Meetings Coverage

“We come together at a critical juncture,” said the incoming General Assembly President Nassir Abdulaziz al-Nasser, as he opened the 193‑member body’s sixty-sixth session with a call to action on the United Nations to rethink the way it did business in the wake of ongoing global economic turmoil, popular protests that were upending once-stable Governments and the seemingly unending raft of natural hazards and man-made disasters.

Sierra Leone was continuing to develop into a “stable, peaceful and economically more viable democracy”, but it was critical on the eve of general elections to reinforce that progress further to avert a resurgence of the tensions that had helped ignite the devastating civil war, the Secretary-General’s Executive Representative in that country told the Security Council today.

While commending Member States for making headway on the major themes on the agenda of the General Assembly’s sixty-fifth session dealing with poverty reduction, global governance, a green economy and sustainable development, Joseph Deiss, the world body’s outgoing President today warned “our commitment in the name of the values of the United Nations has sometimes been too weak or too late”.

“Achieving the realization of the rights of persons with disabilities is more than possible, it is within reach and it is a necessity,” the Chair of the Conference of States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Person with Disabilities declared today. As the Conference concluded its three-day fourth session, Chair Mårten Grunditz of Sweden emphasized that all the world’s people would “lose out” if the rights of persons with disabilities were not realized.

The Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) met this morning to fill vacant positions on its Bureau for the upcoming sixty-sixth session of the General Assembly.

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) met this morning to elect the remainder of its Bureau for the upcoming sixty-sixth session of the General Assembly.

Amid a commemoration ceremony marking the tenth anniversary of the attacks against the United States on 11 September 2001, the President of the General Assembly today called on Member States to work for the swift conclusion of a draft general convention on terrorism during the world body’s upcoming sixty-sixth session.

By raising the voices of persons with disabilities to the highest levels of Government and decision-making, their participation in political and public life — a critical human right in itself — also formed the bedrock for many other rights, participants in the Fourth Conference of States Parties to the Rights of Persons with Disabilities said today.

There were ongoing investigations into previously reported violations of sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear programme, as well as new complaints about its launching of ballistic missiles, the Chair of the Security Council Committee created to monitor implementation of those measures said today.

Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro today urged delegates from Governments and civil society to build on the early success of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities by promoting the issue beyond the walls of the United Nations and telling the world that disabled people could make enormous contributions to progress.