UN Gazeti
Wednesday 04 April 2007
Issue No. 215
UN Observances
UN IN AFRICA
SECURITY COUNCIL STRESSES NEED FOR NATIONAL RECONCILIATION IN DRC
Calling for a shared commitment from the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC) authorities and political parties to national reconciliation, the Security Council yesterday deplored the recent wave of deadly violence in the African country’s capital and urged all sides to resolve their difference through dialogue.
In a statement read out by Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry of the United Kingdom, which holds this month’s rotating presidency, Council members stressed the legitimacy of the DRC’s recently democratically elected institutions, such as the Government of President Joseph Kabila.
At the same time, the 15-member panel said it was important that these institutions operate with respect for the rule of law, human rights and international humanitarian law, and avoid any unnecessary or disproportionate force.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
AFRICA MUST NOT BE LEFT BEHIND IN RACE TO ACHIEVE MDGs – UN ENVOY
The world will not achieve the series of anti-poverty targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) if the poorest countries in Africa are left behind, a United Nations envoy has told a conference of the continent’s finance, planning and development ministers.
Anwarul K. Chowdhury, UN High Representative for Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States (OHRLLS), said global efforts to attain the MDGs must be harnessed more closely with existing Programmes such as the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) to accelerate economic growth in Africa and ensure that poverty is defeated.
Some 34 of the 50 nations classified as Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are found in Africa. NEPAD is a strategic framework adopted by African leaders in 2001 to try to develop a more integrated approach to tackling socio-economic underdevelopment.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
MILITIA ATTACK ON CHADIAN VILLAGES FORCES MORE TO FLEE
A deadly weekend attack on two villages in south-eastern Chad, possibly carried out by Janjaweed militias from Sudan’s neighbouring Darfur region, has forced at least 2,000 people to flee their homes and seek safety in nearby camps, the United Nations refugee agency reported yesterday.
At least 65 people were killed and 70 others were wounded, half of them seriously, according to preliminary reports following the attack, UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesperson Ron Redmond told journalists in Geneva.
The killings took place on Saturday in the villages of Tiero and Marena, when armed men on horseback and camelback, as well as in motor vehicles, surrounded the two villages and began to fire at random before pursuing and robbing the locals as they tried to flee.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN RIGHTS CHIEF ALARMED BY CIVILIAN DEATHS IN SOMALI CAPITAL
The top United Nations human rights official yesterday expressed deep concern over the high number of Somali civilians killed and injured during the recent fighting in the capital, adding her voice to growing UN calls for all sides to respect international law and protect civilians, while also allowing emergency aid to get through to those in need.
High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour also condemned “repeated cases of desecration of bodies witnessed in recent days,” her spokesman said, adding that there was a worry that civilians will again bear the brunt of fighting if the ceasefire in place since Sunday does not hold.
“The High Commissioner urges the parties to respect international humanitarian law and reminds them of their duty to protect the human rights of civilians at all times. This includes granting civilians safe passage and allowing humanitarian aid to reach those who have been affected,” said the spokesman.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UNICEF: SCHOOL ENROLMENT RATES DOUBLE IN SOUTHERN SUDAN
The number of students enrolled in school in southern Sudan has more than doubled since the end of the long-running civil war two years ago, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), which is backing a local campaign to provide hundreds of new or renovated classrooms and millions of schoolbooks, pencils and other materials to encourage better enrolment rates.
About 850,000 children are now enrolled in southern Sudan, UNICEF reported on Monday, up from an estimated 343,000 during the war, which ended with the signing of a comprehensive peace deal in January 2005. Some 34 per cent of the enrolled children are girls, considered a milestone given some traditional beliefs about education for girls.
Much of the increase has occurred only in the last year, since the Government of Southern Sudan’s education, science and technology ministry launched its “Go To School” initiative, supported by UNICEF.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
ZIMBABWE TOLD TO HALT USE OF LETHAL FORCE ON CIVILIANS
An independent United Nations human rights expert on Monday urged the Zimbabwean Government to immediately halt its use of lethal force against unarmed political activists.
Philip Alston, the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, made his call in a statement which emphasized that the deadly force was a clear violation of international human rights law.
“The Government is, in effect, instructing its forces to shoot innocent people, in complete disregard for the right to life,” he said, adding that this “reflects no attempt to balance the rights to political participation and to freedom of expression and association with any legitimate notion of the need to maintain public order.”
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN AROUND THE WORLD
LANDMINES STILL KILL 20,000 YEARLY - UN OFFICIAL
Although efforts to curtail landmines have been successful, much remains to be done as the devices still kill nearly 20,000 people every year, the top United Nations peacekeeping official said yesterday on the eve of the second-ever International Day dedicated to curbing the scourge.
In the 10 years since the conclusion of the anti-personnel mine-ban treaty, known as the Ottawa Convention, “much obviously has been achieved in terms of eradicating devices which are in the ground and stigmatizing any new use of such weapons, in eliminating stockpiled devices, in assisting victims,” Under-Secretary-General Jean-Marie Guéhenno told reporters in New York.
Casualty rates have been slashed by 50 per cent, “which has enabled millions of people in mine-affected countries to resume their normal lives by making land safe for farming and by allowing children to walk safely to school by opening roads to transportation and commerce,” he added.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
SOLOMON ISLANDS: UN TEAM DEPLOYED AFTER DEADLY TSUNAMI
A six-member United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) team has been dispatched to the Solomon Islands, a day after the Pacific country was struck by a deadly tsunami caused by a powerful underwater earthquake.
At least 28 people have been killed, 19 injured and over 5,400 have been forced to flee their homes, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). With many more people missing and unaccounted for, three Government-organized search-and-rescue missions are under way.
The Government, which has declared a state of emergency, reported that on Choiseul Island, in the north of the country, approximately 1,000 houses have been destroyed based on an aerial assessment. Further investigation has been impeded by communication outages and difficulties in accessing the affected areas.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
JUDGES AT KHMER ROUGE TRIALS SAY FEE DISPUTE RULES OUT MEETING
International judges at the United Nations-backed trials of former Khmer Rouge leaders, accused of mass killings and other horrific crimes during the late 1970s, said yesterday they would not hold a plenary session this month to adopt the court’s internal rules because Cambodian barristers were still insisting on a $4,900 fee for foreign lawyers, something the judges warn goes against all international practice.
In a letter to the Supreme Court Chamber of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), the judges said they were “saddened that at the time of writing, the Cambodian Bar had not reconsidered its position” over the first-year fee, which they added would create a prohibitive entry cost.
The proposed fee would severely limit the number of foreign lawyers able to appear before the ECCC and would allow the accused to argue that they have not been afforded the right to have the counsel of their choice, thereby breaching the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the judges believe.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN CALLS FOR RELEASE OF BBC JOURNALIST
The head of the United Nations body mandated to protect press freedom yesterday called for the release of a BBC journalist abducted in the Palestinian Gaza Strip three weeks ago, deploring the proliferation of hostage-taking involving media professionals.
“When a journalist is abducted, the whole of society is taken hostage,” UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura said in a statement on the 12 March kidnapping of Alan Johnston, who has been living and working in Gaza for several years.
“In view of this increasingly disturbing situation, I call on the authorities to do their utmost to obtain his release as quickly as possible. I wish to commend the determination and courage of journalists who continue to do their work despite the growing frequency of such abductions,” he added.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL REDUCES JAIL SENTENCE FOR FORMER BOSNIAN SERB POLITICIAN
The United Nations war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia yesterday slightly reduced the sentence of a former leading Bosnian Serb politician jailed over his role in the ethnic cleansing that took place during the Balkan wars of the 1990s, but upheld most of his original convictions.
Radoslav Brdanin will now serve 30 years in jail after the appeals chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), sitting in The Hague, cut his sentence from 32 years.
The appeals chamber overturned the trial chamber’s finding that Mr. Brdanin’s conduct had a substantial effect on the commission of torture in detention camps run by Bosnian Serbs in north-western Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992, saying there was no evidence that the Bosnian Serb forces were aware of his attitude towards the camps.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
HAITI: UN TO HELP LOCAL AUTHORITIES FIGHT RASH OF CHILD KIDNAPPINGS
The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Haiti has vowed to help local authorities fight a resurgence in the kidnapping of young children, three of whom were found murdered in the past two weeks.
“These barbarous acts surpass the limits of human comprehension,” UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) spokesperson Sophie Boutaud de la Combe told a news conference yesterday in Port-au-Prince, the capital. After a significant improvement during the first months of the year, five little girls and three little boys, most of them younger than four, have been kidnapped.
The kidnapping have occurred at a time when MINUSTAH, set up in 2004 to help re-establish peace in the impoverished Caribbean country after an insurgency forced President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to go into exile, has been helping Haitian police crack down on armed criminal gangs, resulting in the capture of more than 400 gangsters since the beginning of the year.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
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