UN General Assembly begins 68th session

The UN General Assembly (UNGA) started Tuesday its 68th session at the UN Headquarters in New York while setting a new development agenda beyond 2015 as its priority.

"The upcoming year will be pivotal for this assembly as we seek to identify the parameters of the post-2015 development agenda," reported Xinhua citing John William Ashe, president of the 68th UNGA session, in his opening remarks.

"The magnitude of the task before us will require decisive action and the highest levels of collaboration, and we must prove ourselves and our efforts to be equal to the enormity of the task, " he said.

The UN is in the last 1,000 days of action toward its anti- poverty targets that are required to be accomplished by the year of 2015, known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which were agreed by world leaders at a UN summit in 2000.