UN Gazeti
Thursday 29 January 2009
Issue No. 04
UN Observances
UN TO SUPPORT JOINT DR CONGO/RWANDA MILITARY PLAN TARGETING REBELS
The top United Nations envoy to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has formally accepted an invitation by the nation’s Government to support the joint DRC/Rwanda military operation targeting ethnic Rwandan Hutu militias.
“We are going to bring our support so that this process can succeed as soon as possible,” Alan Doss, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative, said following talks with DRC authorities yesterday in Goma, the capital of North Kivu province.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
OVER 3,000 DEAD AS CHOLERA CRISIS IN ZIMBABWE WORSENS, SAYS UN HEALTH AGENCY
The death toll from Zimbabwe’s worst ever cholera epidemic has climbed to over 3,000, with more than 57,000 infected by the water-borne disease, the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) reported yesterday.
Some 3,028 people have now died from cholera since the outbreak first hit the besieged southern African country about six months ago, with 57 deaths yesterday alone and 102 the day before.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
DARFUR REMAINS TENSE AFTER RECENT ERUPTION OF FIGHTING, UN REPORTS
A senior United Nations peacekeeping official briefed the Security Council yesterday on Sudan’s war-ravaged Darfur region, where the security situation remains tense following fighting between various rebel groups and the Government.
“The situation on the ground is still very fluid and very confusing,” Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Edmond Mulet told reporters afterwards. “You have actions from the JEM [the rebel Justice and Equality Movement], you have actions from SLA/MM [Sudan Liberation Army/ Minni Minawi – another rebel group], you have actions from the Government, fighting each other, so it is very complex.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
SOMALIA: UN MEETING SEEKS TO STRENGTHEN BATTLE AGAINST PIRATES
Regional States, countries patrolling the pirate-infested waters off Somalia, and United Nations agencies are set to adopt an agreement this week to reinforce the fight against a scourge that has seen dozens of ships held for ransom in recent years, including vessels carrying UN food aid for millions of hungry Somalis.
Under the accord, signatories agree to arrest, investigate and prosecute actual or suspected pirates, seize their boats and rescue ships under attack. The agreement also covers possible hot pursuit into another country's territorial waters, and shared operations such as nominating officers to embark in the patrol ships or aircraft of another signatory.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN REFUGEE AGENCY CALLS ON KENYA TO STOP FORCED RETURN OF SOMALI ASYLUM-SEEKERS
The United Nations refugee agency on Monday called on Kenya to stop the forcible return, or refoulement, of Somali asylum-seekers, after three people, who were wounded crossing the border while fleeing violence in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu, were sent back.
“We very much regret the latest decision to forcibly return to Somalia the three wounded Somalis and call upon the Kenyan authorities to fully respect the principle of non-refoulement, as enshrined in the 1951 Geneva Convention and Kenya's own Refugees Act,” Ron Redmond, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said on Monday in Geneva.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN RIGHTS CHIEF DECRIES ‘GROTESQUE’ ABUSES BY UGANDAN REBELS IN DR CONGO
The top United Nations human rights official on Monday spoke out against abuses committed by Ugandan rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and voiced alarm about the impact on civilians of a joint military operation being conducted by DRC and its neighbour Rwanda.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay described the violations committed in eastern DRC by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) as “grotesque.” The rebels have attacked civilians in Orientale province in retaliation for a joint military operation launched last month by the Governments of DRC, Uganda and Southern Sudan targeting LRA bases in north-east DRC.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
DARFUR: FIGHTING CONTINUES FOR SECOND DAY NEAR HEADQUARTERS OF UN MISSION
Aerial bombing and artillery fire continued for a second day on the outskirts of the city of El Fasher, North Darfur, where the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) has its headquarters, the mission reported on Monday.
The Sudanese Government assaults resumed this morning approximately 9 kilometres from the city, in an attempt to clear the area of armed movements who had advanced towards the outskirts of the city yesterday, UNAMID said.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN AROUND THE WORLD
SRI LANKA: UN CONVOY TO EVACUATE WOUNDED CIVILIANS FROM WAR-TORN NORTH
The United Nations said yesterday it will attempt for the second time in three days to help evacuate by convoy hundreds of critically wounded civilians, including at least 50 children, from war-torn northern Sri Lanka.
The convoy has been trapped for days in the town of Puthukkudiyiruppu, which lies just across the lines of confrontation in territory controlled by the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
ISRAEL RE-OPENS CROSSINGS TO GAZA, BUT UN STRESSES NEED FOR MUCH GREATER ACCESS
Israel yesterday reopened crossings into Gaza that it had closed yesterday following a bomb attack along the border that killed a soldier, but the top United Nations official in Gaza stressed that access remained a problem with thousands of tons of generously donated aid sitting in Egypt, Jordan and the ports of Israel.
“That aid should be right here, right now, helping the people who need it,” the Director of Operations in Gaza for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), John Ging, said. While Israel has allowed increased shipments of basic commodities with 120 truckloads getting in on good days, the normal daily requirement is a minimum of 500.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
IRAQ: TOP UN ENVOY HAILS ‘GOOD START’ TO EARLY VOTING IN PROVINCIAL ELECTIONS
As Iraq’s police, military, detainees and hospital-bound cast early ballots yesterday, the top United Nations envoy hailed the orderly beginning of the strife-beset country’s governorate, or provincial, council elections to be held across the country on 31 January.
“The United Nations is pleased to see that the governorate elections got off to a good start,” Staffan de Mistura, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Representative, said after visiting a special voter polling centre in the Baghdad international zone, noting that the smooth beginning was a good sign for Saturday’s election.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
SECRETARY GENERAL ARRIVES IN SWITZERLAND TO PRESS LEADERS FOR URGENT ACTION ON GLOBAL CRISES
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon arrived in Switzerland yesterday to attend the World Economic Forum in the Alps town of Davos, where is he expected to call for a new chapter in private sector participation in addresses critical issues such as climate change, water scarcity and the global financial crisis.
While in Davos, he will hold bilateral meetings with world leaders and top business executives and is scheduled to hold a press conference on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the internationally agreed upon targets to eradicate poverty and other social ills by the target date of 2015, as well as participate in a special session on Gaza.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
SECRETARY GENERAL TO APPOINT NEW UN ENVOYS FOR NEPAL, GUINEA-BISSAU
Secretary-General has informed the Security Council of his intention to appoint Karin Landgren of Sweden and Joseph Mutaboba of Rwanda and as his top United Nations envoys to Nepal and Guinea-Bissau, respectively.
Ms. Landgren is no stranger to Nepal, having served as the Secretary-General’s Deputy Special Representative there since September 2008.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
CORPORATE LAW FIRMS JOIN UN-LED INITIATIVE ON BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS
Fifteen leading legal firms from around the world will participate in a United Nations-led effort to assess how well national corporate law principles and practices foster a company culture that is respectful of human rights.
"This is extraordinarily important work," said John Ruggie, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative on business and human rights.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN EXPERT APPEALS TO DPR KOREA TO LAUNCH INVESTIGATION INTO ABDUCTION OF JAPANESE
An independent United Nations human rights expert has called on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to initiate a serious investigation into its abduction of Japanese citizens in the late-1970s and early-1980s.
Of the 17 people officially listed as seized by the DPRK, five have returned to Japan, and the DPRK states that of the remaining 12, eight have died and four never entered the country.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
CROP PRODUCTION SATISFACTORY, BUT FOOD ACCESS DIFFICULT IN POST-CYCLONE MYANMAR – UN
Although overall crop production was satisfactory last year in Myanmar due to increased harvests in areas not impacted by the devastating Cyclone Nargis, a new United Nations report cautioned that access to food is still a problem for the most vulnerable people in the South-East Asian nation.
Last May’s cyclone, which claimed nearly 140,000 lives, destroyed the rice harvest in the Ayeyarwady delta area and production is expected to be half of what it was in 2007, according to the publication issued jointly by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the UN World Food Programme (WFP).
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
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