Meetings Coverage

Expressing its strong endorsement of continuing assistance by the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) in preparations for upcoming elections, the Security Council this morning welcomed the parliamentary agreement which would allow the polls to take place in January 2010.

Mirroring the international community’s growing awareness of the trauma that people and their Governments suffered when their cultural properties were stolen or trafficked, the General Assembly today considered a draft resolution that asked Member States to actively cooperate in returning displaced cultural artefacts to their rightful home countries.

Terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to non-State actors continued to be a threat to international peace and security, and cooperation was a crucial element in the efforts to counter that threat, Ranko Vilovic ( Croatia) told the Security Council today.

While near-consensus had been reached on many issues that had stymied reform of the Security Council for years, questions about exactly how to expand the 15‑member body in a way that guaranteed its effectiveness remained a stubborn snag in building on progress, General Assembly delegates said today as they wrapped up their two-day joint debate on those and other security matters.

The General Assembly would express deep concern at the negative stereotyping of religions and manifestations of intolerance and discrimination in matters of religion or belief by one of 16 texts the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) approved today -- six of them by recorded vote.

Acting without a vote, the Sixth Committee (Legal) today approved 10 draft resolutions and three decisions, as it wound up its main body of work for the current Assembly session by giving consideration to the report of the Committee on Relations with the Host Country.

The Second Committee (Economic and Financial) approved two draft resolutions today, including a text that would have the General Assembly demand that Israel stop exploiting, damaging, depleting or endangering the natural resources of the Occupied Palestinian Territory and the occupied Syrian Golan.

A new tone of flexibility and compromise emerged during the General Assembly’s annual debate on Security Council reform, as delegates vowed to push towards achieving a model that would produce the elusive consensus needed to revamp the United Nations’ most recognizable body.

Expressing deep regret that civilians continued to account for the vast majority of casualties in armed conflicts, the Security Council reaffirmed today its readiness to respond to the targeting of civilians and the blocking of humanitarian aid, as it opened a day-long debate on the matter.

What the international community faced today concerning the “crimes committed in Gaza by the Israeli regime was not a lack of standards and norms, but a need for greater effort to implement them”, Iran’s representative told the Fourth Committee as it concluded its general debate on Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories.