The General Assembly today elected 18 members of the Economic and Social Council to serve three-year terms beginning 1 January 2015. Those elected today were Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Estonia, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Honduras, India, Japan, Mauritania, Pakistan, Portugal, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda and Zimbabwe.
Presidential elections in Côte d’Ivoire next year would be a “critical” moment to assess progress in the security situation, as the West African nation continued to recover from its 2011 political crisis, the Chair of the United Nations body overseeing the sanctions regime told the Security Council today.
Escalating tensions in East Jerusalem must be diffused without delay, but they could not be separated from the wider unresolved conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, the United Nations top political official told the Security Council this afternoon.
Nothing represented the best of the United Nations globally than the sight of blue helmets safeguarding peace day in and out in difficult locations, the representative of Indonesia said this morning, as the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) continued its comprehensive review of peacekeeping operations, during which speakers laid out their vision for a process that responded to new challenges without abandoning traditional tenets.
Commencing deliberations in the Sixth Committee (Legal) on the ‘second cluster’ of topics of the annual report, the Chair of the International Law Commission introduced the four topics, highlighting the conclusion of consideration of the “obligation to extradite or prosecute” (aut dedere aut judicare), and the start of its work on “protection of the atmosphere”.
With thousands of unexploded ordnances still littering neighbourhoods and winter fast approaching, accelerated efforts were needed to swiftly deliver humanitarian relief and reconstruction materials to Gaza, the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) was told today during interactive dialogues with experts, as it continued its debate on human rights.
Civil society spaces were shrinking around the world as ordinary people’s lives were being changed without their input and against their will, the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) heard today as it continued its consideration of human rights, with presentations by six experts who had investigated problems in specific countries, and two reporting on global issues.
The growing prospect of cyber warfare needed to be addressed urgently before such weapons broke down the entire edifice of international security, heard the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) as it considered other disarmament measures, before concluding its thematic debate.
With a main focus on the draft articles addressing “expulsion of aliens” and the “protection of persons in the event of disasters”, the Sixth Committee (Legal) continued deliberations today on the report of the International Law Commission.
“While the world has sufficient capacity and resources to ensure adequate food and good nutrition for the global population, over 800 million people are still suffering from chronic hunger”, Viet Nam’s representative told the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) today as it met to discuss agriculture development, food security and nutrition.
