Meetings Coverage

Afghanistan’s transition to responsibility for its own security, governance and development, put into motion this year, would result in a realignment of aid but not the country’s abandonment, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for that country said today.

The Security Council decided this morning to establish the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals to finish the remaining tasks of the Tribunals for Rwanda and the Former Yugoslavia, and maintain their respective legacies.

Expressing serious concern at continued fighting and condemning terrorist attacks by armed groups and foreign fighters, the Security Council today extended its authorization of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) until 30 September 2011. Unanimously adopting resolution 1964 (2010) under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, the Council requested the African Union to increase AMISOM’s force strength from the current mandated level of 8,000 troops to a maximum of 12,000.

Acting on a number of outstanding plenary-generated decisions and administrative matters, the General Assembly this morning elected members to the Peacebuilding Commission, adopted resolutions on cooperation between the United Nations and regional entities, and outlined its plans for a major four-year push to assess, strengthen and reaffirm support for the world body’s historic 1994 action plan on population and development.

The General Assembly today adopted 52 resolutions and 6 decisions recommended to it by its Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural), including one welcoming the establishment of “UN Women” and another that sets new standards governing the treatment of women prisoners.

Pointing out that in his youth during the Korean War, the United Nations had been a “beacon of hope”, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged members of the Security Council to act decisively to enable the Organization to keep that status, as he spoke at a special event for youth sponsored by the United States, whose delegation holds that body’s rotating presidency for the month.

The Thirteenth Meeting of States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of the Child today elected nine members to the Committee on the Rights of the Child.

The General Assembly today adopted landmark draft resolutions setting forth strategies to protect coral reefs and mitigate the ill effects of chemical munitions dumped at sea, while declaring international years and decades for the promotion of sustainable energy, water cooperation and biodiversity.

Noting with concern that terrorism continued to pose a serious threat to international peace and security and underscoring the central role of the United Nations in that global fight, the Security Council today decided that the Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED) would continue to operate as a special political mission under the policy guidance of the Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee for another three years, through 31 December 2013.

The outgoing members of the Security Council — Austria, Japan, Mexico, Turkey and Uganda — delivered briefings this morning on the work of subsidiary bodies they had chaired during their two-year tenure.