Meetings Coverage

In the fifth annual debate on the working methods of the Security Council today, speakers acknowledged progress towards more transparency and efficiency in the operations of the 15-member body, while calling for more meaningful engagement between it and the wider United Nations membership.

The Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) today approved its first ever draft resolution aimed at ending the practice of female genital mutilation, concluding a determined effort by African States and praised as historic by delegations.

Well aware of the financial constraints faced by the United Nations and its Member States, the Chairman of the International Civil Service Commission today handed the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) a series of recommendations which, if approved, would impact the salary and working conditions of the Organization’s employees around the globe.

Resuming its 2012 substantive session today, the Economic and Social Council adopted three draft resolutions and three draft decisions in addition to filling vacancies in a number of its subsidiary bodies, having deferred several elections from previous sessions.

Warmly welcoming the ceasefire declared between Israel and Hamas just hours before, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon this afternoon told the Security Council via video link from Tel Aviv, Israel, that it was now critical to address underlying causes in order to keep the violence, and the great suffering it caused civilians, from flaring up again.

A rapidly deteriorating security and humanitarian crisis plaguing hundreds of thousands of civilians in the Democratic Republic of the Congo must be brought to a swift end with intensified help from the international community, the United Nations’ top official in that country told the Security Council today.

Continuing to be gravely concerned by the threat of piracy and armed robbery at sea off the coast of Somalia, the Security Council today renewed for another year the authorizations, first agreed in 2008, for international action to fight the crimes in cooperation with the new Somali Government, whom it requested to create a national legal framework for the effort.

The General Assembly would demand that Israel stop exploiting, damaging, depleting and endangering the natural resources in occupied Arab lands, by the terms of one of four draft resolutions approved today by the Second Committee (Economic and Financial).

As the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today considered a wide range of human resource management issues, delegates expressed concern over such issues as the financial ramifications of the Secretary-General’s proposed mobility and career development initiative, the unequal geographical representation among the workforce, particularly in senior management posts, and the lengthy time to fill vacancies.

The Security Council this evening demanded the immediate withdrawal of the armed group known as the 23 March Movement (M23) from the major eastern Congolese city of Goma and the cessation of any further advances, calling for a clarification of reports of external support provided to the group and stating its readiness to act on the basis of information received.