UN Gazeti
Wednesday 01 August 2007
Issue No. 232
UN Observances
| 09 August |
International Day of the World’s Indigenous People |
| 12 August |
International Youth Day |
| 23 August |
International day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition |
UN IN KENYA
UN SYSTEM TO SUPPORT WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN KENYAN PARLIAMENT
The UN System in Kenya supports and contributes to increased social empowerment of women in the country and their participation in positions of leadership, and also builds the capacity of the government and non-governmental organizations for effective gender mainstreaming and good governance.
It is therefore in support of these initiatives and enhanced representation of women in Parliament that Elizabeth Lwanga UNDP Resident Representative and female Members of Parliament led by Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister Martha Karua, met on 27 July 2007 to discuss equitable development of women’s enhanced representation in Parliament. Currently, the women's representation in Parliament is at 7%.
For more information, visit: http://www.ke.undp.org.org/
EARMUN CONFERENCE OPENS IN NAIROBI
The Eastern Africa Regional Model United Nations (EARMUN) opened yesterday at the UN Complex Gigiri, Nairobi. The conference which will end on 3rd August 2007, is a joint venture between The United Nations Youth Association of Kenya (UNYA), Youth of United Nations Association of Tanzania (YUNA), and United Nations Association of Uganda (UNAU).
EARMUN is a follow-up of the African Regional Model United Nations (ARMUN), organized by The World Federation of the United Nations Associations (WFUNA) at Stellenbosch, South Africa in September 2005.
For more more information contact: Marha Mbugua Tel: 7623682; e-mail: unic intern03@unon.org
UN IN AFRICA
SECURITY COUNCIL AUTHORIZES HYBRID UN-AU OPERATION IN DARFUR
The Security Council yesterday approved the creation of a hybrid United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force to quell the violence and instability plaguing the Darfur region of Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and two million others forced to flee their homes.
In what Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called a “historic and unprecedented resolution,” Council members unanimously backed the establishment of a force of nearly 20,000 military personnel and more than 6,000 police officers
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN AND OTHER PARTNERS WORK TOGETHER FOR PEACE IN SOMALIA
The United Nations and its international partners in the search for peace in Somalia plan to step up their contacts with the country’s National Reconciliation Congress in an effort to bring stability to a faction-riven land that has had no functioning central government for 16 years.
The UN led a delegation of the International Advisory Group to Mogadishu, the Somali capital, over the weekend to attend and receive an update on Congress’s ongoing work.
“The delegation expressed its intention for members of the international community to have henceforth a frequent presence at the Congress,” UN spokesperson Marie Okabe told a news briefing in New York yesterday.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN SAYS STILL TOO MANY CHILDREN IN NIGER FACE MALNUTRITION
As the impoverished West African country of Niger enters the “lean season,” when food from the last harvest runs out, too many children are still at risk of malnutrition despite much progress made over the past two years, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned yesterday.
Although a lot has been done to improve the situation, “we must be ready and must scale up the response to save thousands child lives at risk during the lean season,” UNICEF country representative Akhil Iyer said.
“Improvement of the situation will come only from a sustained support to improve access to health care, access to life-saving information and practices, especially for women, access to education, especially for girls, and rural and community development.”
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
MUSIC SERVES AS A PEACE TOOL IN UN-BACKED ELECTIONS
If music be the food of love, then it can also serve to promote peaceful elections in a country recovering from a disastrous decade-long civil war. Such is the updating of the famous line from Shakespeare adapted by the United Nations and its partners to fit the upcoming polls in Sierra Leone.
More than a dozen well-known area musicians are touring the Sierra Leone countryside in a series of peace-promoting concerts as the small West African country prepares for presidential and parliamentary elections on 11 August, the second since it emerged in 2002 from a brutal conflict that saw thousands killed and many others with their limbs cut off in a terror-campaign of mutilation.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN WELCOMES CONVICTION OF 9 SOLDIERS IN DR CONGO CONVICTED
The United Nations peacekeeping mission to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on Monday welcomed the conviction by a Congolese court of nine Government soldiers for killing 31 unarmed civilians last year.
The court in Bunia, the capital of Ituri province in the north-east of the country, found nine defendants guilty of war crimes, rape, arson, pillaging and murder, UN spokesperson Marie Okabe told reporters in New York.
The court handed down lengthy sentences, including life in prison for the leader of the assault on 11 August 2006. Most of the victims had been displaced by the violence in the vast Central African nation in recent years.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN WELCOMES START OF DISARMAMENT PROCESS IN CÔTE D’IVOIRE
United Nations officials in Côte d’Ivoire welcomed a “flame of peace” ceremony held there on Monday to officially launch the disarmament process by setting fire to weapons handed over by rebels.
Abou Moussa, the Officer-in-Charge of the UN Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI), and a delegation of senior officials attended on Monday’s ceremony in the northern town of Bouaké, a stronghold of the former Forces Nouvelles rebel group.
President Laurent Gbagbo and Prime Minister Guillaume Soro each set fire to the stockpiled weapons during the ceremony, which was also attended by Burkina Faso’s President Blaise Compaoré, the facilitator of the peace process in Côte d’Ivoire, as well as by the heads of State of South Africa, Togo, Guinea-Bissau, Mali and Benin, and representatives of Angola, Ghana, Niger, Senegal and the international community.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN LAUNCHES FLASH APPEAL FOR DROUGHT-STRICKEN LESOTHO
With one of the worst droughts in 30 years ravaging Lesotho, the United Nations has launched a $18.9 million flash appeal for the small Southern African kingdom where it is estimated that up to 553,000 people – one in four of the population – could face severe hunger.
Maize production, the country’s main staple, has dropped by 51 per cent compared to last year, a deficit that is likely to be further aggravated by decreased cereal production in parts of South Africa, also suffering from below-average rainfall, which supplies some 70 per cent of Lesotho's food requirements.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN AROUND THE WORLD
ACTION NEEDED TO COMBAT CLIMATE CHANGE, SAY TOP UN OFFICIALS
Top United Nations officials joined leading experts yesterday in urging decisive action on a global scale to combat the challenges posed by climate change.
"We cannot continue with business as usual," Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told a General Assembly meeting on the issue at UN Headquarters in New York, citing the findings of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which affirmed earlier this year that global warming is directly linked to human activity. Mr. Ban called for "new thinking" to tackle the challenge, since how it is addressed "will define us, our era, and ultimately, our global legacy."
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
SG CONDEMNS KILLING OF TWO KOREAN HOSTAGES IN AFGHANISTAN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon yesterday spoke out against the recent killing of two South Korean nationals abducted in Afghanistan nearly two weeks ago, calling for the safe return of the remaining detainees, including several women.
“The Secretary-General deplores the killing of two of the hostages from the Republic of Korea held by the Taliban,” his spokesperson said in a statement.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
SG URGES GREATER EFFORTS TO ACHIEVE ANTI-POVERTY TARGETS
Stating that the world was “seriously off track” to reaching some of its shared anti-poverty goals by the target date of 2015, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon yesterday called for urgently stepped-up efforts to achieve the objectives on time.
“For the next seven and a half years, every day is a new day for us to make a difference for millions of people around the world,” Mr. Ban said yesterday in New York, urging more concerted action towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – the set of eight targets for slashing poverty and other social and economic ills, all by 2015.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN REGIONAL LITERACY CONFERENCE KICKS OFF IN BEIJING
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is holding a conference in Beijing starting yesterday to help tackle illiteracy in East Asia, South-East Asia and the Pacific, where women make up nearly seven out of every 10 people who cannot read and write.
Education ministers, experts, civil society representatives and First Ladies from across the region have gathered in the Chinese capital for the two-day conference, which is focusing on encouraging partnerships and promoting innovative approaches to reducing illiteracy.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
SG TO SEE UN REHABILITATION EFFORTS IN HAITI DURING UPCOMING VISIT
When Ban Ki-moon arrives in Haiti tomorrow for a 24-hour tour, he will witness efforts by the United Nations in the fields of security, the economy and the judiciary that have fostered progress since the last visit by a Secretary-General to the impoverished Caribbean country a year ago, the UN mission there said yesterday.
Notorious flashpoints of violence in Port-au-Prince, the capital, such as Cité Soleil, Martissant, Grand Ravine, Ti Bois, where residents were once terrorized by armed gangs, now enjoy relative calm thanks to security operations carried out by the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) together with the Haitian National Police (HNP).
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
FAO URGES PREVENTIVE EDUCATION PROGRAMMES IN MEDITERRANEAN FIRES
With record summer temperatures and hot dry winds turning parts of the Mediterranean into a tinder box, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has called for education programmes to reduce the risk of wildfires, up to 95 per cent of which are caused by people through arson and negligence.
“While fire is an important and widely used tool in land management and maintaining ecological processes, wildfires destroy millions of hectares of forest and vegetation with a loss of human and animal lives causing immense economic and environmental damage,” the agency noted in its latest update on the situation.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN FORCE SHARPENS SKILLS WITH LIVE FIRE TRAINING EXERCISE
The Field Artillery Group, part of the Quick Reaction Force of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) carried out a major live fire training exercise on Monday to hone its skills and expertise.
“The Quick Reaction Force’s field artillery battle group was already highly trained to conduct fire missions in support of UNIFIL before being deployed to Lebanon,” said Major Bertrand Taddei, an officer involved in the exercise, which was held near the Force’s headquarters at Naqoura in southern Lebanon.
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 |
