Meetings Coverage

Green growth would help mitigate climate change, it was good for the economy and the world had the money to fund it, several experts told the Second Committee today during a panel discussion on “Green growth and sustainable development.”

While applauding the heroism of United Nations peacekeepers, often operating in harsh environments, Fourth Committee delegations drew attention to a wide range of topics during their annual review of those operations, centred on critical operational aspects, such as the need for force protection, along with timely and reliable logistical support, an effective political process, and cooperation between the United Nations’ different organs and troop- and police-contributors.

United Nations peacekeeping was an increasingly complex and dangerous endeavour that rested on the shared partnership of Member States, the Security Council and the Secretariat, succeeding quietly, every day, in mitigating harm to thousands of civilians around the globe, Under-Secretary-General Alain Le Roy told the Fourth Committee today, as it began its comprehensive review of the whole question of peacekeeping in all its aspects.

The barriers blocking disarmament negotiations were beginning to come down, a clear sign of which had been the agreement last May in the Geneva Conference on Disarmament of a programme of work, after a decade-long impasse, the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) heard today.

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) this morning recommended that the General Assembly endorse the recommendations of the Board of Auditors on the financial report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for the year ended 31 December 2008, for which the Board had issued a qualified audit opinion this year, with three emphases of matter.

A stable and steady approach on the part of the international community was required to ensure the long-term stability of Timor-Leste, Atul Khare, Special Representative of the Secretary-General, told the Security Council this morning.

In a world where 1 billion people already suffered from chronic hunger, global food supplies must increase by 50 per cent to meet expected demand from a growing world population, the United States delegate told the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) today, as the Committee concluded its consideration of agriculture development and food security.

As the Sixth Committee considered reports of its Working Groups on terrorism and criminal liability today, it took actions recommending that observer status in the work of the General Assembly be granted to three organizations.

States would better serve their societies -- particularly vulnerable groups like women, the extreme poor and trafficked persons -- if they took a human rights-based approach in designing and implementing social, economic and cultural policies, the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) was told today as it rounded out its first week of discussions on the promotion and protection of human rights.

As the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) concluded its general debate on the peaceful uses of outer space this afternoon, delegates greeted the increase in the number of countries focusing on outer space issues, affirming space technologies as of “inestimable value” to the Earth’s population, but warned at the same time of the danger of its militarization.