Once a year, the world’s leaders descend on New York for the UN’s blue ribbon event, the cumbersomely-titled UN General Assembly’s General Debate.

This year, the build-up has been dominated by the Palestinian Authority’s planned bid to become the 194th member of the UN, following South Sudan’s incorporation earlier in the year.

Notwithstanding any last minute deals, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will personally submit the application to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday, September 23, after Abbas has delivered his speech to assembled leaders.

Indeed, Friday’s session is set to be a cracker, since it also features Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s speech, in which he must surely address the issue. And yet while the Palestinian membership-issue is grabbing all the headlines, there’s plenty of other highlights.

Ahead of the formal UNGA opening today, there was a high-level meeting on Libya yesterday, the first since the UN formally recognised the Transitional National Council as the official representative of Libya last Friday. 

US President Barack Obama met privately for the first time with TNC Chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil, and held separate summits with President Hamid Karzai before he returned to Aghanistan to join the mourning of the assassinated leader Burhanuddin Rabbani.

Tuesday also saw French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe host a ministerial-level meeting of the so-called Deauville Partnership, a G20-offshoot dedicated to supporting fledgling Arab democracies.

The Debate kicks off today with an address by the Brazilian President, the first for Dilma Rousseff since she took office in January and no doubt a welcome relief from domestic troubles.

A notable absence, though, is Russian leader Dmitry Mevedev, who has chosen to delegate responsibilities this year to Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

In the afternoon South Africa’s Jacob Zuma will be speaking. On Thursday morning, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gives his traditionally polemical speech (who can forget last year, when he alluded to the 9/11 attacks being a conspiracy). British Prime Minister David Cameron also speaks that session.

Highlights from the afternoon session on Thursday include an inaugural address by newly-elected Peruvian President Ollanta Humala, an address from ageing despot Robert Mugabe, and also remarks from Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose star is in the ascendancy amid Turkey’s role in the Arab Spring.

On the sidelines that day, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is hosting a UN High-Level Meeting on Nuclear Safety and Security, likely to focus significantly on lessons to be learned from the crisis at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant back in March. Friday, as we’ve seen, is all about the Palestinian-membership issue.

But in the morning there is also a first-time address from new Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda , who is expected to put in appearance also at the nuclear safety meeting. That afternoon South Sudanese President Salva Kiir – who meets one on one with President Obama earlier in the week – will give his country’s address for the first time since it became member number 193 last July

Sadly, one of the traditionally more entertaining speakers – Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez – is not expected to make the journey to New York this time, as he is recovering from a fourth round of chemotherapy for cancer discovered earlier in the year.

By Allan Williams

Former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega has until Monday to appeal against his extradition to Panama. The 77-year-old is currently serving a prison sentence in France after being convicted of money laundering in July 2010.

On Tuesday attention turns to Japan when the Parliament elects its sixth Prime Minister in five years. Incumbent Naoto Kan announced he was stepping down over plummeting approval ratings, following the earthquake and tsunami earlier this year.

Wednesday sees Canada release its second quarter GDP figures. Fears of the economy contracting grew following an announcement earlier this month that manufacturing sales declined 1.5per cent in June, to their lowest level since November 2010.

Also on Wednesday South African President Jacob Zuma makes a state visit to Norway at the invitation of King Harald V. The two-day trip includes a wreath-laying ceremony at the National Monument and a meeting with Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg.

In the UK, on Thursday, repatriations of deceased British troops move from RAF Lyneham to RAF Brize Norton. RAF Lyneham and the parade through the nearby town of Wootton Bassett have made the headlines with the dignified way locals have mourned the fallen.

In Thailand that same day, Chiranuch Premchaiporn, editor of the liberal news website Prachatai, has her trial for lese majeste offences recommence. It is alleged that Premchaiporn failed to screen comments on her website that were critical of the Thai royal family, and if convicted faces up to 20 years in prison.

Attention turns stateside on Friday, when a US district court decides whether to order a retrial of former baseball star Roger Clemens, who was accused of lying to Congress in 2008 when he denied using anabolic steroids. The original trial was declared a mistrial on 14 July.

In London on Saturday the far-right English Defence League are expected to demonstrate in the borough of Tower Hamlets, against what it sees as militant Islam. The march is expected to be banned by the Home Secretary, but the action group Unite Against Fascism has arranged a counter-protest against the EDL.

On Sunday the UN Special Representative on Somalia Augustine Mahiga convenes a conference in the east African nation to provide clear timelines and benchmarks for the Transitional Federal Institutions.

And in Germany there’s a test for Chancellor Merkel’s coalition when state elections take place in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, with local elections coming under increasing scrutiny as a gauge of popularity for Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union.