Plenary

With some 64 million people living in absolute poverty and the gap between rich and poor nations as wide as ever, global development was at a critical juncture, making it imperative to assist least developed countries meet their most basic needs, whether by opening markets, closing protracted trade agreements or scaling up badly needed humanitarian assistance, senior Government officials said today as the General Assembly continued its general debate.

Consideration of the appropriate use of mediation and military intervention took the fore today as the General Assembly held the fourth day of the general debate of its sixty-sixth session, with the representatives of the transitional Libyan, Egyptian and Somali authorities taking the floor and international options for dealing with other turmoil in the region continuing to garner much debate.

Declaring “this is the moment of truth, our people are waiting to hear the answer of the world”, Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, outlined an application for United Nations membership before a packed hall today as the General Assembly continued its general debate. As world leaders held their annual gathering at the United Nations, he urged them to “stand beside Palestine” as it pursued its historic goal.

In a year of clarion calls for reform in the Middle East and North Africa that truly reflected peoples’ aspirations, the United Nations must not miss the “massive” opportunity presented by the so-called Arab Spring to act, whether by providing aid to famine-stricken countries, helping to mediate crises or standing up to regimes that persecuted their people, world leaders said today as the General Assembly moved into day two of its annual general debate.

Acting to bolster global resolve to combat racism, the United Nations today adopted a Declaration aimed at mobilizing political support to end all forms of racial discrimination and related intolerance, and to place victims at the centre of measures to promote equal opportunity, openness and inclusion.

Opening the General Assembly’s annual high-level debate amid a global climate marked by lingering financial uncertainty, widening social inequality and growing cries for self-determination, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today urged world leaders to tackle those challenges decisively so as to secure a better world for future generations.

Addressing the General Assembly’s two-day summit on non-communicable diseases this afternoon as it drew to a close, Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of the City of New York, implored Governments worldwide to adopt the type of public policies and strategies that had enabled his administration to reduce deadly chronic illnesses and promote healthy lifestyles among the city’s 8.4 million people.

An international framework to control non-communicable diseases must include broad factors and actors at every level, speakers said this morning at the final round table at the high-level meeting of the General Assembly on the threat.

Too often seen as a “lost cause”, the world’s drylands — home to 2 billion people — must be placed higher on the international agenda as poor land management, climate change and conflict threatened to jeopardize hard-won gains in painstaking national efforts to reduce poverty and improve development prospects, top United Nations and other officials said today during the High-level Meeting of the General Assembly to address desertification, land degradation and drought.

Non-communicable diseases were quickly becoming a threat to socio-economic development in the world’s poorest countries, speakers participating in the first round table of the General Assembly’s high-level meeting on the subject said this morning.