The residual impact of the global economic and financial crisis, fuel crisis and food crisis was high on the minds of speakers in the Third Committee today, with several of them noting how the aftershocks have impeded progress towards achieving social development and the Millennium Development Goals.

Questions of five Non-Self-Governing Territories were still mired in inaction, with few taking seriously enough the need to preserve a people’s voice and self-determination in a world where few had either, the Fourth Committee heard today, as petitioners for New Caledonia, Guam, Turks and Caicos, United States Virgin Islands, and Western Sahara took the floor in the decolonization debate.

It was a conundrum that, while the international community professed a desire for greater progress on disarmament to secure a safer world, it allowed outdated mechanisms at the disposal of Member States to deliver stalemates instead of the advancement of that objective, the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) heard today as it continued its general debate.

Following are UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remarks to mark the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation’s (GAVI) call for action and resources, in New York, 5 October:

As the Sixth Committee today took up the question of measures to eliminate international terrorism, delegates both called for the conclusion of the draft comprehensive convention while at the same time expressing concern that the finalization of the draft convention not be at the expense of international law, humanitarian law and the core tenets of the United Nations Charter.

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today adopted by consensus a resolution that lets six Member States — the Central African Republic, Comoros, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Sao Tome and Principe, and Somalia — keep voting during this year’s sixty-fifth General Assembly session, even though they have fallen behind in their annual payments to the Organization’s budget.

The rule of law and not the rule of power should be promoted in dealing with issues related to disarmament and international security, and exclusive and discriminatory approaches should be avoided, the First Committee heard today as it continued its annual general debate.

Following is a transcript of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s press conference held in New York today, 6 October:

As developing countries struggled to gain economic traction, there was an increasingly urgent need to set up systems to relieve their external debt, bolster their clout in international financial institutions and prevent a recurrence of the reckless speculative developed-world financial practices that had wreaked havoc on their economies, several speakers told the Second Committee as it concluded its general debate today.

The struggle against organized crime, corruption and trafficking in illicit drugs and human beings is too big for any one country to tackle alone, Yury Fedotov, Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, told the Third Committee today, as he appealed to Member States for sustainable funding to enable his Office to fulfil its mandates.