UN Gazeti

Wednesday 02 July 2008

Issue No. 270

UN Observances

UN IN AFRICA

UNICEF JOINS FORCES TO LAUNCH WATER AND SANITATION PROJECT IN UGANDA

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the European Union yesterday launched a joint, four-year initiative to improve water and sanitation facilities in 21 districts across rural Uganda.

The new project, launched in Kabarole district in western Uganda, aims to increase access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation facilities and to improve hygiene behaviour, focusing mainly on rural schools, health centres and communities.

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

UN-BACKED GROUP ISSUES RECOMMENDATIONS ON ADVANCING AFRICA’S DEVELOPMENT

International development leaders yesterday issued a series of recommendations in such areas as agriculture, education, health and infrastructure to speed up Africa’s progress towards reaching the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG), eight anti-poverty targets with a 2015 deadline.

Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro and other officials launched a report of the MDG Africa Steering Group – comprising the leaders of multilateral development organizations – yesterday containing these recommendations on the final day of the African Union (AU) Summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

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

MOZAMBICANS DISPLACED BY FLOODS NEED DURABLE SOLUTIONS, SAYS UN EXPERT

An independent United Nations human rights expert has called for greater efforts to provide those displaced by floods in Mozambique with adequate housing and other services so they can start to rebuild their lives.

The Southern African nation is affected by recurrent floods, cyclones and droughts. At least eight people were killed as a result of Cyclone Jokwe, which struck the Mozambican coast on 8 March with winds of up to 200 kilometres per hour, leaving tens of thousands of people homeless.

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

OUTCOME OF ZIMBABWE POLLS ILLEGITIMATE, SAYS SG

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has criticized the outcome of 27 June run-off presidential election in Zimbabwe – which went ahead despite international appeals for a postponement given the violence and intimidation that preceded it – as illegitimate.

“The outcome did not reflect the true and genuine will of the Zimbabwean people or produce a legitimate result,” Mr. Ban’s spokesperson said in a statement issued on Monday in Tokyo, where the Secretary-General is currently on an official visit.

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

NEW JOINT UN-AFRICAN UNION MEDIATOR FOR DARFUR CONFLICT APPOINTED

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the African Union Chairperson on Monday appointed an experienced official from Burkina Faso as the new joint AU-UN Chief Mediator for Darfur as they seek new momentum in their efforts to resolve the five-year conflict.

Djibril Yipènè Bassolé, who has been Foreign Minister of Burkina Faso since 2007, will conduct the mediation efforts in the new post on a full-time basis from El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state and the headquarters of the hybrid UN-AU peacekeeping force to the region (UNAMID).

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

SECURITY COUNCIL APPLAUDS CENTRAL AFRICAN PEACE ACCORD WITH REBEL GROUPS

The Security Council on 27 June welcomed the recent peace agreement reached by authorities in the Central African Republic (CAR) and two rebel groups operating in the impoverished and strife-torn country.

In a statement to the press, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad of the United States, which holds the rotating Council presidency this month, said last Saturday's accord must now be fully implemented as part of efforts to bring peace to the CAR.

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

IFAD INCREASES AID TO RURAL POOR IN CAPE VERDE

The United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is providing $4.2 million to boost a programme tackling rural poverty in the West African island nation of Cape Verde.

The supplementary loan will bring total IFAD funding to US$13.5 million for the programme, which aims to assist poor rural people to integrate into the country’s fast-growing economy.

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

LIFE OF ALIOUNE BLONDIN BEYE CELEBRATED ON ANNIVERSARY OF HIS DEATH

World leaders, diplomats, senior United Nations officials, former colleagues, relatives and friends of Alioune Blondin Beye have gathered in New York to remember the life of the UN envoy killed 10 years ago on 26 June as he worked to advance the peace process in Angola.

An hour-long memorial was held at UN Headquarters on the morning of 26 June to celebrate Maitre Beye, who was killed in a plane crash in Côte d’Ivoire – along with seven other people – while serving as the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for the Angolan peace process.

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

UNICEF APPEALS FOR $49 MILLION FOR DROUGHT-AFFECTED ETHIOPIA

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has appealed for $49 million to assist families in Ethiopia where drought has left 75,000 children severely malnourished and 4.6 million people in need of immediate humanitarian aid.

After completing a visit to Ethiopia UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Hilde F. Johnson said on 26 June that the situation in the hardest-hit areas of the country is extremely serious.

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

 UN AROUND THE WORLD

COOPERATION KEY TO OVERCOMING DEVELOPMENT HURDLES, SAYS ECOSOC PRESIDENT

Surging food and oil prices, along with global financial turmoil, have made cooperation essential to reach development goals, Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) President Leo Mérorès said yesterday.

Least developing countries, landlocked developing countries and small island developing states will be particularly affected, he said in his address to the general debate of the annual high-level segment of ECOSOC.

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

FOOD AID CONTINUES IN BANGLADESH, MONTHS AFTER DEADLY CYCLONE – WFP

Obtaining food remains the biggest priority for Bangladeshi families living in areas still devastated by Cyclone Sidr last year, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said yesterday, announcing it will continue its aid operations to the affected region.

The next major harvest in the delta country is not due until November or December, and many households lack sufficient food reserves to last until then, according to a press release issued by WFP.

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

NEPAL: UNHCR DEPLORES ATTACKS ON MIGRATION AGENCY

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) yesterday spoke out against Monday night’s attacks on the compound of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in eastern Nepal.

The agency voiced concern that such violence could impede assistance to Bhutanese refugees – numbering some 108,000 – who have been living in seven camps in the South Asian nation since the early 1990s.

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

UN RIGHTS EXPERT CALLS ON UNITED STATES TO ENSURE DEATH PENALTY IS APPLIED FAIRLY

The United States should take immediate steps to ensure that the death penalty is applied fairly and justly in states where it is practised, a United Nations human rights expert said on Monday, voicing particular concern that officials in the state of Alabama “seem strikingly indifferent to the risk of executing innocent people.”

Philip Alston, the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, also called for the country’s military justice system to be improved so that victims of possibly unlawful killings can receive justice.

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

RECENT QUAKE SENDS SHOCKWAVES THROUGH CHINA’S AGRICULTURAL SECTOR

Last month’s earthquake in Sichuan, China, has caused some $6 billion in damage to the province’s agricultural sector, severely affecting over 30 million people in rural communities, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Monday.

The 7.9-magnitude earthquake of 12 May devastated the mountainous Sichuan province, killing an estimated 69,000 people and causing extensive property damage.

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

VISITING KYOTO, SG CALLS FOR NEW CLIMATE CHANGE AGREEMENT BY END OF 2009

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Sunday that the world must galvanize its will and reach a new agreement on measures to fight climate change by the end of 2009.

Speaking on Sunday in the Japanese city which gave birth to the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, Mr. Ban said the Protocol was a historic and crucial first step by the international community to curb greenhouse gas emissions. With the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol ending in 2012, the Secretary-General said a new agreement must be adopted by December 2009.

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

AFGHAN SITUATION WORSENING, UN RELIEF CHIEF SAYS, URGING NEW APPROACH

The humanitarian situation inside Afghanistan is getting worse, with civilian casualties rising and food prices soaring, the United Nations relief chief said on Sunday, calling for the international community to revise its assistance plans to the strife-torn country.

John Holmes, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, said “a very understandable focus” in recent years on making progress on the political, security, development and reconstruction fronts has led to some humanitarian needs being neglected.

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

WHO TO SET UP PERMANENT OFFICE IN IRAQI CAPITAL

The United Nations health agency is establishing a permanent office in Baghdad as part of the world body's efforts to provide greater support to the Iraqi people, the senior UN official in the country announced on Saturday.

Staffan de Mistura, the Secretary-General's Special Representative and the head of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), said the move by the World Health Organization (WHO) should help to ease the humanitarian plight of Iraqis.

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

LYON JOINS UNESCO OF CITIES THANKS TO EXPERIENCE WITH DIGITAL MEDIA

Lyon has become the first French city to join a United Nations network of cities set up to help promote their cultural, social and economic development in diverse fields ranging from literature and cinema to gastronomy and folk art.

Koïchiro Matsuura, Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), announced on 27 June that Lyon has been selected as the tenth member of the Creative Cities Network. It is also the first in the network to be designated as a “City of Media Arts.”

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

FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA: UN ENVOY HOLDS TALKS ON NAME ISSUE

A United Nations envoy has held talks on 27 June in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, which is involved in a long-standing dispute with neighbouring Greece over its name.

Matthew Nimetz, the Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy, met on 27 June with the President, Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and other officials from the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and heard detailed assessments of their latest positions.

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

INTERNATIONAL DAMAGE CLAIMS EXPERT TO SERVE ON VIENNA-BASED UN BODY

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has decided to appoint Ronald J. Bettauer of the United States to the three-member Board of the United Nations Register of Damage caused by the Construction of the Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (UNRoD).

Mr. Bettauer, a prominent international expert in all aspects of damage claims processing and registration, will replace Michael Raboin who died in April of this year, UN spokesperson Michele Montas told reporters.

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

HIGH FOOD PRICES COULD HIT AGRICULTURAL GROWTH IN CENTRAL ASIA AND EUROPE

26 June 2008 – Soaring food prices could reverse the significant growth in agricultural production seen in some of the poorest countries in Europe and Central Asia over the past 10 years, the Director-General of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on 26 June.

“In the past ten years, some of the poorest countries have posted the largest gains in per capita national income, notably the countries of the Transcaucasus and Central Asia, while growth has been slower in the countries of Western and Eastern Europe,” Jacques Diouf said, noting that per capita agricultural production had also grown fastest in those countries.

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

GENERAL ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT MEETS SENIOR AUSTRIAN OFFICIALS IN VIENNA

Human trafficking, climate change and the global food crisis dominated the agenda of talks on 26 June in Vienna between General Assembly President Srgjan Kerim and senior Austrian officials.

Mr. Kerim held meetings with Federal Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer, Minister for European and Foreign Affairs Ursula Plassnik and State Secretary Hans Winkler at the start of the third leg of a five-country official tour.

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

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