Meetings Coverage

The First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) met this morning to fill vacant positions on its Bureau for the upcoming sixty-sixth session of the General Assembly.

Affirming a leadership role for the United Nations in international efforts to support a nationally led process aimed at building a democratic, independent and united Libya, the Security Council decided this afternoon to establish a support mission in that country.

The Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations appealed this evening to authorities in Serbia and Kosovo to maintain calm and avoid exacerbating tensions over a plan to hand over authority on boundary crossing points to the European Union mission with the presence of Kosovo customs officials.

The Security Council this morning decided to reappoint Serge Brammertz as Prosecutor of the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia until 31 December 2014.

Emphasizing the importance of international support to Sierra Leone during the 2012 elections and its quest for long-term peace, security and development, the Security Council decided this morning to extend the mandate of the United Nations Integrated Peacebuilding Office in that country for one year, until 15 September 2012.

Declaring the present a “remarkable moment” for Somalia following recent broad-based agreements, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for the east African country appealed to the Security Council today to send an unequivocal message of encouragement to its leadership while firmly opposing any return to political bickering or further extension of the political transition.

The Security Council this morning decided to reappoint Hassan Bubacar Jallow as Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda until 31 December 2014.

“We come together at a critical juncture,” said the incoming General Assembly President Nassir Abdulaziz al-Nasser, as he opened the 193‑member body’s sixty-sixth session with a call to action on the United Nations to rethink the way it did business in the wake of ongoing global economic turmoil, popular protests that were upending once-stable Governments and the seemingly unending raft of natural hazards and man-made disasters.

The free, fair and peaceful holding of upcoming elections was critical for Liberia’s emergence from its brutal civil war, but even if they succeeded, joint Liberian and international rebuilding efforts were not yet finished, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative in that country told the Security Council today.

Sierra Leone was continuing to develop into a “stable, peaceful and economically more viable democracy”, but it was critical on the eve of general elections to reinforce that progress further to avert a resurgence of the tensions that had helped ignite the devastating civil war, the Secretary-General’s Executive Representative in that country told the Security Council today.