UN Gazeti
Wednesday 19 December 2007
Issue No. 250
UN Observances
| 27 December 2007 |
International Day of Commemoration Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust |
| 02 January 2007 |
International Mother Language Day |
UN IN KENYA
CHILDREN SEND HOLIDAY WISHES TO OVER 1,000 KENYAN BLUE HELMETS
Kenyan children have sent more than 2,000 homemade Christmas and New Years messages to their country’s nearly 1,100 blue helmets serving in eight United Nations peacekeeping missions around the world.
“Kenyan peacekeeping troops are heroes to these children because they have refused to pay the price of indifference,” said Olivia Yambi, Representative of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), on behalf of the UN Country Team in Kenya. “In fact, this nation’s armed forces have been refusing to pay the price of indifference for many years and, 33 times, it has paid the ultimate price for peace in some far-away lands.”
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN IN AFRICA
SG MEETS WITH UN STAFF IN ALGERIA
One week after a deadly car bombing claimed the lives of 17 United Nations workers in Algiers, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon yesterday visited the site of the attack and met with the world body’s staff, paying tribute to their dedication and professionalism.
“We will complete the work that you and your fallen colleagues have begun,” Mr. Ban pledged to the staff. “We will not be deterred. We will go on doing whatever we can to help build a better future for the people of Algeria. Only by carrying on with that mission can we begin to do justice to the memory of the friends we have lost.”
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
SOUTHERN AFRICAN NATIONS BAND TOGETHER TO SCALE UP DISASTER PREPAREDNESS
Eight Southern African and Indian Ocean nations have joined forces to participate in a United Nations-backed plan to combat the devastating effects of natural disasters such as floods and cyclones.
This year in the region, the livelihoods of one million people were destroyed by flood and wind damage caused by heavy rain and cyclones.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
IFAD TO BACK SMALL-SCALE ENTERPRISES IN MADAGASCAR
The United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) announced yesterday that it will spend more than $30 million to help farmers and other rural residents in Madagascar develop microenterprises to boost their incomes.
As many as 50,000 new jobs are expected to be created under the programme, which will offer training, improved technology and greater access to financial products and services – such as insurance and microfinance – to both existing and budding entrepreneurs in five regions across the Indian Ocean country. Young people will also receive professional training and apprenticeships.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA MUST SCALE UP EFFORTS TO REACH MILLENNIUM GOALS, SAYS MIGIRO
While noting the gains achieved by sub-Saharan African countries in recent years, the Deputy Secretary-General today cited an urgent need to scale up efforts to meet the global anti-poverty targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015.
Despite recent gains, including economic growth and stability, progress towards achieving the MDGs in sub-Saharan Africa remains “too slow” at the mid-point to 2015, Asha-Rose Migiro told members of the Secretary-General’s MDG Africa Initiative, which is designed to help mobilize international support for African States’ own efforts.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
SOMALIA: TOP UN ENVOY CALLS FOR ROAD MAP TO ADDRESS WORSENING CRISIS
The top United Nations envoy to Somalia has urged the international community to draw up a road map towards lasting peace and stability in the Horn of Africa nation that has not had a functioning national government since 1991, warning that continuing with “business as usual” would have dire consequences for the country and the region.
“The situation in Somalia is dangerous and becoming more so each day,” Special Representative of the Secretary-General Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah told the Security Council today. His briefing follows recent meetings with President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, the recently-appointed Prime Minister of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), Nur Hassan Hussein, and members of Somalia’s opposition.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UNHCR RESUMES REPATRIATION OF SUDANESE REFUGEES FROM ETHIOPIAN CAMP
The United Nations refugee agency has resumed its repatriation of Sudanese from a camp in western Ethiopia after the operation had been suspended for six months because of poor weather and road conditions.
A convoy of buses and trucks carrying 610 refugees left Ethiopia’s Bonga camp for Sudan’s Blue Nile state, about 820 kilometres away, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported. As many as two-thirds of the group were aged under 18 and probably born and raised in Ethiopia.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
DRC: UN MISSION SAYS RECRUITMENT OF CHILD SOLDIERS IS SURGING
Hundreds of under-age boys and girls are being forcibly recruited by rival armed groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and sent to the front lines of the escalating conflict in North Kivu province in the far east of the country, the UN mission reported today.
The mission, known as MONUC, has identified the Congrès National pour la Défense du Peuple (CNDP), the group led by the renegade General Laurent Nkunda, and the Front Démocratique de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR) as the two main groups responsible for the forced recruitment of children into armed conflict.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN AROUND THE WORLD
RICH AND POOR NATIONS MUST FORGE AHEAD TO TACKLE CLIMATE CHANGE
After the successful conclusion of the landmark United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali, Indonesia, developed and developing countries alike must continue to build on the momentum generated by the meeting, an official from the world body said yesterday.
“This was not just your average negotiation and it was not just your average UN meeting,” Robert Orr, Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Coordination and Strategic Planning, told reporters in New York. “There was from the very outset high expectations for this meeting. The truth is that those expectations were met.”
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
INDIA’S BOLLYWOOD STARS JOIN UN-BACKED ANTI-HUMAN TRAFFICKING EFFORTS
Some of Bollywood’s biggest stars are joining the efforts of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to curb human trafficking in India.
Millions of moviegoers will see a two-minute video called One Life, No Price – aiming to raise awareness of this form of modern-day slavery and spur action to prevent and combat this practice – to be shown before the new film, Welcome.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
NO ONE RECEIVES MORE MAIL THAN SANTA CLAUS - UN POSTAL UNION
The United Nations Universal Postal Union (UPU) has identified the recipient of the most personalized letters in the world: a white-bearded man who prefers to wear red suits and is so reclusive that he only travels on one night of the year.
Santa Claus, sometimes known as Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas or one of many other names, and other related figures such as the Three Kings or Russia’s Ded Moroz receive more than six million letters every year from children worldwide, according to the UPU, which is based in Berne, Switzerland.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
SG VOICES CONCERN OVER TURKISH AIR ATTACKS AGAINST IRAQ
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has expressed concern over the 16 December Turkish air strikes into northern Iraq and reports of possible civilian casualties, as well as continued attacks by the armed group PKK.
In response to a question about the air attacks, United Nations spokesperson Marie Okabe told reporters that “the Secretary-General is concerned that Turkey has launched air strikes into northern Iraq on 17 December, and that there have been reports of possible civilian casualties,” while also noting that “thus far, there is no independent confirmation of developments on the ground.”
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN ENVOY URGES LIBERIANS TO STICK TO PATH OF PEACE
The outgoing United Nations envoy to Liberia has used his farewell address on 16 December to call on the people of the West African nation to maintain the peace so that they can consolidate the social, economic and political gains they have made since the end of the civil war in 2003.
“Without peace and stability, the heroic task of building the new Liberia cannot go forward,” said Alan Doss, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative to the country and the head of the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), in the capital Monrovia.
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
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