UN Gazeti
Wednesday 15 August 2007
Issue No. 234
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 TO CELEBRATE YOUTH
In support of International Youth Day (IYD) 2007 and action-oriented programmes and activities that focus on youth-led initiatives, UN-HABITAT is organizing a UN-wide IYD celebrations at the UN Headquarters in Nairobi during the week of 13 to 17 August, 2007.
The proposed International Youth Day celebrations at the Gigiri Complex offers an opportunity for United Nations Agencies and Programmes to collaboratively feature their youth programmes, best practices and lessons learned from the local, national and global levels. Moreover, the IYD celebrations present a platform for recognizing the potential of youth and youth initiatives to advocate for youth concerns, achievements and solutions
For more information, visit: http://www.unicnairobi.org/
SMALL ARMS EXHIBITION LAUNCHED AT UN GIGIRI.
The United Nations Information Centre Nairobi on 10 August 2007 launched an exhibition on Small Arms entitled Crush the Illicit Trade in Small Arms: Save Lives. The exhibition which will run from 10 to 31 August 2007, was officially opened by the Assistant Minister of Provincial Administration and Internal Security in Kenya, Honorable Peter Munya.
Also present during the launch of the exhibition was Mr. David Kimayo, Senior Deputy Commissioner of police and Director of Police operations in Kenya who gave a speech on the security situation in Kenya and in particular because of the proliferation of small arms. Other distinguished guests included government, civil society and UN colleagues (in particular UNODC, UNDP and UNICEF).
For more information, visit: http://www.unicnairobi.org/
UNDP SUPPORTS 'STOP THE VIOLENCE' CAMPAIGN
UNDP and Ministry of Youth affairs are promoting an initiative called Zuia Noma . This catch-phrase Zuia noma means 'stop the violence' in sheng, a language popular among Kenyan youth. Zuia noma initiative aims at educating youth on the need for peaceful elections.
Nardos Bekele Thomas, Deputy Resident Representative and Moody Awori, Vice President officially launched the one week event at at Uhuru park on 12 August 2007. Each day of the Youth Week is dedicated to one of the eight challenges that form the thematic areas of the Ministry of Youth Affairs' prioritie
For more information, visit: http://www.unicnairobi.org/
UN IN AFRICA
STUDY REVEALS THAT UGANDANS WANT JUSTICE FOR PAST ATROCITIES
A new study by the United Nations human rights office shows that communities in northern Uganda blame both the Government and the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) for atrocities committed during a more than 20-year conflict, and want those responsible to be held to account.
The report, entitled “Making Peace Our Own: Victims Perceptions of Accountability, Reconciliation and Transitional Justice in Northern Uganda,” is based on private interviews with 1,725 victims of the conflict in 69 focus groups in Acholiland, Lango and Teso sub-regions.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN APPEALS FOR FUNDS FOR BURUNDIAN REFUGEES
United Nations agencies appealed to donors yesterday for at least $20 million for increased food aid to help many of the 149,000 Burundian refugees in camps in Tanzania to return home, warning that without more funding the initiative may collapse.
“Unless new contributions arrive now, we will have to cut rations across the board to everyone we assist or face a complete break in supplies in December,” UN World Food Programme (WFP) Burundi Country Director Gerard van Dijk said.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UNESCO ALARMED BY GROWING VIOLENCE AGAINST JOURNALISTS IN SOMALIA
The head of the United Nations body mandated to protect press freedom yesterday voiced grave concern at the growing violence against the media in Somalia following the murder of two journalists and the injuring of a third.
“Journalists and media workers provide a service that is essential for any democratic society, a service that becomes all the more vital in societies that are trying to find their way out of strife,” UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura said in a statement.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN-LED TALKS WRAP UP ON WESTERN SAHARA
The latest round of United Nations-sponsored talks on Western Sahara has ended with the parties, Morocco and Frente Polisario, in agreement that the status quo is unacceptable and the process of negotiations will continue.
The two-day talks, which took place in Manhasset, just outside New York, wrapped up on Saturday – two months after the first round of talks were held at the same venue.
The Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy for Western Sahara, Peter van Walsum, who led the talks, said he was pleased that they were substantive and that Morocco and Frente Polisario interacted with each other and expressed their views.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN ENVOY URGES LIBERIANS TO PREVENT MOB VIOLENCE
Speaking at the opening of a new police station in Liberia, which was built by Nigerian blue helmets, the United Nations envoy to the West African country has called on local people to prevent mob violence while a senior Liberian police officer has urged his colleagues to be “servants of the community.”
The station, which is in New Kru Town Community in the capital Monrovia, will be staffed by officers from Liberia’s National Police (LNP) and will serve around 28,000 people in the surrounding area, the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) said in a press release.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
SG WELCOMES PEACEFUL STAGING OF POLLS IN SIERRA LEONE
Welcoming the successful staging of Sierra Leone’s first presidential and parliamentary elections since United Nations peacekeepers departed at the end of 2005, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on 13 August 2007 urged the people of the West African country to maintain calm as the votes are counted in the days ahead.
Mr. Ban was pleased to learn that the balloting took place on Saturday “in a generally peaceful atmosphere, with high voter turnout,” his spokesperson said in a statement.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN AROUND THE WORLD
KOREAN PENINSULA ISSUES DISCUSSED BY SG AND DPR KOREA AMBASSADOR
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Ambassador Pak Gil Yon of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) met yesterday to discuss peace and security issues affecting the Korean Peninsula.
At the meeting held in Mr. Ban’s office in New York, the Secretary-General repeated his support for the Inter-Korea Summit scheduled to be held later this month in Pyongyang between DPRK leader Kim Jong-Il and Republic of Korea President Roh Moo-Hyun
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN AGENCIES INCREASE RELIEF EFFORT IN SOUTH ASIA AFTER DEVASTATING FLOODS
United Nations humanitarian agencies continue to step up their relief efforts in the wake of the recent deadly floods across South Asia, distributing food and emergency supplies, vaccinating against infectious diseases and launching public awareness campaigns on the importance of using clean water.
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food Programme (WFP) have so far distributed 90 tons of high-protein biscuits in Bangladesh and plan to deliver another 24 tons this week, UN spokesperson Michele Montas told reporters yesterday.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN ENVOY STRESSES NEED TO HEAL POLITICAL RIFTS, A YEAR AFTER END OF WAR
Lebanon’s people cannot afford the “fractious political atmosphere” that has emerged during the past year to continue, a senior United Nations official warned yesterday, urging the country’s leaders to prove that they can overcome their differences and serve national interests rather than the agenda of the parties.
Geir Pedersen, the UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon, used the first anniversary of the end of the war between Hizbollah and the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) to caution that the country’s future economic and social progress was being jeopardized by the political deadlock.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
EXPERTS PREPARE FOR UN CONFERENCE ON GLOBAL WARMING
One thousand representatives from governments, business and industry, environmental organizations and research institutions will gather in Vienna at the end of this month to set the stage for a major United Nations conference in December on further reducing the greenhouse gases from human activity blamed for global warming.
The conference in Bali, Indonesia, from 3 to 14 December seeks to determining future action on mitigation, adaptation, the global carbon market and financing responses to climate change for the period after the expiry of the Kyoto Protocol.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN-BACKED CONFERENCE TO TACKLE DEATHS DURING PREGNANCY AND CHILDBIRTH
With a woman somewhere in the world needlessly dying every minute during pregnancy and childbirth, the United Nations is participating in a landmark conference in October to bring an end to millions of maternal deaths globally.
More than 2,000 participants – delegates from over 75 countries including senior government officials and cabinet ministers, heads of UN agencies and other organizations, health professionals, economists and reproductive health advocates – will convene at the Women Deliver conference to be held from 18-20 October.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN OFFICIAL SOUNDS WARNING ABOUT WORLDWIDE SUPPLY OF CLEAN WATER
Water will become the dominant global issue this century, and the availability of its supply could threaten the world’s social stability, the head of the United Nations agency tasked with promoting socially and environmentally sustainable housing has warned.
Anna Tibaijuka, Executive Director of the UN Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT), told yesterday’s opening of the Stockholm World Water Week that rapid urbanization is placing enormous pressure on the availability of clean water and other natural resources, especially for the poor.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
FEMALE WORKFORCE PARTICIPATION IN LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN CURTAILED
Although the rate of female participation in the workforce in Latin America and the Caribbean is at an all-time high, women are still being prevented from reaching their economic potential by their child-rearing and caretaking responsibilities, as well as their low status in some countries, according to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
This was the main issue discussed as part of a UNFPA-organized event in Quito, Ecuador, called “Toward a New Social and Gender Pact: Shared Responsibility for Productive and Reproductive Work in Latin America and the Caribbean.”
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
SG STRESSES NEED FOR GENDER PARITY AS FEMALE SECURITY OFFICERS SWORN IN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reaffirmed his commitment to gender parity at all levels of the United Nations at an induction ceremony on 13 August 2007 at the world body’s headquarters in New York welcoming the first-ever all-female class of security officers.
The first three female security officers entered the UN over three decades ago, and this year marks the first ever with all recruits being women.
“We need to be exemplary and to be the first organization to keep the internationally-agreed commitment of having full gender balance,” Mr. Ban said at the event welcoming the 12 new female recruits to the UN family.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
BASKETBALL STAR, FASHION DESIGNER NAMED NEW UNICEF GOODWILL AMBASSADORS
Three-time National Basketball Association (NBA) champion Manu Ginobili of Argentina and South African fashion designer Gavin Rajah have been appointed by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) as goodwill ambassadors to help protect and promote child rights.
In addition to their achievements on the basketball court and in the fashion world, both men have also been recognized for their efforts on behalf of children and their families in their respective countries.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
SIX MORE UN VEHICLES DAMAGED IN NEW ROCK-THROWING INCIDENTS IN TIMOR-LESTE
Six more United Nations vehicles have been damaged and a UN police officer slightly hurt in rock-throwing incidents in Timor-Leste since last night as the security situation remains tense following post-election violence in the small South-East Asian country that the world body helped shepherd to independence from Indonesia in 2002.
But there were no reports of major incidents, UN Police (UNPOL) reported. UNPOL responded to four incidents on 13 August 2007 in Dili, the capital, in which two UN cars were damaged and one UNPOL officer sustained minor injuries. Police arrested one suspect. Last night in Dili sporadic rock throwing damaged four UN vehicles.
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 |
