Meetings Coverage

With the United Nations total peacekeeping budget ballooning to $8.2 billion in 2009-2010, speakers in the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today stressed the importance of austerity in a weakened global economic climate, and timely, full payment of assessed contributions so that peacekeeping missions could effectively carry out their mandates.

The international community had a “unique opportunity” to help the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia establish peace and security, speakers emphasized today as the Security Council heard a series of briefings on the situation in that country by senior United Nations officials.

“As we approach the end of the Second International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism, I urge you to continue working together to find solutions for the completion of the decolonization process, with the aim of de-listing additional Territories,” United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a message to the Caribbean Regional Seminar on the Implementation of the Decade, which opened in Saint Kitts and Nevis today.

Now that the world was aware of the vast extent of human trafficking, coordinated global action was needed to end the scourge, Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, President of the General Assembly, said in the opening address of a special meeting on the issue today.

The General Assembly today elected 18 States to serve on the Human Rights Council for three-year terms starting next month, five of which will be sitting on the Geneva-based panel for the first time: Belgium, Hungary, Kyrgyzstan, Norway and the United States.

The challenge facing the Commission on Sustainable Development as it began the second week of its annual session was how to achieve a successful “harvest” of agreed actions and measurable deliverables, the Chairperson of that 53-member body said today, during a brief plenary meeting before negotiations recommenced on a set of policy recommendations to address agriculture, drought, desertification, land use, rural development and sustainable development in Africa.

The Security Council reiterated today its call for renewed and urgent efforts by the parties and the international community to achieve a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East, based on the vision of a region where two democratic States, Israel and Palestine, would live side by side in peace within secure and recognized borders.

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) this morning began its second resumed session -- a four-week session largely dedicated to the funding of peacekeeping-related activities – with speakers urging the Secretariat to avoid a piecemeal approach to strengthening safety and security arrangements in the field, just as the Secretary-General is preparing to present a comprehensive report on security policies at the United Nations this year.

The Security Council today condemned the renewed military incursions in eastern Chad of Chadian armed groups, coming from outside, and demanded that rebel armed groups cease the violence immediately.

At the end of the first week of its annual two-week session, the Commission on Sustainable Development was warned by its Chairperson that it must go further to overcome differences or it would risk falling short of its goal of fashioning critical global policies to address agriculture, drought, desertification, land use, rural development and sustainable development in Africa.