Meetings Coverage

In a move intended to bolster the chances for peace, Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, announced in the General Assembly today that his Government would seek status for Palestine as a non-Member State of the United Nations, following what he described as “aborted” efforts last year to have the Security Council allow the State of Palestine to “assume its rightful place in the United Nations”, despite widespread support for the initiative.

The Security Council voiced its strong support today for the contribution of the League of Arab States to collective efforts for the peaceful settlement of conflicts in the Middle East, and welcomed the intensification of its cooperation with the United Nations in the wake of recent transformations, during a high-level meeting on peace and security in the region.

Even with a slow economic rebound, bloody conflict in Syria and a deadly consulate attack in Libya casting a long shadow across the Middle East and North Africa — leading some to conclude that the Arab Spring had faded to an Arab Winter — leaders addressing the General Assembly today stressed that the international community, far from turning its back on the volatile region, must redouble support to all fleeing tyranny and seeking to determine their own destiny.

Heads of State and Government and other high officials of the nations that made up the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission this afternoon reaffirmed their commitment to bolstering the stability of countries emerging from conflict through reinvigorated international efforts, in a special event coinciding with the start of the sixty-seventh General Assembly session.

“I am here to sound the alarm,” United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today, urging political leaders gathered for the General Assembly’s annual debate to overcome divisions and wilful blindness before it was too late to effectively address such global challenges as widespread insecurity, deepening inequality, government waste, and the impacts of climate change.

World leaders and civil society representatives reaffirmed today their commitment to the rule of law as the foundation of equitable State relations and the basis upon which just and fair societies were built, as they adopted a lengthy declaration during the General Assembly’s first-ever high-level meeting on the rule of law at the national and international levels.

Government ministers and other high officials from around the globe meeting in New York committed themselves to strengthening the United Nations Economic and Social Council, in order to engender more coherent multilateral action to face the daunting challenges of sustainable development, at a Special Ministerial Meeting of that body this afternoon and evening.

The Second Committee (Economic and Financial) met this morning to fill the remaining vacant position on its Bureau for the sixty-seventh session of the General Assembly.

The General Assembly, convening the second meeting of its sixty-seventh session and acting on the recommendations of its General Committee, adopted a programme of work which contained nearly 170 items.

The recent series of high-level meetings in Chicago, Kabul and Tokyo had “redefined and reinvigorated” the long term partnership between Afghanistan and the world community, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative told the Security Council this afternoon.