Meetings Coverage

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.

With Timor-Leste’s broad transition strategy showing solid progress on security- and judicial-sector reforms, the top United Nations official in the country told the Security Council today that upcoming elections and the transformation of the world body’s mission there would be important political tests for the resiliency of the Timorese Government and the durability of the institutions built since the military crisis of 2006.

The United Nations would aim in the coming year to build on 2010 efforts to bolster the ability of the “blue helmets” to protect civilians, defuse conflict and foster sustainable peace in strife-torn areas through a range of policy-development, operational capacity, field support, planning and oversight-improvement measures, the head of the world body’s peacekeeping operations told the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations as it opened its 2011 substantive session today.

The Commission for Social Development wrapped up its forty-ninth session today by approving without a vote five draft resolutions calling for wide-ranging steps, from support for the New Partnership for Africa’s Development and the upcoming review of the action plan on ageing to improving the lot of youth, persons with disabilities and families.

The Security Council today failed to adopt a text that would have described as “illegal” Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 while reiterating demands that all settlement activity cease immediately.