UN Gazeti
Wednesday 13 February 2008
Issue No. 254
UN Observances
| 02 February 2008 |
International Mother Language Day |
UN IN KENYA
UN HUMANITARIAN ENVOY WINDS UP VISIT AS MEDIATION TALKS ENTER "CRUCIAL" WEEK
John Holmes, the UN's Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, wound up a three-day visit to Kenya on 10 February as African Union-mandated mediation efforts entered what has been described as a "crucial stage".
"We hope the violence will stop, we reinforce the need for accountability for those responsible for that violence, which is why the United Nations is helping not only on the humanitarian side but helping in the political process as far as it can," Holmes said at a news conference on 10 February.
For more information, visit: http://www.irinnews.org/
MANY DISPLACED ARE ON THE MOVE AGAIN IN KENYA
With the security situation easing after a wave of violence tore through Kenya following last December’s contested elections, the United Nations reported that large numbers of displaced are returning to their “ancestral homes,” potentially straining resources in the nation’s western region.
The movement of internally displaced persons (IDPs) is mainly occurring from central to western areas of the country, and its impact is already being felt in Western and Nyanza provinces where educational and health systems are overextended, according to the UN Country Team.
For more information, http://www.un.org/news
JOHN HOLMES SAYS DAMAGE, DISPLACEMENT IN WESTERN KENYA A ‘TRAGEDY,’
Travelling to western Kenya’s Northern Rift Valley to survey the humanitarian toll taken by post-election violence, United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes on 9th February voiced concern over the plight of those forced to flee their homes.
"It is a tragedy that people have been pushed out of the homes by brutal violence," Mr. Holmes, who also serves as UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, said while touring camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs).
For more information, http://www.un.org/news
UN IN AFRICA
UN READIES TO PROVIDE MORE LASTING HELP FOR CHADIAN REFUGEES IN CAMEROON
United Nations aid officials in Cameroon are preparing plans to deliver protection and assistance for some months to as many as 20,000 Chadian refugees who fled their homeland last week because of deadly fighting between Government forces and armed opposition groups.
An estimated 30,000 refugees are currently in Kousséri, in north-eastern Cameroon, and UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) local representative Jacques Franquin said that after handling the group’s immediate life-saving needs, the agency expects about two thirds will not return to Chad in the coming weeks.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UNHCR WARNS LATEST DARFUR REFUGEES FACE RISK ALONG BORDER
Some 12,000 Sudanese who fled into Chad following Friday’s deadly attacks against three West Darfur towns remain in a precarious situation along the volatile border region as they await transfer into formal campsites, the United Nations refugee agency said yesterday.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) may start relocating the Sudanese to camps later yesterday, spokesperson Jennifer Pagonis told journalists in Geneva, with daily convoys eventually planned.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UNHCR SEEKS $63 MILLION TO HELP SOUTHERN SUDANESE RETURN HOME
The United Nations refugee agency yesterday launched an appeal for $63 million to help it administer the voluntary return and reintegration of 80,000 Sudanese still living in neighbouring countries as a result of the north-south civil war that ended in early 2005.
The appeal by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), unveiled in Geneva, aims to ensure that the agency’s voluntary repatriation scheme would be able to continue.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
RWANDAN INVESTIGATOR ACCUSED OF MANUFACTURING EVIDENCE APPEARS AT UN TRIBUNAL
A Rwandan defence investigator accused of trying to fabricate evidence for the appeal in the genocide trial of the country’s former higher education minister has made his first appearance in his own case before the United Nations tribunal set up to deal with the mass killings that engulfed the small African nation in 1994.
During an initial appearance yesterday before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), in Arusha, Tanzania, Léonidas Nshogoza pleaded not guilty to two charges of contempt of the Tribunal and two counts of attempting to commit acts punishable as contempt.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
MENINGITIS EPIDEMIC THREATENS ONE MILLION CENTRAL AFRICANS
Up to one million people in the Central African Republic (CAR) are at risk from a meningitis epidemic sweeping across the northwest of their country, and overwhelmed local health authorities do not have enough vaccine stocks to meet demands, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned on Monday.
An outbreak was declared after numerous deaths were reported in the districts of Ouham, Ouham Pendé and Nana-Grebizi in the first five weeks of this year, OCHA said in a press statement, and UN agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the country’s Government are working together to try to combat the epidemic.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
CONGOLESE REBEL LEADER MAKES FIRST APPEARANCE AT INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT
The former Congolese rebel leader Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui on Monday made his first appearance before the International Criminal Court (ICC), where he is facing nine counts of war crimes that include allegations of sexual slavery and the use of child soldiers.
Judges at the ICC, which sits in The Hague, verified Mr. Ngudjolo Chui’s identity and had the full arrest warrant read out to him, four days after he was arrested by authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and handed over to the court.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN ENVOY WELCOMES PROGRESS ON KIVUS WHILE URGING MORE ACTION
The senior United Nations envoy to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has welcomed progress in the follow-up to last month’s agreements on restoring order in the troubled Kivus, where fighting has forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee in recent months.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Representative Alan Doss, speaking in Goma on Saturday, hailed the creation of a temporary ceasefire monitoring mechanism, which has as its focal point the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC).
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN ENVOYS CONTINUES CONSULTATIONS IN THE REGION
United Nations humanitarian agencies have started distributing emergency relief supplies, including food, tents and surgical kits, to thousands of people living in the far east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which was hit by a major earthquake yesterday.
At least 34 people are confirmed to have been killed and 300 others injured as a result of the quake, measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale, which struck the province of South Kivu about 7:35 yesterday morning, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
SG SPEAKS OUT AGAINST RECENT ATTACKS IN WEST DARFUR
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on 9th February strongly condemned reported Janjaweed militia attacks supported by Sudanese forces on three towns in West Darfur resulting in the deaths of some 200 people.
Abu Suruj, Sirba and Seleia, town north of West Darfur's capital, were the scene of violence on 8 February. Abu Suruj, where thousands of civilians make their home, was burnt to the ground, while the assault on Seleia reportedly included air strikes by the Government.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN AROUND THE WORLD
TIMOR-LESTE: UN ENVOY DECRIES POLITICAL ATTACKS, HAILS GOVERNMENT RESPONSE
A senior United Nations envoy yesterday decried attempts on the life of the President of Timor-Leste, who was wounded yesterday in a shooting, and the Prime Minister, who escaped a separate attack on his motorcade, while praising the maintenance of calm in the country.
“I left New York within hours of hearing the terrible news that President José Ramos-Horta had been injured in a shooting incident early yesterday morning and that Prime Minister [Xanana] Gusmao had also been attacked,” said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's Special Representative, Atul Khare, who had been headed to UN Headquarters to brief the Security Council before reversing course and returning to the country, which the UN helped shepherd to independence in 2002.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
CLEAR GLOBAL STRATEGY CRUCIAL IN FIGHTING CLIMATE CHANGE – ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT
To build on the momentum generated by last December’s historic United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali, Indonesia, it is now critical to formulate a plan of action for the world body to tackle climate change comprehensively, the General Assembly’s President said yesterday.
In Bali, 187 countries agreed to launch a two-year process of formal negotiations on a successor pact to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
TIME TO PUNISH PARTIES WHO USE OR ABUSE CHILDREN IN ARMED CONFLICTS – UN ENVOY
The Security Council must “take concrete and targeted measures” against those parties that persistently use or abuse children during armed conflicts around the world, the United Nations envoy on the issue said yesterday, urging that well-meaning words be transformed into effective actions.
Addressing the Council during a day-long open debate, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict Radhika Coomaraswamy noted the ongoing impunity for those persistent violators that use or abuse children during wars.
For more information please contact http://www.un.org/news
WORLD-FAMOUS ACTORS, HUMANITARIANS JOIN UN CALL TO END VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
Award-winning actresses Catherine Deneuve and Hillary Swank and humanitarian Sir Bob Geldof have added their names to an ever-growing list of names on a United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) online petition which aims to eliminate violence against women.
“Can you believe that one in three women will be a victim of violence?” asked Ms. Deneuve, the French film star, encouraging others to sign the “Say NO to violence against women” petition.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UNICEF SEEKS $856 MILLION TO AID CHILDREN AND WOMEN CAUGHT IN CRISIS
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) yesterday asked donors for $856 million to assist children and women who are victims of emergencies, ranging from the conflicts in Chad and Kenya to flood-hit areas such as Mozambique.
Launching its Humanitarian Action Report 2008 in Geneva yesterday, the agency said the funds will be used to provide urgent assistance in health, education and nutrition.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN REFUGEE CHIEF IN MIDDLE EAST TO URGE INCREASED ASSISTANCE FOR UPROOTED IRAQIS
António Guterres, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), has traveled to the Middle East in a bid to raise awareness of the millions of Iraqis displaced by violence and host countries that are helping them.
Mr. Guterres is in Amman, Jordan, yesterday to meet with senior Government officials, visit UNHCR's registration centre and confer with a group of Iraqi refugees, before travelling to Damascus, Syria, this evening.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UNESCO CHIEF CONDEMNS MURDER OF NEPALESE JOURNALIST
The Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) yesterday condemned the murder last month of Nepalese journalist Pushkar Bahadur Shrestha.
The 57-year old publisher of two local weeklies was shot in the back on the evening of 12 January while with his brother in a town near Birgunj on the border with India. A man who said he was the local representative of the Janatantrik Tarai Mukti Morcha militia claimed responsibility for the murder, saying Mr. Shrestha was killed because he was a “pahadi” journalist, meaning from the hill region and not the southern plains population.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
SG MOURNS DEATH OF TOM LANTOS, ‘CHAMPION OF COMMON HUMANITY’
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday mourned the passing of United States Congressman Tom Lantos, paying tribute to the late legislator’s courage as a champion of humanity.
“The Secretary-General was deeply saddened to learn of the death of his friend Tom Lantos, the veteran United States legislator, Holocaust survivor, human rights advocate and long-time supporter of the United Nations,” a spokesperson for Mr. Ban said in a statement.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
SG HEADS TO WASHINGTON ON THURSDAY FOR TALKS WITH US PRESIDENT BUSH
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon heads to Washington on Thursday for talks with United States President George W. Bush and other senior officials, a United Nations spokesperson announced on Monday.
The UN and US leaders will discuss issues of common interest, including climate change, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), human rights, counter-terrorism, and international peace and security, Michele Montas told reporters in New York. The MDGs are a set of time-bound targets for addressing ills such as poverty, illiteracy and HIV/AIDS.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
EXPERTS MEET AT UN FOR FIRST TALKS ON POSSIBLE ARMS TRADE TREATY
Experts gathered at United Nations headquarters in New York on Monday to begin talks on a possible treaty governing the trade in conventional arms.
The five-day meeting brings together nearly 30 countries that are members of the Group of Governmental Experts examining the feasibility, scope and draft parameters for a comprehensive, legally binding instrument establishing common international standards for the import, export and transfer of conventional arms.
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
|
