UN Gazeti

Wednesday 07 June 2007

Issue No. 224

UN Observances

UN IN KENYA

UNEP FACILITATES TRAINING ON ONLINE ENVIRONMENT RESEARCH

As part of World Environment Day celebrations, UNEP organized a special training Programme on Tuesday, 5 June on how to access and use OARE, Online Access to Research in the Environment.  The event was open to the public at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Headquarters in Nairobi. 46 institutions were represented at this first training. As expressed by many participants, the training was a great opportunity to discover information resources available on OARE portal.

With climate change the theme of this year's World Environment Day, and since most countries affected by global warming are in the developing south, the training will emphasize information resources of critical value to scientific research and education on climate change.

For more information, contact  Mohammed Atani,  Email: mohamed.atani@unep.org

UN IN AFRICA

OVER ONE THIRD OF ZIMBABWEANS FACE FOOD SHORTAGES

Over 4 million people in Zimbabwe – or one third of the Southern African nation’s population – will need food aid by early next year due to the combined effects of drought and economic decline spurred in part by Government policies, two United Nations agencies said yesterday.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) blamed poor harvests in the southern provinces and rising poverty in both rural and urban areas, predicting that out of Zimbabwe’s total estimated population of 11.8 million, 2.1 million will face critical food shortages later this year.

For more information please contact http://www.un.org/news

100,000 LIBERIAN REFUGEES RETURN FROM SIERRA LEONE

A repatriation convoy carrying some 250 Liberians from Sierra Leone is set to bring to over 100,000 the number returning home with United Nations assistance, the world body’s refugee agency said yesterday.

“The landmark convoy carrying 258 returning refugees crossed yesterday from Sierra Leone into Liberia at Bo Waterside border crossing,” Jennifer Pagonis, a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told reporters in Geneva.

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

SOUTHERN SUDANESE REFUGEES RETURN FROM DR CONGO

The United Nations refugee agency has wrapped up its repatriation of southern Sudanese from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), ending a yearlong effort that saw the return of 8,000 people.

Senior government officials who joined the welcome ceremony for the refugees, including a number who had been in exile for 17 years, hailed “the effort returnees will make in rebuilding their country,” Jennifer Pagonis, a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told a press briefing in Geneva

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

UN FUND FACILITATES AID FLIGHTS TO SOMALIA
A $3 million contribution from a United Nations humanitarian fund will help facilitate the delivery of badly needed aid to Somalia, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said yesterday.

The contribution from the UN Central Emergency Revolving Fund (CERF) “means that agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) will be able to send more staff and more assistance by air – something that is essential during the current long rains, especially with the recent increased needs arising from the fighting in Mogadishu,” said WFP Somalia Country Director Peter Goossens in Nairobi.

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

DSG SAYS AFRICA STRIVING TO BUILD PEACE

Hailing the progress made in recent years to advance peace and security in Africa, Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro yesterday said that equal attention must be devoted to development and human rights on the continent.

“Africa’s progress disproves the distorted and widespread portrayal of the continent as a sea of conflict and undifferentiated poverty,” she said, noting the dramatic drop in violent conflicts in the last decade

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

UN AROUND THE WORLD

SG CALLS FOR NEW SOLUTIONS TO CLIMATE CHANGE PROBLEMS

The world needs “new thinking and a new inclusiveness” to tackle the perils of climate change, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said yesterday, marking World Environment Day with a call for urgent global action that takes into account the needs of the world’s least affluent countries.

“Solutions to global warming proposed by developed nations cannot come at the expense of less fortunate neighbours on the planet,” Mr. Ban wrote in an opinion column for The International Herald Tribune.

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

SG SAYS POLITICAL SOLUTION THE ANSWER TO MIDDLE EAST CONFLICT

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon marked yesterday’s 40th anniversary of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War with a reminder to all sides that Palestinian statehood, security for Israelis and peace in the region cannot be achieved by force.

In a statement issued by his spokesperson, Mr. Ban said “an end to the occupation and a political solution to the conflict is the only way forward – for Israelis, Palestinians, Syrians, Lebanese and the wider region.

“This will only be achieved through negotiations to bring about an end to the occupation, on the basis of the principle of land for peace, as envisaged in Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973).”

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

UN AGENCIES, PARTNERS CALL ON WEALTHY NATIONS TO ADOPT EMISSION TARGETS
United Nations agencies and their partners are calling on the world’s leading industrialized nations, on the eve of their Group of Eight (G8) summit, to take bold steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect biodiversity.

Climate change will feature prominently on the agenda, when leaders from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States meet tomorrow in Heiligendamm, Germany, for their three-day summit.

Yesterday, the heads of more than 20 leading financial service companies – members of the UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Finance Initiative – called on G8 leaders to adopt deep emission reduction targets no later than 2009.

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

SG TO DISPATCH UN POLITICAL CHIEF TO HORN OF AFRICA
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced on Monday that he will dispatch the world body’s top political officer to the Horn of Africa to discuss how to bring peace and stabilization to troubled Somalia.

Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs B. Lynn Pascoe will leave later this week for his trip, during which he plans to visit several countries, starting with Kenya. Some details of the itinerary have not yet been finalized. En route to Africa, Mr. Pascoe will participate in a London meeting on Wednesday of the International Contact Group for Somalia, whose members include Italy, Kenya, Norway, Sweden, Tanzania, the United Kingdom and the United States, together with the AU, European Union (EU), Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), League of Arab States and the UN.

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

For more information on the United Nations and its activities, please visit the main U.N website at www.un.org or the U.N Kenya website at www.un-kenya.org