UN Gazeti
Thursday 12 February 2009
Issue No. 05
UN Observances
UN IN KENYA
UN APPEALS FOR FUNDS TO FEED HUNGRY KENYANS
The United Nations headquarters in Kenya has kicked off a drive to collect funds to help millions of people starving in the East African nation.
“Hunger is not an option,” said Anna Tibaijuka, Executive Director of the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) and head of the UN Office in Nairobi (UNON), at the campaign’s launch.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN IN AFRICA
DR CONGO: GROUP OF RWANDAN EX-MILITIA STILL MISSING BUT REPATRIATION CONTINUES
A group of ethnic Hutu fighters who disappeared over the weekend from a camp in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), from which they were supposed to be repatriated to Rwanda, are still missing, but many others have returned home, the UN mission in the country (MONUC) said yesterday.
One of MONUC’s disarmament and reintegration teams is searching the area some 200 kilometres north of Goma, the capital of strife-torn North Kivu province, where the 150 Rwandan ethnic Hutu fighters and their dependents suddenly vanished from their cantonment, the Mission added.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
SUDAN FACES MAJOR RECOVERY CHALLENGES DESPITE RECENT STRIDES – UN OFFICIAL
Sudan has made tremendous strides towards peace and recovery in the past few years, but major challenges such as lack of clean water, high maternal mortality and low school enrolment require the sustained support of the country’s partners, the top United Nations relief official there said yesterday.
The UN and its partners still need $1.5 billion of the $2.2 billion sought for the 2009 Sudan Work Plan, which was launched last November and covers humanitarian and early recovery needs throughout the vast African nation.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
ZIMBABWE: BAN CALLS ON NEW GOVERNMENT TO TACKLE ECONOMIC, HUMANITARIAN CRISES
Zimbabwe’s new Government of national unity needs to immediately address the economic and humanitarian crises, including the country’s worst ever cholera epidemic, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said yesterday, pledging full United Nations support.
“The period ahead will also be critical for consolidating human rights and democratic freedoms,” Mr. Ban said in a statement issued by his spokesperson, welcoming yesterday’s swearing-in of Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai as Prime Minister in a unity government with President Robert Mugabe.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UNICEF CAMPAIGN LAUNCHES US TOUR TO HIGHLIGHT DR CONGO RAPE CRISIS
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is kicking off a five-city tour of the United States aimed at highlighting the horrors faced by thousands of Congolese rape victims, while calling for an end to impunity for the perpetrators of the worst kinds of sexual violence.
Simple everyday tasks, such as gathering wood and fetching water, expose thousands of girls and women to vicious abuses in the conflict-ridden eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), “where rape is used as a weapon of war,” said UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
DR CONGO: FORMER RWANDAN FIGHTERS VANISH FROM DISARMAMENT SITE
A group of 150 ethnic Hutu fighters and their dependents who had agreed to be demobilized and repatriated to Rwanda have disappeared from a camp in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the United Nations mission there said on Monday.
After their voluntary disarmament, the group was cantoned under the care of a church organization in Kasiki, some 200 kilometres north of Goma, the capital of strife-torn North Kivu province, and were supposed to start their journey home on 8 February assisted by the UN peacekeeping mission, known by its French acronym MONUC.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
CHILD ABUSE, RAPE, ARMED RECRUITMENT RAMPANT IN CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC, UN REPORTS
Grave violations against children are being perpetrated by all parties to the various conflicts in the Central African Republic (CAR), including rape and armed recruitment into the fighting forces, according to a United Nations report released on Monday.
Non-State armed groups and bandits are also kidnapping children as a means of recruitment and to threaten and extort ransom from the population, while abuses against youngsters generally are committed in a climate of impunity, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon writes in his latest report to the Security Council on children and armed conflict in CAR.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
NEW ZIMBABWEAN GOVERNMENT MUST RESOLVE DISASTROUS SCHOOL CRISIS, UN WARNS
Zimbabwe’s education crisis is worsening with nearly all rural schools closed, and the new Government must make the issue a priority, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned on Monday.
“The education situation is a national disaster,” UNICEF country representative Roeland Monasch said on the eve of the inception of a government of national unity bringing in the opposition after months of political discord.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
THOUSANDS OF CONGOLESE FLEE LATEST ATTACK BY UGANDAN REBEL GROUP, UN SAYS
Thousands have fled to Southern Sudan after a notorious Ugandan rebel group rampaged through a town in the northeast region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the United Nations refugee agency said on Monday.
At least six people were killed and another 21 kidnapped Saturday night in an attack on the town of Aba in Orientale Province by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), who also plundered the local Protestant parish and hospital.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
RETURNS TO SOUTH SUDAN TOP 300,000, REPORTS UN REFUGEE AGENCY
The number of Sudanese refugees returning from exile since the end of the country’s civil war topped 300,000 last weekend, marking a milestone in a repatriation operation aimed at assisting nearly 500,000 people uprooted by the conflict, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Monday.
Southern Sudanese and UNHCR officials were on hand at the Sudanese/Ugandan border on 7 February to welcome the 300,000th returnee – 72-year-old Antazia Dulu who fled her homeland in 1991 – and a convoy of 240 returnees.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN AROUND THE WORLD
UN DEPLORES DEADLY ATTACKS AGAINST GOVERNMENT OFFICES IN KABUL
The United Nations yesterday strongly condemned the terrorist attacks against government buildings in the Afghan capital, Kabul, which took the lives of at least 20 people and injured many more, calling for the punishment of those responsible.
Noting that the Taliban had claimed responsibility, the Security Council underlined the need to bring “the perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of these reprehensible acts of terrorism” to justice.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
IRAQIS MUST NOT GIVE IN TO EXTREMISM, UN ENVOY SAYS AFTER ATTACK ON PILGRIMS
The United Nations envoy to Iraq strongly condemned yesterday’s bombing at a bus station in the capital, targeting pilgrims making the journey from Baghdad to Karbala, and called on all of the nation’s citizens to “not rise to the provocation of extremists.”
Media reports say that at least 16 people have been killed and at least 40 wounded after two simultaneous explosions struck a bus terminal in south-west Baghdad.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
BAN VOICES SADNESS AT AUSTRALIA’S DEADLY FIRES
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has voiced his sadness at the deadly fires that have swept across south-eastern Australia, reportedly killing at least 180 people and leaving dozens missing.
“The Secretary-General is deeply saddened about the deaths and injuries of hundreds of people as a result of bushfires in the state of Victoria in Australia,” a statement issued last night by his spokesperson said.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
ECONOMIC CRISIS GIVES EUROPE, CENTRAL ASIA CHANCE TO REACH FOR SOCIAL GOALS – UN
The European and Central Asian region, facing an increase in unemployment of 8 million people, should use the present economic crisis to push for longer-term social goals, according to the United Nations International Labour Organization (ILO).
“A social investment approach based on the ILO Decent Work Agenda offers immediate relief in terms of the generation of job opportunities and a basic social and economic floor of empowerment and opportunity to counteract rising poverty,” ILO Director-General Juan Somavia told the agency’s 8th European Regional Meeting on its opening day in Lisbon yesterday.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
MOBILE PHONES CAN CALL FOR HEALTH, EDUCATION AND SAFETY, UNICEF SAYS
Cell phones can play an important role in education, crisis situations, and in monitoring health and nutrition, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) stressed yesterday at the opening of a conference on innovation.
The conference, called “Web4Dev: Innovation for Access” and hosted by UNICEF, brings together academics, experts in technology, UN officials and development professionals to explore the application of new and existing communication technologies to dire problems in poor and isolated areas of the world.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
BAN MORE DETERMINED THAN EVER AFTER GAZA WAR TO ACHIEVE MIDDLE EAST PEACE
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said yesterday his recent visit to war-wracked Gaza had left him more determined than ever to achieve the two-State solution of Israel and Palestine living side by side in security as well as a lasting peace between Israel and all its Arab neighbours.
“The peace process must be revitalized, and negotiations should resume leading to a lasting settlement of the conflict, based on relevant Security Council resolutions, the Road Map, and the Arab Peace Initiative,” he told the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, referring to the two-State solution and the Saudi plan for full Arab peace with Israel in return for full withdrawal from territory it seized in 1967.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN AGENCY CALLS FOR PROBE INTO MURDERS OF INDIGENOUS COLOMBIANS
The United Nations refugee agency is calling for an independent probe into the reported murders last week of 17 Awá indigenous people in a remote area of south-western Colombia that suffers from some of the worst violence and forced displacement in the country.
“We strongly urge all parties involved to respect international humanitarian law and ask the Colombian Government to fulfil its obligations to protect civilians and take special measures for the preservation of indigenous people,” Ron Redmond, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees told reporters in Geneva.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
BAN CALLS ON US, CHINA, INDIA AND EUROPE TO LEAD WAY ON CLIMATE CHANGE
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday delivered a wide-ranging report on his recent tour of the world’s crisis points, calling on the United States, China, India and the European Union to show “global leadership of the highest order” in tackling climate change.
“We have no time to lose,” he told a news conference at UN Headquarters in New York, noting that crucial climate change negotiations are scheduled for December in Copenhagen to draw up a new agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. “The United States, China, India and the European Union – all must show the way. We must provide for those least able to adapt.”
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
CHILDREN IN GAZA LEFT WITHOUT TEXTBOOKS AS PAPER RESTRICTION CONTINUES –UN
The United Nations agency tasked with assisting Palestinian refugees has distributed notebooks to 11 schools in Gaza over the past week, but has halted further distribution since it has not been able to import any additional notebooks.
The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) added that it has still not received permission to import the necessary paper to print the remainder of its textbooks, leaving 60 per cent of children without textbooks.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
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