UN Gazeti
Wednesday 05 March 2008
Issue No. 257
UN Observances
| 02 February 2008 |
International Mother Language Day |
UN IN KENYA
SG HAILS HIS PREDECESSOR’S MEDIATION EFFORTS IN KENYA
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon On Tuesday hailed the leadership of his predecessor, Kofi Annan, in the mediation efforts to bring an end to two months of post-election violence in Kenya.
“His role has brought not only peace and stability in Kenya but also the whole region,” said Mr. Ban, adding that the United Nations will continue its engagement in the process.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news/
KENYA’S YOUTH VIOLENCE PREVENTION WEEK COMES TO A CLOSE
A youth violence prevention week came to a close at the weekend with participants pledging to spread the peace message across Kenya after two months of tension and ethnic violence following elections in December 2007.
And in a happy coincidence, the efforts by the international community to end the post election skirmishes that has claimed some 1,000 lives and almost 300,000 others being displaced also bore fruit with a landmark political deal signed by President Mwai Kibaki and opposition chief Raila Odinga.
For more information, visit: http://www.unhabitat.org/
UN IN AFRICA
UN REFUGEE HEAD VOWS TO DO MORE FOR DISPLACED IN NORTHERN UGANDA
On his visit to northern Uganda, where an estimated 850,000 people live in camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs), the head of the United Nations refugee agency pledged more support for the return of those driven from their homes by decades of violence.
“All of us in the international community are ready to work in support of the Ugandan Government,” António Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) told hundreds of IDPs gathered in a dusty football field in Kalongo, which he visited with Minister Jean-Louis Schiltz of Luxembourg, UNHCR’s largest donor per capita.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN-AFRICAN UNION POLICE BEGIN PATROLS IN NORTH DARFUR
Police units of the new United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) conducted their first “confidence-building” patrols in areas controlled by the Minni Minawi-led rebel group in the violence-torn region of Sudan, the mission said On Tuesday.
“The safety of the citizens of Darfur is a priority for UNAMID,” said UNAMID Police Commissioner Michael Fryer, in announcing activities in the domain of the rebel group, which is a faction of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA).
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN STEPS UP AID TO FLOOD-BELEAGUERED ZAMBIANS
With recent flooding having forced thousands of families from their homes in Zambia, the United Nations is stepping up its humanitarian aid in the landlocked southern African nation.
According to an assessment carried out in 19 districts late last month, 3,418 homes have collapsed due to the rainfall and 5,796 households have been displaced, the UN country team said.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
FIRST GROUP OF UN PEACEKEEPERS TEMPORARILY RELOCATE OUT OF ERITREA
The first group of United Nations peacekeepers left Eritrea On Tuesday, travelling by plane out of the capital, Asmara, as part of the temporary relocation of the mission personnel after the force’s operations were paralyzed when the Horn of Africa country cut off fuel supplies.
Fifty peacekeepers from the Jordanian battalion of the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) are now en route to Amman, UN spokesperson Michele Montas told journalists.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
AID WORKERS MUST HAVE FULL ACCESS TO VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE IN WEST DARFUR
3 March 2008 – United Nations officials in Sudan are calling on all parties to the recent surge in violence in West Darfur to grant aid workers unhindered access to victims caught up in the deadly clashes in the already war-wracked region.
“We must have guarantees from all sides of unimpeded access to affected areas now,” UN Humanitarian Coordinator Ameerah Haq told a press conference in Khartoum on Monday. Her call was echoed by local representatives of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
DESPITE HINDRANCES, UN COMPLETES REGROUPING OF BLUE HELMETS IN ERITREA
3 March 2008 – After more than a week of repeated blockages by Eritrean forces, United Nations peacekeepers in the Horn of Africa country have finally completed regrouping to the capital, Asmara, in preparation for their planned temporary relocation across the border to Ethiopia.
According to the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE), all staff have now left the Temporary Security Zone (TSZ) that separates the two countries, which fought a bloody border war that ended in 2000.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
RWANDAN OFFICIAL CONVICTED BY UN TRIBUNAL LEAVES JAIL AFTER COMPLETING SENTENCE
3 March 2008 – A former Rwandan local government official convicted and jailed by the United Nations genocide tribunal for failing to prevent the massacre of Tutsis seeking refuge in a church has been released from prison after completing his sentence.
Vincent Rutaganira, who had been sentenced in March 2005 to six years’ jail, was released yesterday from the UN detention facility in Arusha, Tanzania, where the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) is based. Mr. Rutaganira had been in custody since he was arrested in March 2002.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN REINFORCES PEACEKEEPERS IN WEST TO QUELL FLARE-UP OF VIOLENCE IN DR CONGO
3 March 2008 – The United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) is dispatching additional peacekeepers to Bas-Congo province in the far west of the vast African country following renewed outbursts of deadly violence there.
Condemning the latest incidents, in which seven people were killed and a dozen injured, Alan Doss, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Representative, on Monday appealed to the parties for restraint, saying further violence could only worsen local problems.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
NIGERIAN UN UNIT HANDS OVER ELECTRICAL TRAINING WORKSHOPIN LIBERIA
A Nigerian peacekeeping unit of the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) has handed over an electrical technicians training workshop it established through the expertise and financial contribution of its personnel, the mission said today.
At a ceremony outside of the country’s capital, Monrovia, the Nigerian Signal-Six (NISIG-6) unit was commended by Ellen Margrethe Løj, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Representative, for funding and identifying the need for the workshop, which will now be run by the Catholic-run Don Bosco Youth Centre.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN AROUND THE WORLD
AFGHANISTAN MUST DO MORE TO REIN IN ‘UNPRECEDENTED’ DRUG TRADE
The United Nations anti-drugs agency yesterday called on the Afghan Government to do more to dismantle major trafficking and criminal networks in the strife-torn nation which remains the world’s largest producer of opium and heroin.
“The networks are very powerful because the drug traders are linked to corrupt officials and to criminal networks outside Afghanistan,” Christina Gynna Oguz, the Representative of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Afghanistan, told reporters in Kabul yesterday.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
TOP UN MEDIATION TEAM NOW ON CALL FOR CRISES AROUND THE WORLD
A mediation team with some of the world’s leading experts in ceasefires, transitional justice, power-sharing and constitutional arrangements is now on standby to help resolve crises around the world, the United Nations’ top political official announced yesterday.
The new UN Mediation Standby Team is part of ongoing efforts to strengthen the ability of the UN’s Department of Political Affairs to help prevent conflict through assistance to diplomacy, according to B. Lynn Pascoe, the Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
GLOBAL FIGURES TO GATHER AT UN NEXT WEEK ON ADVANCING AFRICA’S DEVELOPMENT
International development leaders will convene at United Nations Headquarters in New York next week to address how to accelerate Africa’s progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the targets the world has set itself to slash poverty, hunger, maternal and infant mortality, and other social ills, all by 2015.
The MDG Africa Steering Group was set up last September after data showed that despite faster growth and strengthened institutions, Africa remains off-track to meeting the Goals.
For more information please contact http://www.un.org/news
TIME TO BRING HOPE, NOT HATRED, TO MIDDLE EAST CONFLICT SAYS UN AID CHIEF
The growing gap between the goals of the Middle East peace process and the worsening realities on the ground could prove fatal to hopes of a lasting settlement unless urgent action is taken to deal with the problem, the United Nations humanitarian chief said.
In an opinion column published in Cairo’s Al-Ahram yesterday, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes wrote that the disconnect could also be “profoundly damaging to one of the world’s oldest and largest refugee populations.”
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UNESCO AWARDS FELLOWSHIPS FOR 15 FEMALE SCIENTISTS
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the cosmetics company L’Oréal yesterday awarded annual fellowships to 15 promising young women scientists as part of their efforts to foster global scientific cooperation.
Yesterday’s recipients join a group of 120 fellows from 67 countries who have benefited from the UNESCO-L’Oréal Fellowships, which allow doctoral and post-doctoral female scientists to conduct research in laboratories outside their home countries, since the programme’s inception in 2000.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN PREPARES FOR DIRECT TALKS BETWEEN LEADERS IN CYPRUS
The United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) has started preparations for direct talks between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot leaders.
The face-to-face meeting could take place during the second half of this month, the UN mission reported yesterday. The meeting’s agenda will be determined by the two sides, although the opening of Nicosia’s Ledra Street crossing is expected to be prominent in discussions.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA WANTS TO SOLVE NAME ISSUE
The leadership of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is committed to solving its dispute with Greece over the “name issue,” the United Nations envoy dealing with the subject said yesterday after holding another round of talks in Skopje.
Matthew Nimetz, the Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy, met with President Branko Crvenkoski, Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki and Skopje’s primary negotiator on the issue, Ambassador Nikola Dimitrov.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
SG’S SAYS STABILITY IN SOUTHERN LEBANON THREATENED, DESPITE RECENT PROGRESS
Although southern Lebanon is relatively stable at present, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expresses deep concern over the effects of the ongoing political crisis, arms smuggling and Israeli overflights there in a new report on compliance with the Security Council decision that helped end fighting between Israel and Hizbollah in 2006.
“I am pleased to report that both the Governments of Lebanon and Israel express continued commitment to the implementation of resolution 1701,” Mr. Ban says in the report on the decision, which called for renewed respect for the Blue Line separating Israeli and Lebanese forces, the disarming of militias and an end to arms smuggling, among other measures.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN MISSION REASSERTS ITS CONTROL OVER STRETCH OF RAIL LINE IN NORTHERN KOSOVO
The United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) On Tuesday reasserted control of a rail line in northern Kosovo, a day after Serbian Railways had challenged its authority over the stretch.
Joachim Rücker, the head of UNMIK and the Secretary-General’s Special Representative, said that the intervention of UNMIK Border Police “reverses the challenge to UNMIK’s authority that occurred yesterday when Serbian Railways illegally sent two of its trains south of Leshak/Lešak.”
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
TEN CONFIRMED DEAD IN UN HELICOPTER CRASH IN NEPAL
The United Nations confirmed On Tuesday that seven of its staff and three crew members died when one of its helicopters crashed in eastern Nepal yesterday.
The flight, which left the Maoist cantonment site at Sindhuli and was bound for the capital, Kathmandu, crashed in Ramechhap district on Monday afternoon.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
SECURITY COUNCIL WILL NOT ENDORSE USE OF FORCE TO DEAL WITH IRAN
The Security Council, which yesterday imposed additional sanctions against Iran for its nuclear activities, will not support the use of force to deal with that issue, the 15-member body’s President for March stated On Tuesday.
On Monday the Council authorized the inspection of cargo suspected of carrying prohibited goods, the tighter monitoring of financial institutions and the extension of travel bans and asset freezes, after Iran failed to comply with requests to suspend uranium enrichment activities. The measures follow Council sanctions imposed in 2006 and 2007.
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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