Meetings Coverage

Warning that “fundamental peace and security issues are at stake in Libya”, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today briefed the Security Council on the situation in that country — where more than 1,000 people have been killed as security forces and militiamen loyal to leader Muammar Al-Qadhafi continued their deadly assault on civilian protesters — and urged members to consider concrete action to stop the violence and end the loss of life.

Guinea-Bissau had made progress towards emerging from the political turmoil of the past few years, including the approval of a road map for security-sector reform, but deep concerns remained, representatives of the Secretariat and the Peacebuilding Commission told the Security Council today. “There has been progress in the political and security environments, although the situation remains complex and tenuous,” said Joseph Mutaboba, Representative of the Secretary-General.

Education was the gateway to economic opportunity and the key means for unlocking women’s potential, the Commission on the Status of Women was told today as it continued its high-level review of the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome of the General Assembly’s twenty-third special session on gender equality, development and peace for the twenty-first century.

In stark contrast to the recent dramatic political transformations in the Middle East, Israeli-Palestinian negotiations remained at a standstill, with each party sceptical of the other’s intentions, as well as the international community’s seriousness, United Nations envoy Robert Serry told the Security Council today as he called for “credible and effective international intervention” to get the process back on track.

Welcoming recent progress in many sectors in Timor-Leste but stressing the importance of the peaceful and credible holding of upcoming elections, the Security Council this morning extended the mandate of the United Nations Integrated Mission in the new country for one year, until 26 February 2012, at current authorized levels.

Addressing the first meeting of the 2011 substantive session of the Special Committee on Decolonization, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called today for “concrete results” in the quest for self-determination by the world’s 16 remaining Non-Self-Governing Territories.

The proverbial glass ceiling not only continued to curtail the aspirations of schoolgirls and women scientists and engineers around the world, but was best described in too many societies as a “cast-iron ceiling”, the Commission on the Status of Women was told today during two expert panels on bolstering the access of women and girls to science, technology, education and training.

The Peacebuilding Commission decided today that it would place Guinea on its agenda, acting for the first time without a referral from the Security Council but responding instead to a request from the West African country itself.

The United Nations must urgently address the challenges of modern peacekeeping, including a severe imbalance in the “division of labour” between troop and financial contributors, and resource shortfalls that left peacekeepers vulnerable to attacks, delegates said today as the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations concluded its general debate.

While the last year had seen significant efforts to improve women’s status around the world — including the landmark creation of the United Nations new gender entity, UN Women — the global report card was decidedly mixed, but investment in girls’ education could propel both economic growth and women’s equality, United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro said today, as she opened the fifty-fifth session of the Commission on the Status of Women.