UN Gazeti

Wednesday 19 September 2007

Issue No. 239

UN Observances

UN IN KENYA

SG DONATES AWARD MONEY TO SLUM DWELLERS

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will donate $100,000 he was awarded on 13 September by the Pony Chung Scholarship Foundation to help a United Nations agency working to better conditions in a slum in Kenya, a spokesperson for the world body announced.

Mr. Ban was recognized by the Foundation, which was established by the Hyundai Corporation, with the Pony Chung Innovation Award given to individuals who bring about innovative and effective changes in the realm of politics, economics, society and culture.

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

UN IN AFRICA

WFP SEEKS $65 MILLION FOR UGANDA VICTIMS

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) appealed yesterday for $64.6 million to feed up to 1.7 million people in Uganda until March to stave off hunger for victims of severe floods, refugees and others displaced by conflict and civil strife.

“We are struggling to meet both existing and new, growing needs in Uganda,” WFP Country Director Tesema Negash said. “We particularly need cash now so that we can buy food locally and move it swiftly to those who need it most. Our teams are on the ground distributing food to flood victims, but access is difficult and without new funds, everything is in jeopardy.”

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

NEW UN ENVOY FOR SOMALIA ARRIVES IN REGION

The new United Nations envoy for Somalia has arrived in the region with a call to the conflict-torn country’s political, business and religious elite both at home and abroad to rebuild a nation that has not had a functioning central government for 16 years.

“The humanitarian and human rights situations, the worst on the continent, are unacceptable,” said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Representative Ahmedou Ould Abdallah, who until this month headed the UN Office in West Africa. “Somalis are a great people with a long history, sharing the same culture, language and religion. Few countries in Africa can claim such an advantageous inheritance.

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

RELIEF EFFORT FOR GHANA AFTER FLOODS

United Nations emergency staff yesterday set up a humanitarian coordination centre in northern Ghana to help with relief efforts in the wake of floods that have killed at least 20 people, destroyed numerous roads, bridges and schools, and inundated vital cropland.

The centre was established in Tamale, the capital of Northern region, soon after the UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) team arrived in the town to assist the Government as it determines how best to respond to the flooding, which has struck across West Africa after a week of torrential rains late last month.

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

NEW DARFUR VIOLENCE THREATENS PEACE TALKS, SAYS SG

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on 17 September expressed deep concern at the recent surge in fighting across the war-torn Darfur region in Sudan, warning that it jeopardizes the chances of success of the peace talks being held next month to try to end the conflict.

“The Secretary-General strongly urges all parties to show restraint and cease all military action in order to create a positive atmosphere for the envisaged political negotiations,” his spokesperson said in a statement.

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

SG PLEDGES UN SUPPORT TO SIERRA LEONE’S PRESIDENT-ELECT

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on 17 September pledged continuing support for Sierra Leone following the announcement of the opposition victory in presidential elections, the first since United Nations peacekeepers left in 2005 after helping to bring peace and stability to the West African country that was torn asunder by a brutal 10-year civil war.

In a statement issued by his spokesperson Mr. Ban commended all Sierra Leonean parties and their supporters “for exercising patience and restraint” during the tallying of votes in the 8 September poll, in which Ernest Bai Koroma of the All People’s Congress Party received 54.6 per cent and incumbent Vice-President Solomon Berewa of the Sierra Leone People’s Party obtained 45.4 per cent of the total valid votes cast. The final result was announced on Monday, 17 September.

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

ICTR HEARS ARGUMENTS ON SENTENCING OF FORMER MAYOR

Prosecutors at the United Nations war crimes tribunal for the Rwandan genocide on 17 September urged its judges to sentence to 12 years’ imprisonment a former mayor who has pleaded guilty to a charge of extermination as a crime against humanity.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), sitting in Arusha, Tanzania, heard closing arguments from both prosecutors and defence lawyers in the case of Juvénal Rugambarara, who served as mayor of Bicumbi commune in Kigali-Rural Prefecture from September 1993 to April 1994.

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

DRC FORCES COMMIT WIDESPREAD ABUSES SAYS UN

Government soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) remain responsible for the country’s worst human rights abuses, carrying out arbitrary executions and raping, robbing or extorting civilians, according to the latest report by the United Nations peacekeeping mission.
The human rights assessment for July, released on 17 September, shows that Congolese police, soldiers and members of rebel groups fighting the Government have also perpetrated serious abuses, especially in the violence-wracked Kivu provinces in the far east of the vast country.

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

UN-BUILT PRISON TRAINING CENTRE OPENS IN SOUTHERN SUDAN

A prison staff training centre in southern Sudan has opened as part of efforts by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to rehabilitate the country’s dilapidated prison service and to help reintegrate former combatants from the north-south civil war into civilian life.

The Lologo regional training centre, which opened 13 September, is expected to receive up to 1,500 ex-soldiers from the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), the former rebel group from the south, over the next six months, UNDP said in a press release.

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

SG SAYS DARFUR SOLUTION ‘CANNOT BE PIECEMEAL’

Only a comprehensive approach that deals with all the issues – from politics and security to economic development and the environment – will solve the Darfur conflict, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on 14 September as he detailed his observations from his recent visit to the war-torn Sudanese region.

In an opinion column for The Washington Post, published in the 14 September edition, Mr. Ban said that his week-long trip to Sudan, Chad and Libya confirmed to him that the reality about Darfur is far more complicated than widely understood.

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

UN AROUND THE WORLD

NEW GENERAL ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT CALLS FOR FOCUS ON PRIORITY ISSUES

Climate change, financing for development, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), management reform and counter-terrorism should all receive priority attention from the General Assembly over the next year, the incoming president Srgjan Kerim said yesterday as he opened its sixty-second session.

In an address to Assemblymembers at UN Headquarters in New York, Mr. Kerim urged them to help strengthen the 192-member organ to ensure it is well placed to deal with the world’s most pressing problems.

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

EX-GENERAL ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT BECOMES FIRST PRIVATE DONOR TO PEACEBUILDING FUND

The former General Assembly President Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa has become the first individual donor to the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund, set up last year to help countries emerging from conflict consolidate their gains and not slide back into war.

Sheikha Haya, who served as President of the General Assembly’s sixty-first session, which ended on 17 September, has made a private donation of almost $19,000, the Fund announced on 18 September.

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

PEACE, DEVELOPMENT AND HUMAN RIGHTS THE FOCUS OF ANNUAL UN TREATY EVENT

International pacts that deal with peace, development and human rights will be the focus of this year’s annual campaign to promote the signature and ratification of treaties during the opening of the General Assembly session.

Already 30 countries have signalled that they planned to sign, ratify or accede to at least one multilateral treaty deposited with the United Nations Secretary-General during this year’s event, the ninth in the series.

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

HUNDREDS OF REFUGEE WOMEN VISIT FIRST-EVER UN-BACKED FREE CLINIC IN MALAYSIA

A free clinic backed by the United Nations refugee agency – the first of its kind – recently drew over 300 women at a community centre in Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur.

Most of those attending the half-day clinic, which was organized by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and funded by the private Obstetrical and Gynaecological Society of Malaysia and the IS Puvan OBGYN Foundation, were refugee women.

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

LOUISE ARBOUR ‘VERY CONCERNED’ OVER STATE OF EMERGENCY IN FIJI

The United Nations top human rights official has voiced deep concern over the re-imposition of a state of emergency in Fiji.

Under accepted rules of international law, “such far-reaching restrictions of rights may only be introduced in time of a public emergency when the life and existence of the nation is threatened,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said in a statement issued in Geneva.

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

GREENHOUSE GASES COULD AGGRAVATE OZONE LOSS AND SLOW RECOVERY

Increased atmospheric concentrations of global warming greenhouse gases (GHGs) could lead to more severe loss in the polar regions of ozone, the naturally occurring gas that filters out cancer- and cataract-causing ultraviolet (UV) rays from the sun, according to the United Nations meteorological agency.

While GHGs will lead to a warmer climate at the Earth’s surface, at the altitude the ozone layer is found the same increase is likely to lead to a cooling of the atmosphere, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said in a paper marking the 20th anniversary of the UN-backed Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.

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

PACIFIC OCEAN COUNTRIES TAKE PART IN UN MEETING ON TSUNAMI PREPARATIONS

Experts from countries bordering the Pacific Ocean are gathering in Ecuador this week for a United Nations-organized meeting to assess the state of preparations in the region, home to most of the world’s tsunamis, to predict and deal with any future killer waves.

The four-day meeting of the Intergovernmental Coordination Group for the Pacific Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System, starting on 17 September in Guayaquil, will hear reports from participating nations about what they are doing to be ready for a potential tsunami.

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

CHINESE DOUBLES ACE TEAMS UP WITH UNESCO TO FIGHT GENDER INEQUALITY

China’s Grand Slam-winning Zheng Jie on 17 September became the latest female tennis ace to join forces with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Educational Organization (UNESCO) to encourage the emergence of gender equality around the world.

Ms. Zheng is the third player on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour to be named a “Promoter of Gender Equality” and will be involved in campaigns to raise awareness, both in China and outside, of gender equality issues.

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

NUCLEAR TEST BAN PACT’S ANNIVERSARY SHOULD SPARK PUSH FOR RATIFICATION

As the eleventh anniversary of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) approaches, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on 17 September, called on participants at a meeting in Vienna designed to foster its entry into force to intensify efforts toward this goal.

Next week’s milestone “will not be a time for celebration, but for re-dedication to the noble work that lies ahead in achieving the Treaty’s entry into force,” Mr. Ban said.

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

UNICEF WELCOMES ADOPTION OF DECLARATION ON RIGHTS OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES

Welcoming the General Assembly's adoption of a declaration outlining the rights of the world's estimated 370 million indigenous people, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has called for greater policies and programmes to tackle the poverty, discrimination and exclusion faced by indigenous children.

UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman issued a statement praising UN Member States after they voted in the Assembly on 13 September – after more than 20 years of debate – to approve the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

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

GLOBAL FIGHT TO RESTORE OZONE LAYER HAILED BY S.G

The battle to repair the ozone layer “represents one of the great success stories of international cooperation,” with the use of ozone-depleting substances in both rich and poor countries reduced drastically during the past 20 years, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on 16 September.

In his message to mark the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer, Mr. Ban said that when the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer was signed two decades ago, nearly 2 million tons of such substances were released annually. Today, the developed world has nearly phased out these substances entirely and their use in the developing world has decreased by over 80 per cent.

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

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