Speaking an hour before Netanyahu, Abbas told the general assembly that Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank was destroying "whatever possibility is left for a two-state solution".
NORTHERN IRELAND: HUME STEPS DOWN John Hume, the Nobel Prize-winning architect of the Northern Ireland peace accord, resigned from the new power-sharing assembly that the settlement created, citing the workload involved with being a member of the British and European Parliaments and leader of the Catholic Social Democratic and Labor Party.
Australia no longer votes for general assembly motions criticising settlements or motions that note all settlements are illegal under international law.
She said an increase in AMs would be part of a "strong and clear constitutional settlement for the assembly and the people of Wales".
The union's delegate assembly is to vote on the settlement tomorrow, and mail ballots are to be sent out late this week.
Outside Gate 34 of Ford's assembly plant in this working-class settlement east of London, Steve Johnston, 42, said that after 23 years of working for Ford here, he had one question: "Why Dagenham?
The union reached the settlement after its delegates' assembly voted 365 to 2 last month to reject a similar deal, which called for an 11.75 percent raise over 30 months, instead of the 24 months in the new agreement.
In a half-hour address to leaders of the 192 countries that form the UN general assembly, Obama depicted the crisis over settlements as a test that was fast approaching.
Under the resolution, the assembly demanded that Israel act on the decision on July 9 by the International Court of Justice in The Hague that the barrier built on West Bank land to shield Israeli settlements was illegal and should be torn down.
Barack Obama sought to hold the shaky Middle East peace process together today by making a direct appeal from the podium of the UN general assembly to Israel to extend its moratorium on settlement building in the occupied West Bank.
