UN Gazeti

Wednesday 28 February 2007

Issue No. 210

UN Observances

 UN IN KENYA

WFP SHIP HIJACKED OFF SOMALIA COAST

The  World  Food Programme announced in Nairobi on Monday  that the MV Rozen, a WFP-contracted vessel, was hijacked off the coast of north-eastern Somalia, somewhere  near  Bargal,  north of Hafun in the state of Puntland at around 0935 on Sunday, 25 February 2007.

On  board  the  vessel  are 12 crew members, six Sri Lankans, including the captain,  and  six Kenyans. The ship had just delivered 1,800 metric tones of WFP food aid and FAO equipment in Berbera and in Bossaso and was sailing empty  back to Mombasa. The ship is now reported to be anchored off Bargal, in Somali waters.

Early last  year,  MV Rozen escaped an attempted hijack in southern Somali waters. Her sister vessel, the MV Semlow, was hijacked with WFP relief food on board for more than 100 days in Somali waters in June 2005. The crew was released  unharmed.  Another  vessel with WFP food aid, the MV Miltzow, was also  hijacked  for 33 hours in October 2005 while it was in the process of unloading food in the port of Merka.

UN IN AFRICA

SG CALLS FOR AID FOR GUINEA

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon yesterday called on the international community to increase its economic cooperation with the new Government of Guinea following President Lansana Conté’s appointment of a consensus prime minister, ending weeks of strikes and deadly clashes with labour unions.

In a statement issued by his spokesperson, Mr. Ban welcomed Mr. Conté’s decision to name Lansana Kouyaté, a former senior UN official, as prime minister and commended “the successful and constructive facilitation role” played by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) headed by General Ibrahim Babangida.

He called on all Guineans to support Mr. Kouyaté, who in 1994 was UN Assistant Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs and before that Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Somalia, and “work together in building momentum towards lasting peace and prosperity in their country.”

For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news

 ICC NAMES FIRST WAR CRIMES SUSPECTS IN DARFUR

The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) chief prosecutor yesterday named a Sudanese minister and a militia commander as the first suspects he wants tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sudan’s conflict-wracked Darfur region.

The Security Council referred the Darfur issue, along with the names of 51 suspected perpetrators, to the ICC in March 2005, after a UN inquiry into whether genocide occurred in Darfur found the Government responsible for crimes under international law and strongly recommended referring the dossier to the Court.

ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo presented evidence showing that Ahmad Muhammad Harun, former Sudanese Minister of State for the Interior, and Janjaweed militia leader Ali Kushayb, “jointly committed crimes against the civilian population in Darfur,” according to an ICC press release.

For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news

 CRITICAL SHORTAGES OF FUNDS

Because of a critical shortage of funds, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said yesterday it would be forced to cut the vital food aid rations it currently provides to around 500,000 of the most vulnerable people in Zambia over the coming weeks.

WFP needs $29 million to fund its operations across the Central African country until the end of the year, but with food stocks dwindling, it has already begun reducing some rations and is planning for a series of massive cuts to its aid operations. It is calling for cash donations so that food can be bought in Zambia and the region.

“WFP’s resources are rapidly running out,” agency Country Director David Stevenson said yesterday. “In March or April we will be forced to stop distributing food to some of the most disadvantaged people in Zambia, such as orphans and patients undergoing treatment for AIDS.

For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news

 UNICEF GOODWILL AMBASSADOR’S PLEA FOR REFUGEES IN CHAD

Humanitarian assistance is crucial to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of “utterly neglected” and “desperate” people affected by conflict in the Central African Republic (CAR) and Chad, actress and Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Mia Farrow said yesterday, upon returning from a visit to the area.

“I don’t see how this extremely fragile and completely abandoned population can possibly survive” without a rapid injection of international aid, Ms. Farrow told reporters at a press briefing at UN Headquarters. “The enormity of the humanitarian situation and the fact that it has scarcely been addressed…is incomprehensible to me.”

Ms. Farrow recalled, in vivid detail, an encounter while on the road in northwest CAR. After seeing “burnt village after burnt village after burnt village,” the UN convoy she was riding in paused because she had heard that hundreds of thousands of people, forced out of their homes by fighting, lived in the bush, she said.

For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news

EXPERTS SAY MORE NEEDS TO BE DONE FOR SECONDARY EDUCATION

Addis Ababa, 27 Feb 2007: Experts and education officials from 20 countries in Eastern and Southern Africa are calling upon governments and development agencies to pay greater attention to the large number of children who fail to proceed to secondary school because of limited opportunities.

Meeting in Addis Ababa under the auspices of the UN Girls Education Initiative, the experts say governments need to consolidate the gains made in universal primary education by abolishing school fees for lower and upper secondary education, investing more in vocational and technical education and job training, and promoting lifeskills, health education, and income generating Programmes.

Several countries in the region have succeeded in increasing primary school enrolments largely by abolishing school fees and recruiting more teachers. However, transition rates for children from primary to secondary school remain relatively poor. Burundi, Mozambique, and  Tanzania, for example, have transition rates of below 35 per cent, meaning less than four out of every 10 children make it to secondary school. Botswana, Kenya, Namibia, and South Africa are among the better performers at more than 85 per cent.

For more information, contact  Patricia Lone, UNICEF ESARO. Email; plone@unicef.org

UN AROUND THE WORLD

SG CONDEMNS REBEL ATTACK IN SRI LANKA
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon yesterday condemned an attack by separatist rebels in Sri Lanka which injured senior aid officials, including one from the United Nations, and urged both sides in the conflict to halt the bloodshed and resume talks.

Mr. Ban’s statement came in reaction to the shelling by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) of a helicopter airfield in Batticaloa in eastern Sri Lanka, where 12 people, including the UN Resident Coordinator and other members of a high-ranking international delegation taking part in a humanitarian assessment mission, were injured, according to a statement released by his spokesperson condemning the incident.

“The attack was in total disregard for the lives of civilians, humanitarian workers, Government officials, and the international community,” Michele Montas told reporters in New York.

For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news

UNHCR SENDS AID FOR COLOMBIANS IN ECUADOR

The United Nations refugee agency is distributing emergency items and food rations to more than 300 people who fled into Ecuador from Colombia in the latest spasm of over four decades of conflict between Government forces, leftist guerrillas, rightist paramilitaries and criminal gangs that has driven 3 million Colombians from their homes.

“So far, we have registered 315 people, more than half of them children,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesperson Jennifer Pagonis told a news briefing in Geneva yesterday, noting that according to the new arrivals, many more could be on the way.

“Many in the group are still very visibly shocked and scared. They say they fled after an irregular armed group killed the local schoolteacher and threatened other people,” she said. “Local authorities on the Colombian side of the border report fighting in the area.”

For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news

SG SAYS MIDDLE EAST PEACE PROCESS MUST CONTINUE

In the face of “enormous” challenges – such as Israeli military operations and Palestinian suicide attacks targeting Israeli civilians – the Middle East peace process must persevere in order for Israelis and Palestinians to exist peacefully as neighbours, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said yesterday.

“Today, we are at a critical juncture in efforts to move beyond crisis management, and renew efforts toward genuine conflict resolution,” Mr. Ban told the 2007 session of the United Nations Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, meeting in New York.
Palestinians crave freedom and independence while Israelis yearn for enduring security, yet “neither can achieve their legitimate demands without a settlement of the conflict,” he added.

For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news

UN OFFICIAL URGES WORLD COMMUNITY TO SEEK PALESTINIAN UNITY

The agreement to form a new Palestinian Unity Government challenges the international community to “match the courage and compromises” shown by the rival parties with “bold steps of its own,” a senior United Nations official said yesterday.

“The inter-factional fighting that raged across parts of Gaza posed a genuine threat to the existence of the Palestinian polity,” UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) Commissioner-General Karen Koning AbuZayd told a meeting of the agency’s Advisory Commission in Amman, Jordan.

“Palestinians had to confront the shocking – and embarrassing, I might add – realization that their vulnerability to destruction could come not only from the modern armaments of their old foes across the green line but also from within,” she added.

For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news

SG EMPHASIZES ICT ROLE IN DEVELOPMENT

Information and communications technologies (ICT) are crucial in spurring “development, dignity and peace,” United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon yesterday told a gathering of technology experts, activists, corporate leaders and government officials.

“Let us turn the digital divide into digital opportunity,” Mr. Ban said in a video message at the opening of the Steering Committee’s meeting of the Global Alliance for Information and Communications Technologies and Development, a UN initiative.
Governments, civil society, the private sector, academia and others must join forces to “promote new business models, public policies and technology solutions in the global approach to development,” he added.

For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news

UN REPORT OUTLINES PLAN FOR CUTTING RISKS FROM CLIMATE CHANGE

Improved transportation systems, tighter building codes and financing for energy-efficiency investments are among the measures recommended in a new scientific report on coping with climate change that was prepared at the request of the United Nations.

The UN Foundation and Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society, presented the report “Confronting Climate Change: Avoiding the Unmanageable and Managing the Unavoidable” to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who has called climate change one of his priority concerns.

The report notes that the technology exists to “seize significant opportunities around the globe” to reduce emissions and provide other economic, environmental and social benefits.

For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news

COMMUNITY-BASED INTERVENTIONS CAN HALT VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

A new study by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) shows that community-based interventions aimed at halting violence against women can yield significant results, the agency said on Monday.

Rape in Mauritania, domestic violence in Mexico and Romania, child marriage in Bangladesh, and female genital mutilation or cutting in Kenya are just a few of the abuses explored in “Programmeming to Address Violence Against Women,” which offers 10 case studies that show how carefully targeted and planned interventions can actually reduce gender-based violence, the agency said.

“What is unusual about this manual is that we have actually demonstrated how entire communities can change their attitudes to violence against women as a result of a few, specifically targeted interventions,” said UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid in a news release.

For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news

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