Meetings Coverage

The Security Council today extended the arms embargo on Somalia until 15 November 2017, while reaffirming that country’s sovereignty over its natural resources.  It also reaffirmed its arms embargo on Eritrea.

Huge challenges faced United Nations Police in protecting civilians, and there was a need to assess how the environment for police work could be improved and what tools were required, the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations told the Security Council today.

The General Assembly today filled more than 20 vacancies in subsidiary bodies, acting on the recommendation of its Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary), and also appointed new members to the Committee on Conferences, Joint Inspection Unit and the Economic and Social Council.

The Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) approved a resolution today on the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, as well as heard the introduction of seven texts on issues ranging from combating the glorification of Nazism and neo-Nazism, to realizing the right to food.

While there were still many challenges to be addressed, international tribunals set up in the wake of the wars in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda had left behind a historic legacy of bringing to justice perpetrators of atrocity crimes, the General Assembly heard this morning.

The Security Council today renewed for another year its authorization for international naval forces to join in fighting piracy off the coast of Somalia, stressing that while the threat of such crime had declined, it still remained a matter of grave concern.

As Libya continued to be consumed by multiple conflicts, with innocent civilians bearing the brunt of the fighting, the Prosecutor’s Office of the International Criminal Court would seek to expand its efforts in the strife-filled country, the Chief Prosecutor told the Security Council today.

The historic battle to liberate Mosul marked the beginning of the end for the so-called “Da’esh caliphate in Iraq”, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative in that country told the Security Council this morning.

Urging all parties to abide fully by their commitments under the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Security Council renewed its authorization of the European-led multinational stabilization force there (EUFOR ALTHEA) for another year before commencing a debate on the situation in the country today.

The General Assembly would demand that Israel stop exploiting, damaging, depleting or endangering natural resources in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and the occupied Syrian Golan, according to one of three draft resolutions approved by the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) today.