Meetings Coverage

A new tone of flexibility and compromise emerged during the General Assembly’s annual debate on Security Council reform, as delegates vowed to push towards achieving a model that would produce the elusive consensus needed to revamp the United Nations’ most recognizable body.

Expressing deep regret that civilians continued to account for the vast majority of casualties in armed conflicts, the Security Council reaffirmed today its readiness to respond to the targeting of civilians and the blocking of humanitarian aid, as it opened a day-long debate on the matter.

As the Fifth Committee this morning considered the progress achieved during the first year of the construction phase of the Capital Master Plan, speakers stressed the highest priority of the smooth and cost-effective implementation of the project and its timely completion.

The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People today recommended adoption by the General Assembly of four draft resolutions concerning its work, the work of the Division for Palestinian Rights and of the Department of Public Information regarding the question of Palestine as well as the peaceful settlement of that question.

Underscoring the importance of dialogue and tolerance to enriching cultures and promoting understanding among faiths, the General Assembly capped its two-day debate on the culture of peace with the adoption of two consensus resolutions that sought to make peace a way of life for people around the world.

What the international community faced today concerning the “crimes committed in Gaza by the Israeli regime was not a lack of standards and norms, but a need for greater effort to implement them”, Iran’s representative told the Fourth Committee as it concluded its general debate on Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories.

Saying torture can “never be justified,” the Third Committee today approved a draft resolution that would have the General Assembly condemn all forms of torture and any action, or even attempts, by States or public officials to legalize, authorize or acquiesce in torture and other inhuman treatment under any circumstances, including on grounds of national security or through judicial decisions.

A total of 14 draft resolutions were introduced in the Second Committee this afternoon on agenda items ranging from sustainable development to macroeconomic policy questions to globalization and interdependence.

The past year had witnessed a deterioration of the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as Israel intensified its military aggression, serious human rights violations and grave breaches of international humanitarian law, instead of pursuing peace, the observer for Palestine said today as the Fourth Committee began its annual discussion of Israeli practices affecting the human rights of Arabs in the occupied territories.

Deeply concerned about the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan eight years after the fall of the Taliban, the General Assembly today adopted by consensus a wide-ranging resolution that urgently appealed to the international community to keep working with the Afghan Government to funnel all possible and necessary humanitarian, reconstruction, development and other types of assistance to the struggling nation.