UN Gazeti
Wednesday 09 May 2007
Issue No. 220
UN Observances
UN IN AFRICA
AU, UN NAME JOINT ENVOY FOR DARFUR
The United Nations and the African Union (AU) announced yesterday that the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Congo will be their new joint envoy for Darfur and will also head up the proposed hybrid UN-AU peacekeeping mission to the war-torn Sudanese region.
Rodolphe Adada, 61, has been appointed Joint AU-UN Special Representative for Darfur, according to a statement issued by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and AU Commission Chairperson Alpha Oumar Konaré.
Mr. Adada will have overall authority over the hybrid peacekeeping mission in Darfur, oversee the implementation of its mandate and be responsible for its management and functioning.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
SECURITY COUNCIL CONCERNED BY GROWING ETHIOPIA-ERITREA TENSIONS
Voicing concern over increased friction between Ethiopia and Eritrea, which have hit a stalemate in efforts to resolve their border dispute, the United Nations Security Council yesterday called on both Horn of Africa countries to refrain from violence.
“Members of the Security Council remain deeply concerned by the impasse in the Eritrea-Ethiopia peace process and by the growing tension between the two countries,” United States Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, the Council President for the month of May, said in a press statement.
Council members “reiterate their call on both parties to show maximum restraint and to refrain from hostile public statements and from any threat or use of force against each other,” the President said.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
COURT UNVEILS START DATE FOR CHARLES TAYLOR TRIAL
The war crimes trial of Charles Taylor, the notorious former Liberian president, will begin on 4 June with opening arguments, the United Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone announced yesterday following a pre-trial conference in The Hague.
“That Charles Taylor will now face justice is the very embodiment of the maxim that no one is above the law,” Special Court Prosecutor Stephen Rapp said, calling the staging of the trial “a victory over impunity,” according to a press statement released by the Court.
“Taylor’s indictment, apprehension and arrest are a credit to the persistence of the world community, the governments of the region and, above all, the courageous people of Sierra Leone.”
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
WFP STARTS FOOD DISTRIBUTION IN SOMALI CAPITAL
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) announced yesterday that it has distributed aid to 16,000 people in the most ravaged districts of Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, which has suffered the worst fighting seen there in 16 years.
By the end of this week, the agency expects to have distributed food to a total of 114,000 people who fled the city plus vulnerable people unable to escape the fighting. Urgent WFP food distributions continue to be expanded given the prevailing security situation in and around the capital, where relative calm recently returned following two weeks of fierce clashes between the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), backed by Ethiopian forces, and anti-TFG factions.
Yesterday, a Somali non-governmental organization (NGO) started distributing WFP maize, nutritious corn-soya blend and vegetable oil to 7,000 people at three sites in Mogadishu, and 9,000 others are expected to be reached today at five more sites.
For more information, please contact Paulette Jones, email address: paulette.jones@wfp.org
SG WELCOMES RECONCILIATION AGREEMENT BETWEEN SUDAN AND CHAD
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday welcomed the latest agreement between Chad and Sudan aimed at calming tensions in the strife-torn Sudanese region of Darfur and the eastern area of the neighbouring country.
“The agreement is a positive step towards normalizing the relations between Chad and Sudan, which is a very important factor in resolving the tragic conflicts in both Darfur and eastern Chad,” Mr. Ban’s spokesperson, Michele Montas, said in a statement on the agreement signed on 3 May in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
“It is now crucial for the parties to honour their agreements and, in close collaboration with the United Nations and the African Union, to work together to achieve lasting peace and stability,” Ms. Montas said.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN WRAPS UP ETHIOPIA-SUDAN REPATRIATION Programme
A 17-truck convoy carrying over 600 refugees, including a newborn baby, completed a three-day journey to southern Sudan, marking the end of the United Nations refugee agency’s repatriation Programme from Ethiopian camps before the rainy season begins.
The trip was organized jointly by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Despite the exhausting trip, which was hindered by heavy rains from Bonga Refugee Camp, the returnees – who spent up to two decades in exile – were in good spirits upon reaching Blue Nile state in Sudan.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
HOUSING CONDITIONS IN SOUTH AFRICA OFTEN ‘DESPERATE’ DESPITE EFFORTS – UN EXPERT
South Africa has made great efforts to redress housing inequality but desperate living conditions persist, according to a United Nations human rights expert who on Monday, called on the country’s Government to boost social services and take other measures to improve all settlements.
“Success cannot be measured merely through the number of houses built but also needs to take into account quality of housing and access to services, especially for the poor,” the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, Miloon Kothari, who visited the country from 12 to 24 April, said.
In a statement released in Geneva, Mr. Kothari acknowledged efforts made by the South African authorities at all levels to address democratization of housing since the end of apartheid in 1994, and he said that genuine attempts by law and policy makers have been made to deal with racial segregation, inequality and systematic human rights violations.
For more information, please contact Brenda Barton: brenda.barton@wfp.org
UN AROUND THE WORLD
CLIMATE CHANGE MUST BE TACKLED AT THE INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL LEVEL, SAY UN ENVOYS
Climate change is no longer a matter for scientific debate, but has become a question to be solved at the international political level, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s three new Special Envoys on the issue said today, pledging to use their experience from previous posts and their contacts with national leaders and other senior figures to galvanize more concerted environmental action.
The three envoys – former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Republic of Korea Foreign Minister and General Assembly President Han Seung-soo and former Chilean President Ricardo Lagos Escobar – held a working luncheon today with Mr. Ban, who announced earlier this year that tackling climate change is one of his priorities as head of the UN.
In their first press conference since taking up the assignment, the three envoys said their brief from Mr. Ban was to discuss the issue with the world’s major political figures, especially national leaders, and to formulate proposals ahead of the next high-level international meeting, scheduled for September, and a follow-up conference in Bali in December.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
FRENCH JUDGE RESIGNS FROM ICC BECAUSE OF POOR HEALTH
The head of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has paid tribute to Judge Claude Jorda of France, whose permanent ill-health has forced him to resign from the body set up under an international treaty to hear trials of individuals charged with acts of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed since 2002.
Judge Jorda, whose resignation will take effect on 12 August, was assigned to the Court’s pre-trial division and has been serving as the presiding judge in the case against Thomas Lubango Dyilo, a former militia leader from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) who is charged with war crimes for enlisting child soldiers, in the first such trial for the court.
In a statement issued by the Court in The Hague, ICC President Judge Philippe Kirsch voiced regret at Judge Jorda’s departure and thanked him “for his service and for his commitment to fulfilling his obligations before leaving the Court.”
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
AT UNESCO-ORGANIZED MEETING, MEDIA PROFESSIONALS ADOPT DECLARATION ON SECURITY
Some 200 media professionals from around the world have adopted a declaration laying the ground for a wide range of measures to improve the safety of journalists and punish crimes against them at a meeting convened by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
The “Medellin Declaration Securing the Safety of Journalists and Combating Impunity” was endorsed on 5 May at the close of a two-day international conference on Press Freedom organized by UNESCO in the Colombian city on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day 2007.
The Declaration voices concern over attacks on freedom of the press including murder, abductions, hostage-taking, intimidation, illegal arrests and detention against journalists, media professionals and associated personnel because of their professional activities. It points out that most attacks on media professionals occur outside situations of armed conflict.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN, PARTNERS TO STRENGTHEN WORKPLACE AIDS Programmes IN HAITI
The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and its main partner in Haiti have agreed to cooperate on fighting the epidemic in the country’s workplaces, a UN spokesperson announced yesterday.
The agreement with the local Fondation SOGEBANK, a facilitator for the UN-backed Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, follows last week’s visit by Dr. Peter Piot, Executive Director of UNAIDS, and the release of information, from an ongoing study, of the 20 largest Haitian companies’ response to HIV/AIDS.
The study, part of a larger project launched in 2005 by a request from the UN General Assembly, shows that Haiti’s labour-intensive workplaces such as factories have a greater awareness of, and a more active response to HIV/AIDS than do banks and similar work sites.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN PANEL PROPOSES MEASURES TO STRENGTHEN SANCTIONS ON TALIBAN, AL-QAIDA
United Nations Member States are asked to share information more widely, run Interpol fingerprints through their own police databases, and pursue other measures to strengthen strictures on the Taliban and Al-Qaida in a report released yesterday by the Security Council Committee in charge of those sanctions.
Acting on the latest report of their monitoring team, the Committee strongly supported that group’s advice to States to share information on terrorist financing patterns, thoroughly investigate leads from Interpol and exercise vigilance to recognize forged travel documents.
“States are reminded that even the most sophisticated identity and travel documents can be forged in the absence of strict acquisition procedures,” the Committee warned.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
PAKISTAN DONATES $5 MILLION TO UNHCR TO ASSIST AFGHAN REFUGEES
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) announced yesterday that it will receive $5 million from Pakistan to help Afghan refugees return to their homeland.
The agency has appealed for an additional $15 million to bolster its voluntary repatriation and integration Programme, and is “grateful to the government of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan for this generous and timely contribution towards this effort,” UNHCR spokesperson Ron Redmond told reporters in Geneva.
The country’s Federal Minister for States and Frontier Regions Sardar Yar Muhammad Rind will present High Commissioner António Guterres with a check for approximately $5 million in Geneva tomorrow.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
SG HAILS FORMATION OF POWER-SHARING GOVERNMENT IN NORTHERN IRELAND
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon yesterday welcomed news of the formation of a new power-sharing government in Northern Ireland involving politicians from the British province’s Protestant and Roman Catholic communities.
In a statement issued by his spokesperson, Mr. Ban said that he “joins others in applauding this development as a historic step on the road to a peaceful future for the people of Northern Ireland.”
Ian Paisley of the Democratic Unionist Party will serve as First Minister in the power-sharing government while Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein will be Deputy First Minister.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN RIGHTS EXPERT VOICES CONCERN ABOUT PRESS FREEDOM IN AZERBAIJAN
An independent United Nations human rights expert has voiced concern about press freedom in Azerbaijan while reporting that his recent meetings there offered hope that court decisions which have caused a prevailing sense of fear among journalists will be reviewed.
“While the Government and State institutions have expressed a willingness to conduct a more open dialogue with media representatives and international organizations, the media environment is marked by various deficiencies,” said Ambeyi Ligabo, the Special Rapporteur on the freedom of opinion and expression, in a statement released in Geneva.
He noted that his information indicated the defamation legislation “in not in line with the increasing trend towards decriminalization of related offences, and courts tend to be particularly severe in judging media professionals.”
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
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