UN Gazeti
Wednesday 17 December 2008
Issue No. 289
UN Observances
| 18 December 2008 |
International Migrants Day |
| 19 December 2008 |
United Nations Day for South-South Co-operation |
| 20 December 2008 |
International Human Solidarity Day |
UN IN AFRICA
REBELS REPORTEDLY PRESSURING DISPLACED CONGOLESE TO RETURN HOME
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) yesterday said it is very concerned about reports that rebels are putting pressure on those displaced by the deadly fighting in the far east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to return to their villages.
Spokesperson Ron Redmond told reporters in Geneva that the agency has received reports that rebels associated with renegade general Laurent Nkunda are trying to prevent internally displaced persons (IDPs) from reaching a makeshift site in Rutshuru, close to the base of the UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC – known as MONUC – and pressuring them to go back.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
PIRACY PROBLEM INSEPARABLE FROM OVERALL SOMALI CRISIS, SG WARNS
As the United Nations Security Council strengthened efforts today to fight piracy off the Somali coast, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned that the problem could not be divorced from the need to bring a comprehensive, inclusive peace to the war-torn country that has been without a functioning central government since 1991.
“We must be mindful that piracy is a symptom of the state of anarchy which has persisted in that country for over 17 years,” Mr. Ban told the 15-member body, which unanimously adopted a resolution reiterating earlier calls to countries and regional organizations with the necessary capability to deploy naval ships and military aircraft off the coast and laying out additional measures to bring the pirates to justice and possibly go after them on land.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
REGIONAL APPROACH CRUCIAL TO BRING SOMALI PIRATES TO JUSTICE, SAYS UN ANTI-CRIME CHIEF
The United Nations crime-fighting agency yesterday proposed a regional approach to bringing pirates off the Somali coast to justice similar to one that has proved successful in fighting drug traffickers in the Caribbean.
“Gunboats are necessary, but not sufficient,” UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa said of the European, Indian and United States warships now seeking to provide protection from the rampant piracy that has seen scores of ships hijacked for ransom, including those carrying vital UN food supplies for hundreds of thousands of hungry Somalis.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN DEPLOYS NEARLY ALL ITS 17,500 PEACEKEEPERS TO STRIFE-TORN EAST IN DR CONGO
15 December 2008 – More than 90 per cent of the nearly 17,500 United Nations peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are now deployed in the strife-torn east of the vast country, including over 6,000 in North Kivu province which has seen an upsurge of fighting between various rebels groups and the national army.
“The task that the blue helmets are fulfilling at this very moment is absolutely vital,” General Babacar Gaye, military head of the UM Mission in DRC, known by its French acronym MONUC, said in an update on the disposition of forces.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
ZIMBABWE CHOLERA DEATH TOLL NEARS 1,000
The death toll from Zimbabwe’s worst-ever cholera outbreak is approaching 1,000, the United Nations reported on Monday, as Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned that the country’s leadership is not doing enough to address the dire situation in the Southern African nation.
“We continue to witness a failure of the leadership in Zimbabwe to address the political, economic, human rights and humanitarian crisis that is confronting the country and to do what is best for the people of Zimbabwe,” Mr. Ban told a closed-door session of the Security Council.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
STRANDED SUDANESE REFUGEES LEAVE IRAQ FOR ROMANIA, REPORTS UNHCR
A group of 97 Sudanese refugees, mainly from the strife-torn region of Darfur, who have been stranded in a makeshift camp in the Iraqi desert since 2005, are on their way to Romania, where they hope to be resettled, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said yesterday.
The refugees, who fled Sudan in the late 1980s, will be housed in a new Emergency Transit Centre in Timosoara while they wait for their resettlement applications to be processed, UNHCR spokesperson Ron Redmond told reporters in Geneva.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
EUROPEAN UNION NAVAL ESCORT BOOSTS SECURITY FOR UN FOOD AID EN ROUTE TO SOMALIA
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) on Monday expressed its gratitude to the European Union (EU) for protecting ships carrying vital food aid from rampant piracy off the coast of Somalia.
The EU has launched Operation Atlanta, which sends naval escorts for vessels, including ships transporting WFP aid to the Horn of Africa nation, where nearly half of the population requires assistance, according to the UN.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN AROUND THE WORLD
UN AGENCY URGES NATIONS TO FUND ‘HUMAN RESCUE’ PACKAGE NEEDED TO FEED MILLIONS
Without a “human rescue” package, costing a mere fraction of the financial bailout and economic stimulus initiatives tabled in Western Europe and the United States, millions of people around the world will go hungry early next year, warned the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) yesterday.
WFP, which aims to feed nearly 100 million of the world’s hungriest people in 2009, announced that it will start the New Year needing $5.2 billion to urgently support its programmes combating global hunger.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
SECURITY COUNCIL CALLS ON ISRAEL, PALESTINIANS TO FULFIL PLEDGES FOR TWO-STATE PEACE
The United Nations Security Council yesterday called on Israel and the Palestinians to fulfil their obligations under the so-called Roadmap peace plan seeking a two-State solution to the Middle East conflict, and to refrain from any steps that could undermine confidence or prejudice the outcome of negotiations.
“Lasting peace can only be based on an enduring commitment to mutual recognition, freedom from violence, incitement, and terror, and the two-State solution, building upon previous agreements and obligations,” according to the joint Russian-United States resolution, adopted by 14 of the Council’s 15 members with only Libya abstaining.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
PRE-STORED DATA VITAL FOR MITIGATING NATURAL DISASTERS, UN REPORTS
With climate change likely to increase both the frequency and severity of natural disasters, the United Nations yesterday launched guidelines to help States pre-emptively amass the data vital for effective relief operations to avoid compounding the original catastrophe.
“So that these natural hazards do not become man-made disasters, we require effective systems to identify needs, manage data, and help calibrate responses,” UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes and World Bank Vice President Danny Leipziger said in a forward to Data Against Natural Disasters, a book launched jointly by their offices.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
ISRAEL’S DETENTION OF UN EXPERT ‘UNPRECEDENTED’
Israel’s refusal to allow a United Nations expert to transit to carry out his officially mandated functions in the occupied Palestinian territory, his detention and subsequent expulsion is “unprecedented and deeply regrettable,” the world body’s top human rights official said yesterday.
“It is the responsibility of States to cooperate with the independent United Nations experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay added of the treatment accorded the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, Richard Falk. “That is an important principle.”
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
RENOWNED SWEDISH RETAILER DONATES PROCEEDS FROM TOY SALES TO UNICEF PROJECTS
This holiday season scores of projects aimed at improving the education of school children around the world are set to profit from an IKEA initiative to the tune of €5 million (almost $7 million), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) announced yesterday.
So far, the Swedish retail giant has sold some 4.1 million soft toys as part of its fourth annual “€1 is a fortune” campaign, in which IKEA donates €1 to UNICEF and Save the Children for every stuffed animal it sells.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
TOP UN ENVOY DISCUSSES STATUS ISSUE DURING VISIT TO DISPUTED IRAQI CITY
The top United Nations official in Iraq held talks yesterday with local leaders and representatives of the various communities in Kirkuk, where the world body is assisting with efforts to resolve the eventual status of the oil-rich northern city.
Staffan de Mistura’s visit comes just days after a tragic bombing that killed and wounded dozens of civilians at a popular restaurant on 11 December, as families celebrated the end of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
NEW UN REPORT HIGHLIGHTS CHALLENGES TO ENSURING FOOD SECURITY IN TIMOR-LESTE
Timor-Leste faces a number of challenges in its quest to ensure that all of its citizens have access to adequate food, such as poor infrastructure connecting villages to local markets, according to a new report by the United Nations mission in the country, known as UNMIT.
The report on the right to food, launched yesterday by UNMIT’s Human Rights and Transitional Justice Section, also cites challenges in the areas of pre- and post-harvest handling, transportation, and knowledge on nutrition.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
BLUE HELMETS RAISE FUNDS AND HELP REBUILD SCHOOLS DAMAGED IN HURRICANES
The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Haiti, known as MINUSTAH, collected over $20,000 and put its muscle behind renovation work on four schools in the storm-battered island.
Personnel from the Argentine military contingent of the UN force got behind a fundraising effort to rehabilitate the schools which were battered during four back-to-back storms that struck the impoverished nation from mid-August to mid-September.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
FLOOD-STRICKEN PAPUA NEW GUINEA RECEIVES UN ASSISTANCE
The United Nations is sending a disaster assessment team to Papua New Guinea after severe sea swells hit the northern shoreline, affecting up to 60,000 people, according to government estimates.
The possibility of water-borne disease is one of the major health concerns and timely and adequate water and sanitation assistance is required, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said yesterday.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
CYPRIOT LEADERS TAKE ON-GOING UN-BACKED PEACE PROCESS FORWARD
The Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot leaders continued United Nations-sponsored talks on the reunification of the Mediterranean island yesterday, pledging to meet again before the year’s end to examine issues concerning state and federal law.
In May, Greek Cypriot leader Demetris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat committed to a partnership that will comprise a Federal Government with a single international identity, along with a Turkish Cypriot Constituent State and a Greek Cypriot Constituent State, which will be of equal status.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
COOPERATION AMONG DEVELOPING NATIONS VITAL TO TACKLING CURRENT CRISES
Current global crises, ranging from food to fuel and finance, offer an opportunity to increase solidarity among developing countries, the President of the General Assembly said yesterday, stressing the potential benefits of South-South cooperation for dealing with a range of issues.
“South-South cooperation is a win-win situation for all nations,” Miguel D’Escoto told a meeting held on the occasion of the UN Day for South-South Cooperation, which is observed on 19 December. “It is not a mere add-on in our development efforts.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN MEETING ON ENSURING RIGHT TO EDUCATION KICKS OFF IN OSLO
A United Nations conference aimed at overcoming global inequalities in education, especially for children in the poorest nations and girls, kicked off in Norway yesterday.
Against the backdrop of the global financial crisis, education and development ministers, leading officials for multilateral and bilateral agencies, as well as representatives from civil society have gathered in Oslo to recommend strategies for accelerating progress towards achieving by 2015 quality “education for all” – the pledge made by world leaders in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, in 1999.
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 |
