Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has pledged to protect the interests of all 134 countries in the UN’s Group of 77, a bloc of mainly developing nations, as his state took chairmanship of the group from Egypt for 2019.
The G77 group was originally founded by 77 members in 1964 but has expanded to 134 mainly developing nations – more than two-thirds of the UN’s 193 member states.
Israel, the United States and Australia were the only countries that voted to oppose Palestine’s chairmanship at the UN General Assembly in October.
The chairmanship marks a key step forward for the Palestinian presence at the UN. The UN General Assembly recognised Palestine as an observer state in 2012 following a failed bid for full UN membership.
Read the article in the Herald Sun (Deutsche Presse Agentur).