Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu speaks to UN general assembly - live updates Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of remarks before the UN general assembly of Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas is scheduled to speak first, at around noon. Our diplomatic editor, Julian Borger, is on the scene at the UN here in New York. Here's what we'll be watching for: Netanyahu is expected to keep up his drumbeat of forceful calls for an American-led military strike on Iran's nuclear program. Netanyahu's increasingly vocal demands that the United States take a more aggressive stance on the issue have given him an unusually high profile in the US presidential election. Today's speech is the best platform the Israeli leader is likely to have to make his case before US attention turns wholly to the vote in November. Abbas is expected to make a request for a status upgrade to "non-member observer state" at the UN for the Palestinians. Last year, a vote on full-member status was put off for lack of support in the security council. Abbas held a meeting with Jewish leaders in New York in which the Palestinian leader is said to have signaled his willingness to re-open bilateral peace talks. He could make those intentions public. He finds new support in the general assembly this year from the Egyptian president, Muhamed Morsi, who began his speech yesterday with a call for relief for Palestinian suffering.