Friday, June 9 2006 10:18 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

United Nations: Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa of Bahrain yesterday (June 9, 2006) pledged to work for eliminating terrorism and terrorist ideologies, after she was elected President of the 61st session of UN General Assembly, becoming the third woman ever to be chosen for the top job.

Laying out her agenda minutes after being chosen by acclamation to preside the 191-member General Assembly beginning in September, the 53-year old diplomat said she would continue to work for UN reforms, strengthening multilateralism, resolution of conflicts, improving environment and empowering women worldwide.

It is crucial to develop 'comprehensive and practical' strategies to combat one of the greatest evils, terrorism, she said and stressed the importance of removing poverty, unemployment, illiteracy and extremism to eliminate the scourge.

In this context, she stressed the need to reform the educational curricula, especially which teaches the ideologies of exclusion and replace it with the one that promotes openness, critical thinking and creativity.

The former ambassador to France, who is the third woman to hold the top post after Vijya Lakshmi Pandit of India and Angie E Brooks of Liberia, called for putting an end to ongoing violations of human freedoms.

"We are aware that a majority of people of the world are living with hunger, disease, illiteracy, war and displacements internally and internationally and yet we should not lose hope, I believe, that great hope can arise from most challenging circumstances," she said.