Taking up a range of topics, the Fifth Committee was told today that it was “imperative” to have a support system in place for United Nations personnel that had survived malicious acts, natural disasters and other emergencies, and to coordinate with families of deceased staff members.

Gender inequality and discrimination were key drivers of women’s and girl’s increased vulnerability to HIV infection, and while various global commitments had been made, national interventions had not been implemented on a scale that made a true difference in prevention, the Commission on the Status of Women heard today as it addressed health and related issues on its last day of high-level debate.

Addressing a panel of United Nations rights experts, Luis Duhalde, Secretary of Human Rights of Argentina, highlighted his country’s efforts to protect and promote such rights and provide justice for all its citizens, as he declared the determination of his Government to overcome the lingering effects of repressive laws promulgated during Argentina’s military dictatorship, which ruled from 1976 to 1983.

Argentina had made steady strides in breaking with its legacy of military dictatorship, but the repression of those dark years continued to reverberate in ways that could forestall reform efforts, experts on the Human Rights Committee said today as they wrapped up consideration of that county’s fourth periodic report on compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon today called on the international community to urgently join forces to end one of the most brutal and entrenched forms of gender discrimination ‑‑ violence against women, in an address to the Commission on the Status of Women’s fifty-fourth session.

From the very beginning of its independence just 18 years ago, Uzbekistan had sought to protect and promote the civil and political rights of all its citizens and had moved swiftly to adopt legislative, administrative and other measures to that end, such as abolishing the death penalty in 2008, the Director of the country’s National Human Rights Centre told the Human Rights Committee today.

The Security Council this morning decided to extend the mandate of the United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad for two months, as discussions on its future continued with the Chadian Government.

The Commission on the Status of Women concluded its fifty-fourth session today with the adoption of six resolutions on a range of issues concerning gender equality and women’s empowerment, and the approval of one text, by recorded vote, on Palestinian women, to be sent to the Economic and Social Council for adoption. The Commission also adopted the draft report of its current session, as well as the provisional agenda of its fifty-fifth session.

The United Nations Disarmament Commission, ahead of its 2010 substantive session slated for 29 March to 16 April, today elected Jean-Francis Régis Zinsou (Benin) as Chair, who urged that members “look at the future with a positive spirit”.

Although the Disarmament Commission had not been able to agree on elements of a draft declaration of the 2010s as the fourth disarmament decade -- the Commission’s main task this year -- a good basis for next year’s deliberations had been achieved, Commission Chairman Andrzej Towpik (Poland) told delegates today at the closing of its 2009 substantive session.