Meetings Coverage

The Second Committee (Economic and Financial) met this morning to introduce five draft resolutions, including a new text on “Financial inclusion for sustainable development”.

Citing accelerating terrorist attacks, spikes in displacement and increasingly grave humanitarian challenges, the top United Nations official for the Sahel told the Security Council today that the international community must address the root causes of such threats to prevent further deterioration in the region.

The General Assembly today adopted six resolutions on Palestinian and Middle East issues, as diverse as the Syrian Golan and the United Nations special information programme on the question of Palestine, all by recorded votes, exposing divisions in the world body.

For the first time since 2009, delegates today requested a recorded vote on a draft resolution on the rights of the child, as the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) sent a package of 13 texts to the General Assembly on a range of issues, from preventing violence and women migrant workers to involving youth in paving a way to a sustainable future.

In a meeting commemorating the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, to be observed 29 November, the Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine called on the international community to stop selective and biased policies in applying justice, stressing that the lack of implementation of United Nations resolutions on Israel enabled that country to continue behaving as “a State above the law”.

Draft resolutions that would see the General Assembly address such topics as the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and the impact of mercenaries and globalization on human rights were among 13 texts approved today by the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural).

The world was just one major provocation in Jerusalem away from a descent into an unprecedented religious war, the General Assembly was told today as it took up the question of Palestine and heard the introduction of four draft resolutions on that matter.

The Security Council determined today that the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant/Sham (ISIL/ISIS) constituted an “unprecedented” threat to international peace and security, calling upon Member States with the requisite capacity to take “all necessary measures” to prevent and suppress its terrorist acts on territory under its control in Syria and Iraq.

Concerned over the intensity of modern-day conflicts — marked by mounting human, political and financial costs — United Nations Secretary‑General Ban Ki‑moon told the Security Council today that the Organization did not always respond with the speed and effectiveness required.

A comprehensive new approach requiring the efforts of the entire international community was needed to tackle the dramatic and unprecedented refugee crisis in the Mediterranean basin, the General Assembly heard today, as it held a day-long debate on the subject, with a particular focus on the plight of Syrian asylum seekers.