Meetings Coverage

Demand for sustainable goods and services was growing exponentially across the public and private sectors, providing new opportunities for poverty eradication, job creation and environmental protection, but a viable framework for achieving that success was still needed, the Commission on Sustainable Development heard today as it rounded out the first week of its two-week annual session.

A binding nuclear weapons convention, losing the outdated “deterrent” rationale for arsenals and mandating the total elimination of nuclear bombs were among the strong calls that rang through the 2010 Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons as non-governmental organizations addressed delegates at Headquarters today.

The General Assembly today marked the sixty-fifth anniversary of the end of the Second World War, with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon describing the conflict as “one of the most epic struggles for freedom and liberation in history”, and adding that the devastating seven-year war had also led to the creation of the United Nations to foster peace, international cooperation and prevent future conflicts.

The Commission on Sustainable Development today began exploring a 10-year framework of programmes to promote sustainable consumption and production patterns, with speakers saying that change must begin in developed countries, where consumption was focused on luxury, whereas it was based on meeting basic needs in the developing world.

As long as the possession of nuclear weapons equalled power in the global “psyche”, the implications for the future of non-proliferation and disarmament would be profound, the 2010 Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) Review Conference heard today.

With Nepal’s Maoists blocking the streets of Kathmandu in the fifth day of their general strike, the top United Nations official in that country warned the Security Council about the implications of the opposition party’s face-off with the Government, saying that the peace process “is at a delicate and critical moment” and the protests threatened to derail the four-year effort to hammer out a power-sharing agreement.

Meeting in four parallel sessions today, delegates in the Commission on Sustainable Development sounded the alarm over consumption and production habits that could put the Millennium Development Goals at risk, as they continued their review of key issues worldwide.

Strong efforts to advance the creation of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East and define the contours of a legally binding international convention to eliminate nuclear weapons were urgently needed to prevent the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty from being undermined, ministers and other officials warned the 2010 Review Conference as they continued into a third day of debate.

Security Council members welcomed the European Union’s wide-ranging work with the United Nations on peace and security, as well as the potential for even stronger cooperation due to the new Lisbon Treaty arrangements, following a briefing by the first occupant of the Union’s consolidated security directorship.

Meeting for the second day of its resumed session, the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today heard the proposed budgets of nine United Nations peacekeeping and integrated missions for the 2010/11 financial year, which ranged from $1.44 billion for the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) to $47.9 million for the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), tasked with maintaining the 1974 Israel-Syria ceasefire.