| GEO World | | New UN body to promote women | Updated at: 1625 PST, Tuesday, September 15, 2009
 UN: The UN General Assembly has approved a resolution to create a single UN body to promote the advancement of women.
The move has been hailed by the European Union as an important step in protecting women's rights.
The vote on Monday culminated nearly three years of negotiations, in which the EU has been a driving force, to merge four existing UN bodies dealing with women and create a single entity with greater clout headed by a high-ranking UN official.
But critics complained that the 192-nation General Assembly watered down the resolution at the last minute at the insistence of some member states, deleting any reference to the new body's future mandate.
|  |
|
