UN Gazeti
Thursday 19 February 2009
Issue No. 06
UN Observances
UN IN KENYA
‘GREEN REVOLUTION’ CAN ENSURE ENOUGH FOOD FOR ENTIRE WORLD – UN ENVIRONMENT AGENCY
Unless major changes are made – including the way food is produced, handled and disposed of around the world – last year’s food crisis which plunged millions back into hunger may foreshadow an even bigger crisis in the years to come, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said in a new report.
The Environmental Food Crisis: The environment’s role in averting future food crises, released at the 25th session of the UNEP Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environment Forum in Nairobi, outlines a plan to reduce the risk of hunger and rising food insecurity for this century.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
BEIJING OLYMPICS RAISES BAR ON ECO-FRIENDLY SPORTING EVENTS – UN ENVIRONMENT AGENCY
Last summer’s Beijing Olympics set new records for eco-friendly mass spectator sporting events by raising the bar on many of the high environmental standards it set itself, according to a new United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report released yesterday.
The Games not only met but exceeded many of its pledges to be environmentally friendly from reducing air pollution to making large investments in public transportation and renewable energies, according to UNEP.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN IN AFRICA
SECRETARY-GENERAL SET TO TRAVEL TO AFRICA NEXT WEEK
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is slated to leave early next week for Africa where he will make his first official visits to South Africa and Tanzania, as well as stops in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Rwanda and Egypt, his spokesperson announced yesterday.
While in South Africa Mr. Ban will meet with President Kgalema Motlanthe, as well as the Ministers for Finance and Environment, Marie Okabe told reporters in New York. He is also expected to meet with former President Nelson Mandela.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
DR CONGO: UN MISSION CONDEMNS ‘TERROR TACTICS’ USED BY RWANDAN HUTU REBELS
The United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) yesterday condemned the “cowardly terror tactics” employed by an armed militia from Rwanda, which has caused havoc in the eastern part of the vast African nation for years.
The Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Rwanda (FDLR) is conducting a campaign of terror, systematically raping, murdering, looting and abducting civilians in an attempt to undermine the joint Rwanda/DRC military offensive aimed at ridding the group from the DRC, the mission – known by its French acronym MONUC – stated in an information note.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
JOINT UN, AFRICAN UNION MEDIATOR HAILS PACT BETWEEN GOVERNMENT, DARFUR REBELS
The Joint African Union-United Nations Chief Mediator tasked with resolving the conflict in Darfur has congratulated the Sudanese Government and a key rebel group for making strides in the process to bring peace to the war-ravaged Darfur region.
Yesterday, representatives of the Sudanese Government and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), meeting for the first time in two years, signed the “Agreement of Good Will and Confidence Building for the Settlement of the Problem in Darfur” in Doha, Qatar.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
AFRICAN NATIONS NEED TO BETTER UTILIZE EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES, SAY UN EXPERTS
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
UN RECEIVES ASSURANCES ON CONTINUED ACCESS TO DISPLACED IN SOUTH DARFUR
The Deputy Governor of South Darfur, the scene of recent violent clashes between Government forces and a rebel militia, assured a senior United Nations official yesterday that the world body will receive continued access to around 100,000 people caught up in the latest outburst of hostilities on Sudan’s western flank.
The fighting which broke out last month around Muhajeria and Shearia in South Darfur between Government troops and other armed groups against the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) exposed tens of thousands of civilians to violence.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
OVER 15,000 CONGOLESE FLEEING UGANDAN REBEL ATTACKS POUR INTO SUDAN, UN REPORTS
More than 15,000 Congolese have fled to South Sudan since the Ugandan rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) began launching attacks in north-east Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the United Nations refugee agency reported on Tuesday.
“It is critical to move all of these refuges away from border areas both for security reasons and to facilitate distribution of aid,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesman Ron Redmond told a news briefing in Geneva. “Access to the refugees will soon become impossible when the seasonal rains begin in April and roads become impassable.”
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
NEW UN ENVOY FOR WESTERN SAHARA HEADS TO REGION FOR CONSULTATIONS
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Personal Envoy for Western Sahara is on his way to the region for consultations with the parties, Morocco and the Frente Polisario, as part of United Nations efforts to help broker a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution regarding the Territory’s status.
This will be the first visit to the area for Christopher Ross since taking up the post last month. It follows meetings he held in New York last week, including with Mr. Ban and members of the Security Council, as well as with Morocco and the Frente Polisario.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN AROUND THE WORLD
TOP UN ENVOY URGES GREATER INTERNATIONAL EFFORTS TO ACHIEVE DURABLE GAZA CEASEFIRE
The top United Nations envoy to the Middle East yesterday urged the international community to redouble its efforts to help achieve a permanent and durable ceasefire in Gaza, warning that anything less is unsustainable and could lead to more violence.
“One month since unilateral ceasefires were declared, a proper ceasefire regime is still not in place, and there is an ever present danger of a return to the unsustainable conditions of last year, or even for renewed and more devastating violence,” Robert Serry, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, warned in a briefing to the Security Council.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
SRI LANKA: UNICEF VOICES CONCERN FOR CHILDREN VICTIMIZED BY CONFLICT
As the conflict between the Sri Lankan Government and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) continues, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has voiced its grave concern for the South Asian island nation’s children who are increasingly being recruited by rebels and who are being killed or injured.
The agency’s Representative in Sri Lanka, where ongoing fighting has trapped some 250,000 civilians in the country’s northern areas, said that the LTTE has stepped up its forced recruitment of civilians, with children as young as 14 years of age being targeted.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
GENERAL ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT TO DISCUSS REFORM EFFORTS DURING UPCOMING TRIP
The President of the General Assembly will be leaving later this week to visit a number of cities around the world to inform heads of State about ongoing efforts to reform the United Nations.
The three-week trip for Miguel d’Escoto will include stops in Damascus, Helsinki, Beijing, Manama, Geneva, Tehran and London, his spokesperson told reporters in New York yesterday.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
PROGRESS IN DISARMAMENT WILL FREE UP RESOURCES FOR DEVELOPMENT, SAYS BAN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon yesterday encouraged nations to break the deadlock that has hindered global disarmament talks in recent years, stressing that making progress in this area will free up vitally important resources for development at a time when the world is facing a financial crunch.
“The international community must advance beyond the stalemate that continues to hinder our work for disarmament and nuclear proliferation,” Mr. Ban said in remarks to the Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters, which is currently meeting in New York.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN, PRIVATE SECTOR TAKE STOCK OF GLOBAL IMMUNIZATION EFFORTS
United Nations agencies and their partners in the global fight against diseases that can be prevented by vaccines are meeting in New York to assess the coverage provided by immunizations, which prevent two million children’s deaths annually.
The three-day meeting, which began yesterday, is being hosted by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the GAVI Alliance, an initiative including the two agencies, along with the World Bank, developing and industrialized countries’ governments and the private sector.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UNESCO AWARDS RECOGNIZE YOUNG SCIENTISTS’ CONTRIBUTIONS TO BIODIVERSITY
Young scientists from around the world working on projects ranging from working to conserve mangrove forests in Iran to conserving orchids in Cuba have been recognized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for their work on biodiversity.
Eleven people have been selected as winners of UNESCO’s 2009 Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Young Scientist Awards, and they will each receive a cash price of up to $5,000 for their research on ecosystems and biodiversity focusing on sustainable interaction between people and their environment.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
BAN HIGHLIGHTS UN ROLE IN IMPROVING AGRICULTURE, BOOSTING FOOD SECURITY
The United Nations system must play its role in ensuring that farmers can increase their production, at a time when the global financial crisis is compounding the impact of the food crisis, making the challenges facing the world’s most vulnerable all the more difficult, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said yesterday.
“We know that world poverty cannot be reduced without improvements in agriculture, especially smallholder agriculture,” Mr. Ban said in a message to the 32nd session of the Governing Council of the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), which opened yesterday in Rome.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
UN-BACKED TRIAL AGAINST KHMER ROUGE OFFICIAL FOR CAMBODIAN ATROCITIES BEGINS
The first trial of a Khmer Rouge official got underway on Tuesday at a United Nations-backed tribunal, three decades after hundreds of thousands of Cambodians died as a result of atrocities committed by the regime.
Kaing Guek Eav, whose alias is “Duch”, faces charges of crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, in addition to the offences of homicide and torture under Cambodian criminal law.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
BAN PLEASED US TAKING PART IN PREPARATORY TALKS AHEAD OF UN ANTI-RACISM SUMMIT
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday welcomed the United States’ decision to participate in preparatory talks for an upcoming review meeting of the landmark 2001 United Nations anti-racism conference which the US, along with Israel, had withdrawn from citing concerns the forum was being used by some to push an anti-Israel agenda.
The Durban Review Conference, scheduled for 20-24 April in Geneva, will assess progress in implementing the measures adopted at 2001 World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, held in South Africa eight years ago.
For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news
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