along with its other key tasks, assist the Government in the run-up to that potentially transformational event.

Even as the number of States signing on to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities continued to grow at an “exhilarating” pace, there remained a critical need for the United Nations to act as a “real, practical and daily advocate” for those who had once been all but invisible on the world stage, delegates stressed today.