MBN: THE MONTE BUBBLES NETWORK

FINANCIAL BOYCOTT SENDS PALESTINIAN POVERTY NUMBERS SOARING, FINDS UN REPORT

New York, Nov 24 2006 7:00PM More than 1 million Palestinians, or one in four inhabitants of the occupied territories, are now mired in deep poverty as living standards deteriorate dramatically following the economic boycott of the Palestinian Authority this year, according to a United Nations <"http://www.un.org/unrwa/news/SocioEconomicImpacts_Nov06.pdf">report released today. The report from the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (<"http://www.un.org/unrwa/">UNRWA) found that the number of people living in “deep poverty” – defined as an inability to meet basic human consumption needs – soared by 64 per cent during the first half of 2006. An average of 1,069,200 Palestinians now live in deep poverty, up from 650,800 in the second half of last year. Consumption has therefore slumped as well, with the purchase food down by 8 per cent and non-food products down by 13 per cent. UNRWA spokesman Matthias Burchard told a press conference in Geneva that the fiscal crisis in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is having a disproportionately negative effect on refugees, who are less likely to find work and more dependent on public sector jobs. Describing the results as worrying, Mr. Burchard said the morality of the sanctions against the Palestinian Authority had to be questioned. After the victory of Hamas – which has said it is committed to Israel’s destruction – in Palestinian Legislative Council elections in January, Israel stopped handing over tax and customs revenues it collects on behalf of the Authority. Many international donors also suspended direct aid, calling on Hamas to commit to non-violence, recognize Israel, and accept previously signed agreements. The report also found that gross domestic product (GDP) in the Occupied Palestinian Territories fell by more than 10 per cent per capita in the first half of this year, with the only expansion occurring in the public sector, thanks to an expansion in hiring and a wage hike for workers in late 2005. 2006-11-24 00:00:00.000

UN ENVOY FOR MOST VULNERABLE NATIONS STRESSES IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNICATIONS

 New York, Nov 24 2006 6:00PM The international media’s coverage of poorer nations remains one-dimensional and the world’s marginalized need much greater access to the tools of communications, the United Nations envoy for the world’s most vulnerable countries has <"http://www.un.org/ohrlls">told a conference of journalism and development officials. Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States Anwarul K. Chowdhury told a conference on Wednesday in Rio de Janeiro on “The New Dimension in South-South and South-North communications” that a serious communications imbalance between rich and poor countries is hurting efforts to eradicate poverty. Although poorer nations from the South have made advances in fields such as health, education and agriculture, especially in trade among developing countries, they have not been able to make the same strides in communications, Mr. Chowdhury said. He added that North-South communication remains skewed in favour of wealthy countries, with the international media’s treatment of poorer nations characterized by “crisis-led news coverage, which only fuels a sense of perpetual desperation.” “Without the ‘engine’ of communication, movement towards better South-South and North-South cooperation will not have the needed traction,” he said. “Without a dependable engine, the wheels of South-South and North-South cooperation may not be able to deliver us to the destination of poverty eradication, sustainable development and a peaceful society.” Mr. Chowdhury called for marginalized peoples in poorer nations to be granted greater access to the tools of communication, and the South’s contribution to global information to be better promoted. 2006-11-24 00:00:00.000

LIBERIA’S JUDICIARY MUST BE STRENGTHENED TO STAMP OUT RAPE AND OTHER CRIMES: UN EXPERT

 New York, Nov 24 2006 4:00PM Warning that rape remains “one of the greatest challenges” to human rights in <"http://www.unmil.org/newsagg.asp?ncat=nprs">Liberia, an independent United Nations expert has said the country’s judiciary must be strengthened to protect against this and other crimes, as she also decried the lack of progress made with the nation’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission and its human rights body. Charlotte Abaka, the UN Independent Expert on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in Liberia, recently completed an 11-day visit, during which she met with a wide cross section of officials and civil society and, while noting “significant” human rights progress, she also said much remains to be done in the country after 14 years of civil war. “I commend the Government for its adoption in January of the Act amending the Penal Law in relation to the definition and penalties for rape… However, I am saddened to learn that there has been as yet little noticeable impact on the prevalence of rape in Liberia, including rape of very young children,” Ms. Abaka said in a press release. “Rape is one of the greatest challenges to human rights enjoyment of Liberia’s women and girl children and I call on the Government, civil society and the international community to make all efforts to ensure the law is enforced,” she said, emphasizing that the judiciary must be strengthened if human rights are to be protected. Ms. Abaka also said she was “very concerned” over serious problems affecting the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and the Independent National Commission on Human Rights (INCHR). The TRC is not yet operating fully despite starting its public activities five months ago, while INCHR commissioners have still not been appointed more than three years after the body was included in Liberia’s peace deal. “Liberia is thus losing valuable time… I urge the Independent Panel of Experts appointed 10 months ago to prepare the shortlist of candidates, and the Government and Chief Justice to take all necessary steps to ensure that competent and credible Commissioners are appointed without further delay,” she said. Despite these problems however, Ms. Abaka also highlighted several positive steps Liberia has made in protecting human rights as it works to rebuild, chief among these being the recent developments in the education sector, the reassertion of State control over the Guthrie rubber plantation and improvement of human rights on several of the larger plantations. In a related development, the top UN envoy to Liberia yesterday urged a visiting Swedish donor mission to help strengthen the rule of law in the country, including assisting with the ongoing restructuring and retraining of the national police force. “The rule of law is a critical aspect of post-conflict peacebuilding. This includes the training and equipping of the Liberia National Police, developing the justice sector and ensuring all Liberians enjoy their human rights,” said Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s Special Representative Alan Doss. The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency currently supports Liberia with around $14 million per year channelled through UN agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). 2006-11-24 00:00:00.000

UN JOINS IN 16-DAY CAMPAIGN TO FIGHT VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

New York, Nov 24 2006 4:00PM From bride burning and sexual violence as a weapon of war to genital mutilation, date rape and child marriage, gender-based violence will be the focus of a United Nations-backed 16-day-long campaign being launched tomorrow. “We are working with partners to end impunity, to promote and protect the rights of women, including the right to sexual and reproductive health, and to foster equal opportunity, participation and decision-making,” UN Population Fund (UNFPA) Executive Director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid said in a message ahead of tomorrow’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. The Day marks the first of the 16 Days of Activism to End Violence against Women in which <" http://www.unfpa.org">UNFPA is joining with rights organizations worldwide to bring greater attention to this pervasive and deeply entrenched human rights violation, proposing a range of steps from greater overall publicity and an ending to silence over spousal abuse to pushing for legislative reform and providing safe havens for girls escaping coerced marriages. To kick off the event UNFPA is highlighting five under-reported stories relating to gender-based violence for 2006: <ul><li> Bride-napping: the abduction, rape and forced marriage of young women throughout Central Asia;</li> <li>Breast-ironing: a traditional practice in some West African countries involving crushing the breasts of young girls in order to deter male attention; </li> <li>The epidemic of traumatic fistula in Africa: this is often caused by gang rape and forced insertion of foreign objects into the rape victim, tearing the tissues between the birth canal from the bowel and/or the bladder and leading to incontinence and ostracization; </li> <li>Ongoing femicide in Guatemala: unlike in Ciudad Juarez in Mexico, the wholesale murder and mutilation of Guatemala’s women continues under a cloak of media silence and official neglect. </li> <li>Child marriage: the forced marriage of girl children, mostly against their will to older men in the world’s poorest nations mean girls cannot complete their education and are at greater risk of being exploited and contracting sexual infections, including HIV. </li></ul> More common examples of gender violence cited by UNFPA include: <ul><li>At least 130 million women have been forced to undergo female genital mutilation with 2 million more at risk each year; </li> <li>Killings in the name of 'honour' take the lives of thousands of young women annually in Western Asia, North Africa and parts of South Asia; </li> <li>At least 60 million girls who would otherwise be expected to live are 'missing' due to sex-selective abortions or neglect. </li></ul> <" http://www.ohchr.org/english">UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour drew attention to the plight of women migrants. “Unfortunately, human rights violations in various forms such as trafficking in women or different types of exploitation often run parallel to women’s migration,” she said in a message for the International Day. “Local and supposedly ‘traditional’ forms of violence against women, such as female genital mutilation or forced marriages, globalize as well, moving along with their potential victims. These human rights violations are not inevitable consequences of women’s migration. “They can be curbed if states are truly committed to protecting migrant women against violence, trafficking and exploitation, without denying them the option to migrate legally, if they choose to,” she added in the statement in which she was joined by he Special Rapporteur of the UN Human Rights Council on Violence against Women, its Causes and Consequences, Yakin Ertürk and the Council’s Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants, Jorge Bustamante. 2006-11-24 00:00:00.000

GENERAL ASSEMBLY TO HOLD SPECIAL SESSION TO ACCELERATE PROGRESS ON DEVELOPMENT GOALS

New York, Nov 24 2006 1:00PM Top executives from the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development, the Soros Foundation and Sun Microsystems will be on hand next week when the United Nations General Assembly opens a special meeting on reaching the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of global antipoverty targets, through partnerships with the private sector and others. Assembly President Haya Rashed Al Khalifa, Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the President of the Economic and Social Council, Ali Hachani, will open the programme on Monday in the General Assembly Hall. They will be followed by presentations by the Administrator of the UN Development Programme (<"http://www.undp.org">UNDP), Kemal Dervish, the President of the Islamic Development Bank Group, Ahmed Mohamed Ali; and Jeffery Sachs, special advisor to the Secretary-General. A highlight of the event will be presentations from countries at the ministerial level on efforts to carry out national development strategies for reaching the MDGs. Hisham Alwugayan of the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development, George Soros of the Soros Foundation and John Gage of Sun Microsystems will be among those serving as panelists during an afternoon discussion involving representatives from Member States, civil society and the private sector. The <"http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals">MDGs were agreed by world leaders at the UN’s Millennium Summit in 2000. They cover eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainablility and fostering a global partnership for development. 2006-11-24 00:00:00.000

UN TRIBUNAL BACKS EARLIER DECISION TO QUASH MOST CONVICTIONS OF BOSNIAN CROAT GENERAL

 New York, Nov 24 2006 1:00PM The United Nations war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has dismissed a prosecution request to review its appeal decision to quash most of the convictions of a former Bosnian Croat general who had been accused of ordering a massacre of Muslim villagers in 1993. The appeals chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (<" http://www.un.org/icty">ICTY) ruled yesterday that it had “dismissed in its entirety” the request for review of the case of Tihomir Blaškic. Prosecutors had argued that the ICTY should review its judgement in the light of six new facts discovered, but the court found that these were not “new facts” as defined by its rules of procedure and evidence, but additional evidence in relation to facts considered earlier in the case. In March 2000, the court’s trial chamber sentenced Mr. Blaškic to 45 years’ jail after finding him guilty on 19 counts for war crimes and crimes against humanity for his actions as a commander of the Croatian Defence Council in central Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1994. But in July 2004 the appeals chamber overturned all but three of the 19 convictions and reduced his sentence to nine years. Mr. Blaškic was granted early release the following month. At the appeal the judges said “an enormous amount of additional evidence” had emerged since the trial because Croatia had not cooperated previously and had not opened its archives until after the death of former President Franjo Tudjman in 1999. Mr. Blaškic had been accused, among other actions, of ordering the massacre of about 100 Muslims in the Bosnian village of Ahmici in April 1993. The villagers, who had been hiding in the cellars of several houses, were discovered and shot dead. The houses were then set on fire. But the ICTY ruled that, once the additional evidence was taken into account, it was not reasonable to find that Mr. Blaškic had control of some of the forces that participated in the massacre, or that his order to attack Ahmici was issued “with the clear intention that the massacre would be committed.” The judges also said the extra evidence showed there was a Muslim military presence in Ahmici and that it was reasonable for Mr. Blaškic to believe they could launch an attack. But the judges upheld the trial court's finding that Mr. Blaškic was guilty of illegal detainment and the inhumane treatment of prisoners. He forced Muslim prisoners to dig trenches and build fortifications to use in operations by Bosnian Croats against Bosnian Muslims. The former general also used prisoners as human shields to protect his temporary military headquarters during fighting at Vitez in April 1993. 2006-11-24 00:00:00.000

DR CONGO: UN SOLDIERS INTERVENE AFTER DEMONSTRATORS SET FIRE TO SUPREME
COURT

New York, Nov 21 2006  2:00PM
United Nations peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
(DRC) shot into the air today to disperse supporters of the losing
candidate in the presidential elections and restore order after demonstrators
opened fire and set the Supreme Court and a police vehicle ablaze in
Kinshasa, the capital.

The UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC) said 150 men from its Uruguayan
battalion reinforced local police after tear gas failed to disperse
supporters of Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba who had gathered to attend the
first hearing of an appeal of provisional results showing him losing to
incumbent President Joseph Kabila.
<"http://www.monuc.org/News.aspx?newsID=13199">MONUC security personnel
evacuated the Court and there were no immediate reports of casualties.

“MONUC strongly deplores this new outbreak of violence and unjustified
vandalism and calls on all sides to maintain calm,” the mission said in
a statement, ascribing the blame to “rogue elements” among some 200
demonstrators in this latest outbreak of election-related violence.

Last week, UN officials from Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the
Security Council to regional UN envoys appealed for calm, calling on “all
political actors to refrain from any provocation, incitement to hatred or
recourse to violence” after violence in Kinshasa had led to the deaths
of four people.

The elections, the largest and most complex polls that the UN has ever
helped to organize, were aimed at cementing the vast and impoverished
country’s transition to stability after a brutal six-year civil war,
which cost 4 million lives through fighting and attendant hunger and
disease. Factional fighting has remained a problem since the end of the war,
especially in the east.

The elections for president, national and local assemblies, which began
at the end of July and culminated with the presidential run-off on 29
October, were the first free polls in more than four decades. Throughout
the long process UN agencies helped to deliver tens of millions of
ballots and other supplies to some 50,000 polling stations, train 12,000
polling supervisors and plan for the safety of the 25.7 million Congolese
registered to vote.
2006-11-21 00:00:00.000

ANNAN CALLS FOR STRATEGY TO PREVENT BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS FALLING INTO
TERRORISTS’ HANDS

New York, Nov 20 2006  9:00PM
Stressing that “the horror of biological weapons is shared by all,”
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today
<"http://www.unog.ch/80256EDD006B9C2E/(httpNewsByYear_en)/246D92BF4061C961C125722C0037EA12?OpenDocument">called
for a comprehensive strategy that will tackle the possibility of such
arms falling into the hands of terrorists.

“Certainly, we need to deal with disarmament and non-proliferation in
the traditional sense,” he told the opening session of the
<"http://www.unog.ch/80256EDD006B9C2E/(httpNewsByYear_en)/53E64CBD6E8CDBA4C125722C004E53EB?OpenDocument">Sixth
Review Conference of the Biological Weapons Convention in Geneva.

“But we must also address terrorism and crime at the non-State and
individual levels, with responses encompassing public health, disaster
relief and efforts to ensure that the peaceful uses of biological science
and technology can safely reach their potential,” he added, urging
Member States to build on the Convention’s past successes to ensure that it
continues to serve as an effective barrier against biological weapons.

Mr. Annan noted that he had already proposed the convening of a forum
that would bring together the various stakeholders – industry, science,
public health, governments, and the public ¬– to ensure that
biotechnology's advances continue to be used for the benefit of humanity while
the risks are managed.

“This review conference can make a major contribution to that effort,”
he declared. “I urge you to bring together the capacities of all who
are gathered here. Treaties are an essential part of the multilateral
system, and can be strengthened by building bridges to different fields.
This would also ensure that our actions are complementary and mutually
reinforcing.”

In the five years since the last review conference, global
circumstances have changed, and risks evolved, with a strong focus on preventing
terrorism, he said. Advances in biological science and technology
continue to accelerate, promising enormous benefits for human development, but
also posing potential risks.

“These changes mean that we can no longer view the Convention in
isolation, as simply a treaty prohibiting States from obtaining biological
weapons,” he added. “Rather, we must look at it as part of an interlinked
array of tools, designed to deal with an interlinked array of
problems.”  

Being better prepared to deal with terrorism also requires better
public health systems overall, he noted. “I urge you to find, once again,
creative and resourceful ways around them,” he concluded. “Far more
unites you than divides you. The horror of biological weapons is shared by
all. As the Convention states, their use would be ‘repugnant to the
conscience of mankind.’  I urge you to seize the opportunity presented by
this conference and I can assure you that the United Nations will
continue to support you.”
Meanwhile, Mr. Annan also
<"http://www.un.org/apps/sg/sgstats.asp?nid=2313">inaugurated a new
building in Geneva that will house the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS
(UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

“This house will not only bring

and <"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/en/">WHO closer together,” he
said. “It will also be a meeting place for ideas, a centre for dialogue, a
forum bringing together people and organizations, in the UN and beyond,
to strengthen the global response against AIDS, tuberculosis and
malaria. In this way, the building will be a nerve centre in our mission to
reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and build better lives for
people in the 21st century.”

The Secretary-General thanked Switzerland for the loan that allowed the
two UN bodies to come together in the one building.
2006-11-20 00:00:00.000

IN GAZA STRIP, UN HUMAN RIGHTS CHIEF DECRIES ‘MASSIVE’ VIOLATIONS
AGAINST CIVILIANS

New York, Nov 21 2006 11:00AM
The top United Nations human rights official said today that “massive”
violations against civilians had taken place in the Gaza Strip as she
began a five-day tour of the region following Israel’s deadly assault on
the occupied Palestinian territory earlier this month.

Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, toured the
northern Gazan town of Beit Hanoun, where 19 Palestinians were killed and
some 60 others injured earlier this month when the Israeli Defence
Forces (IDF) shelled a residential area.

Ms. Arbour told journalists that an independent, credible and thorough
inquiry was needed to determine where responsibility lies for the
deaths in Beit Hanoun, which occurred on 8 November.

At least 82 Palestinians have been killed since the IDF began its
latest offensive in the Gaza Strip near the end of last month and one
Israeli woman was killed last week when a rocket fired by Palestinian
militants in Gaza struck the town of Sderot in southern Israel.

The High Commissioner told journalists that the lack of accountability
for human rights in Gaza leaves locals with no one to turn to when
there is a breach.

“The call for protection has to be answered. We cannot continue to see
civilians, who are not the authors of their own misfortune, suffer to
the extent of what I see here,” she said.

Ms. Arbour also held talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas,
human rights defenders and other civil society representatives, and she
received briefings from UN staff working in the Gaza Strip. Tomorrow she
is scheduled to visit Sderot.

Stressing that the profound sense of deprivation in the Gaza Strip only
becomes truly evident during a visit to the territory, she added that
she was told by many Palestinians during the day of their feeling of a
complete sense of abandonment.

Ms. Arbour’s visit began days after the General Assembly passed a
resolution deploring Israel’s recent shelling of Gaza and calling for an
immediate cessation of hostilities.
2006-11-20 00:00:00.000

NEPALESE DEAL CAN TRANSLATE INTO ‘LONG-TERM PEACE,’ SAYS UN ENVOY
New York, Nov 21 2006  4:00PM
The United Nations envoy to Nepal welcomed today’s signing of a
comprehensive peace agreement between the Himalayan country’s multi-party
Government and the Maoists, saying the pact “promises to convert the
ceasefire into long-term peace.”

Ian Martin, the Secretary-General’s Personal Representative in Nepal
for Support to the Peace Process, attended a signing ceremony in the
capital, Kathmandu, involving the Seven-Party Alliance and the Communist
Party of Nepal (Maoists).

The ceremony follows a deal struck on 8 November to formally end 10
years of civil war that had killed about 15,000 people and forced more
than 100,000 others to flee their homes.

Calling the agreement “entirely a Nepali achievement,” Mr. Martin
reiterated the pledge by Secretary-General Kofi Annan earlier this month
that the UN will respond promptly to requests for help in implementing the
peace pact.

He said in a statement that his office has reached agreement with the
Government and the Maoists on the location of seven divisional
cantonment sites for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the Maoists’ armed
wing.

“I hope that we will quickly be able to reach tripartite agreement on
the full modalities for the management of arms and armies, clarifying
essential details regarding confinement to cantonments and restriction to
barracks, weapons storage, permitted and prohibited activities, and
monitoring arrangements,” Mr. Martin said.

He added that “the UN will then be able to move forward with its
planning to deploy monitors and other personnel,” noting that the world body
has also been asked to help with human rights monitoring and electoral
assistance.
2006-11-21 00:00:00.000

DEVELOPING NATIONS, DONORS, UN MUST WORK TOGETHER FOR AFRICAN
DEVELOPMENT - ANNAN

New York, Nov 16 2006 11:00AM
Despite some “spectacular progress,” Africa as a whole is falling
behind in the race to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that
seek to eradicate a host of social ills, and developing countries,
international donors and the United Nations must, all three,  pitch in
together to reverse the trend, Secretary-General Kofi Annan
<"http://www.un.org/apps/sg/sgstats.asp?nid=2307">warned today.

“It is not too late to turn this situation around.  But it will take
focus, application and commitment,” he told the African Development Forum
in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, stressing that progress in opening markets in
developed countries to agricultural products from developing nations is
“a sine qua non of success.”

The Doha Round of trade talks has been in limbo for months, partly over
subsidies from wealthy nations to their agricultural industries,
tariffs and quotas, which all shut poorer agricultural countries out of the
market.

The <"http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals">MDGs aim to halve the rate of
extreme poverty and hunger, ensure universal primary education, promote
gender equality, slash child mortality by two-thirds and maternal
mortality by three-quarters, halt and reverse the incidence of HIV/AIDS and
malaria, cut in half the rate of people lacking safe drinking water,
and forge a global partnership for development – all by 2015. 

Spelling out the roles of the triple partnership, Mr. Annan stressed
that “what is required most of all if the MDGs are to be achieved” is
that developing countries themselves live up to their commitments by
adopting comprehensive national strategies and implementing them in a
transparent way that benefits all their citizens.
“And the fact is, far too few countries – in Africa or anywhere – have
yet done this properly. It absolutely must be done, and done now.
Development will simply not happen if we Africans, and citizens of the
developing world in general, don’t get our own house in order,” he declared.

“I’m afraid that countries actually walking the walk, and not just
talking the talk, are still the exception rather than the rule,” he added,
underscoring the need to advance in a clear, transparent way through
pioneering initiatives like the African Peer Review Mechanism.

“But whenever and wherever developing countries have adopted such sound
strategies for reaching the MDGs, it is equally vital that the
developed countries, and the middle-income countries, live up to their
commitment to provide resources to enable those strategies to succeed,” he
said.

“The world has a moral and strategic obligation to address shared
concerns of poverty and disease and despair on this continent,” he added.
“In essence, this vision of development is a compact: if developing
countries deliver on comprehensive, fleshed-out national strategies, then
donors are committed to meeting the needs that cannot be met through
domestic resources alone.”   

Finally, developing countries are entitled to expect help from the UN.
“The UN must be there to support their vision and their plans, and to
help them build the capacity – the skills, the institutions, the systems
– to deliver the jobs, houses, schools and healthcare that their people
need,” Mr. Annan said.

He noted that despite “enormous progress in recent years,” the UN
system is still not properly structured and equipped to fully meet these
needs. “We must simplify Africa’s access to, and dealings with, the donor
community.

“Instead, we often seem to be adding new layers of complexity. In
short, we are less than the sum of our parts,” he said, stressing the
importance of the proposals submitted by the High-Level Panel on System-Wide
Coherence, which would institute one UN Resident Coordinator in each
country with consolidated funding channels.
2006-11-16 00:00:00.000

-BACKED ‘QUARTET’ HOPES NEW PALESTINIAN GOVERNMENT LEADS TO RENEWED
ENGAGEMENT

New York, Nov 15 2006  5:00PM
The United Nations and its key international partners in the Middle
East peace process today expressed hope that a new Palestinian Government
of National Unity would take steps to open the way for renewed
engagement by the international community.

The so-called diplomatic Quartet on the Middle East, comprising the UN,
European Union (EU), Russia and the United States, conferred in Cairo
in what UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Alvaro
de Soto termed a “good” working-level meeting.

The Quartet, seeking a two-State solution, has frozen contacts, and
donors have withheld contributions, pending a commitment by the Hamas
Government to renounce violence, recognize Israel and accept agreements
already signed between Israel and the Palestinians.

The Quartet today reiterated a statement it made after a top-level
meeting in September, welcoming Palestinian efforts to form a unity
government in the hope that the platform of such a Government would reflect
these principles and allow for early engagement, Mr. de Soto said. These
include a commitment to non-violence and recognition of Israel’s right
to exist.

He also hoped that such a Government could help to reduce the sort of
Palestinian rocket attacks into Israel which today “tragically claimed”
one Israeli life in the town of Sderot.

The Quartet discussed the security situation in the area where Israel’s
shelling of the occupied Gaza Strip killed 19 Palestinian civilians,
including eight children and seven women.

While in Cairo, Mr. de Soto intends to meet with Egyptian Foreign
Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit and with Amre Moussa, Secretary-General of the
League of Arab States.
2006-11-15 00:00:00.000 


 

DR CONGO: ANNAN LEADS CALL FOR CALM AFTER PROVISIONAL PRESIDENTIAL
RESULTS RELEASED

New York, Nov 15 2006  6:00PM
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged the two candidates
and their supporters in the run-off presidential election in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to respond calmly to provisional results
released today and to use the law rather than violence to pursue any
challenges.

President Joseph Kabila, Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba and other
political leaders should “avoid statements that could threaten the
peaceful completion of the national election,” Mr. Annan said in a
<"http://www.un.org/apps/sg/sgstats.asp?nid=2305">statement released by
his spokesman after the announcement of results by the Independent
Electoral Commission (IEC) in the capital, Kinshasa.

The IEC said Mr. Kabila leads Mr. Bemba in the vote following the
run-off round on 29 October, the last phase of the largest and most complex
elections which the UN has ever helped to organize. The polls were the
first free and fair elections in the DRC in 45 years.

Voicing concern about Saturday’s violence in Kinshasa that led to the
deaths of four people, Mr. Annan also welcomed a joint statement last
week by Mr. Kabila and Mr. Bemba in which they urged calm among their
supporters and pledged not to challenge the results by force.

“The Secretary-General recalls the positive statements made by
international and national election observers on the organization and conduct
of the elections under the aegis of the Independent Electoral
Commission,” said the statement from Mr. Annan’s spokesman.

“He also notes that over the past few weeks the Commission has met
frequently with representatives of both presidential candidates to discuss
any concerns, and has looked thoroughly into allegations of
irregularities in the electoral process.”

Mr. Annan also commended the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC) and the
European security forces known as EUFOR RD Congo for their efforts to help
Congolese security forces maintain law and order, especially in
Kinshasa.

The top UN peacekeeping official and senior European officials, who
held a working lunch in Brussels today, also called on Mr. Kabila and Mr.
Bemba to avoid any provocative acts ahead of the final results,
expected to be issued on Sunday.

Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Marie
Guéhenno, European Union (EU) High Representative for Common Foreign and
Security Policy Javier Solana, EU Development Commissioner Louis Michel and
World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz discussed how the international
community can support the DRC’s nascent democratic institutions.

The three-month-long electoral process in the DRC, in which a 500-seat
National Assembly and provincial assemblies were also elected, is aimed
at cementing the vast country’s transition to stability from a six-year
civil war, which cost 4 million lives through fighting and attendant
hunger and disease. Factional fighting has continued since then,
particularly in the east.
2006-11-15 00:00:00.000

NEW INITIATIVES MAKE UN MORE TRANSPARENT, ACCOUNTABLE, ETHICAL – TOP
MANAGEMENT CHIEF

New York, Nov 15 2006  6:00PM
The departing top United Nations management official said today he
leaves behind an organization that is more transparent, accountable and
ethical than when he joined thanks to new initiatives that have been
championed by Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and called for efforts to carry
them forward.

“Over the last few months, we have accomplished a tremendous amount.
This Secretary-General Kofi Annan had laid the foundation on the road to
a 21st century,” said Under-Secretary-General for Management
Christopher Burnham on his last day of work at the world body, where he served
since June 2005.

With Mr. Annan’s term coming to an end in December, Mr. Burnham called
on incoming Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to “pave this road” by
carrying the initiatives forward.

Among other measures, Mr. Burnham hailed the creation of the new UN
Ethics Office, which provides ethical advice and training for UN staff “so
that we can always rise to the highest numerator and not immediately
think we all have to go down to the lowest common denominator.”

He noted that the Ethics Office also serves to review new financial
disclosure forms which are more comprehensive than those of the United
States Congress and had been expanded to apply to more staff members, from
some 200 to approximately 2,000.

He called the UN’s new whistleblower protection policy the “strongest”
in the world, and praised the use of international public sector
accounting standards. Those standards, combined with new software systems,
would serve to improve accountability.

A new audit committee will help in a number of ways, including by
allowing the Office for Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) to have greater
independence, he said, hailing also the work of the Procurement Task
Force for promoting accountability.

Looking ahead, Mr. Burnham stressed the importance of the Capital
Master Plan, a scheme to overhaul the dilapidated UN complex in New York and
render it compliant with health and safety codes. “We have a moral
responsibility to bring this building into the 21st century,” he said.

Other issues which will require follow-up include efforts to improve
the administration of internal justice at the UN. A high-level panel had
done critical work on this issue. Follow through “will have to be on
the to-do list for 2007,” Mr. Burnham said.

“I believe that the path of reform has been set. We need to stay the
course.”
2006-11-15 00:00:00.000

UN ADVISER FINDS SRI LANKA’S CHILDREN ‘AT RISK FROM ALL SIDES’ IN THE
BLOODY CONFLICT

New York, Nov 14 2006  8:00PM
Elements of Sri Lanka’s security forces are helping a breakaway rebel
group abduct children to fight the separatist Tamil Tigers, while the
rebels themselves continue to use child soldiers in their conflict
against the Government, a United Nations adviser has said after a 10-day
assessment mission to the strife-torn country.

“It is increasingly clear that children are at risk from all sides,”
Allan Rock, the Special Adviser to the UN Special Representative for
Children and Armed Conflict on Sri Lanka said yesterday.

The so-called Karuna faction continues to abduct children in
Government-controlled areas of the East, particularly Batticaloa district, the
mission said in a statement. Since May of this year, 135 cases of
under-age recruitment by abduction have been reported to the UN Children’s
Fund (UNICEF), “with evidence that this trend is accelerating,” it added.

“The mission also discovered a disturbing development involving the
Karuna abductions. It found strong and credible evidence that certain
elements of the Government security forces are supporting and sometimes
participating in the abductions and forced recruitment of children by the
Karuna faction.”

Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapakse assured Mr. Rock that he will
order an “immediate and thorough investigation” into the allegations and
if they are proved correct, he will “hold accountable those who are
responsible.”

Karuna’s political wing also said it would forbid under-age recruitment
and release any children who may now be in its ranks, adding it would
also work with <"http://www.unicef.org/">UNICEF and arrange the release
of those abducted children whose families have complained to the
agency.

The mission also found that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
have “not complied” with their commitments under the Action Plan to
stop child recruitment and release all the children within their ranks.

“Under-age recruitment continues and the LTTE have yet to release
several hundred children as verified by UNICEF.” The Action Plan was
endorsed by the Government and the LTTE during peace talks in 2002 and 2003 to
work with UNICEF to end the recruitment of children and to release
under-age recruits.

The LTTE also assured Mr. Rock that they would “immediately” start
working with UNICEF to speed up the release of all child soldiers, “with
the objective of completing that process by January 1, 2007,” the mission
said.

“Wherever I travelled, I saw with my own eyes that systems meant to
safeguard children’s rights are either deteriorating or absent.  It is
apparent that there is an urgent need for an independent monitoring
capacity to ensure that children affected by the conflict are protected,”
said Mr. Rock.

Apart from the issues of child recruitment and abductions, the mission
also observed the deteriorating humanitarian situation in certain areas
of the North and East. In particular, during his visits to Vaharai and
Jaffna, Mr. Rock saw first hand the fear, isolation and critical unmet
needs of internally displaced children there.

Fighting between Government forces and the LTTE has intensified since
April, and especially over the past few weeks, despite a ceasefire
agreed in 2002 aimed at ending a conflict that has lasted for more than 20
years and claimed some 60,000 lives.
2006-11-14 00:00:00.000

ANNAN HAILS ENTRY INTO FORCE OF NEW PACT ON SPEEDY CLEARANCE OF
UNEXPLODED WEAPONRY

New York, Nov 13 2006  5:00PM
The entry into force of a new international agreement to eliminate
unexploded weaponry such as landmines as soon as possible after a conflict
“is not an end in itself but rather the beginning of a long series of
actions” to protect civilians against the “horrendous effects of
explosive remnants of war,” United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said
today.

“This is a matter of survival for millions of civilians. I urge you all
to spare no efforts to rid the world completely of this deadly menace,”
he told a meeting of States Parties to the  Convention on Certain
Conventional Weapons (CCW) in Geneva in a message marking the entry into
force of a new protocol to the treaty delivered by Under-Secretary-General
for Disarmament Affairs Nobuaki Tanaka.

Mr. Annan said he was “delighted” at the entry into force of “Protocol
V on Explosive Remnants of War,” adopted by 92 countries at the UN’s
Geneva headquarters three years ago, which came into force yesterday
after two dozen States agreed to be bound by it, and called on all
countries to implement its provisions voluntarily, pending their adherence.

The clause obliges parties to take “remedial measures to mark and
clear, remove or destroy unexploded ordnance or abandoned explosive
ordnance” as early as possible after the end of hostilities, providing as
significant legal basis for efforts to protect civilians and humanitarian
organizations in conflict zones.

This summer’s conflict between Israel and Hizbollah underscored the
problem. UN de-mining officials worry that up to 1 million pieces of
unexploded ordnance were left over in southern Lebanon from the 34-day war
with a density higher than in Kosovo and Iraq, especially in built-up
areas, posing a constant threat to hundreds of thousands of civilians as
well as humanitarian and reconstruction workers and peacekeepers.

Meanwhile Cambodia and Viet Nam continue to bear the burden of such
bombs 30 years after the end of war, impeding safe land cultivation and
infrastructure development.

“Wars do not always end with the last gunshot or the signing of a
ceasefire agreement. Long after hostilities cease, the human consequences
continue. People continue to be killed or injured by unexploded or
abandoned explosive ordnance,” Mr. Annan said, telling States Parties they
bear primary responsibility for the Protocol’s implementation.

“Your success will be judged by your ability to overcome many difficult
challenges,” he added. “You will have to mobilize resources, share
experiences and information, and cooperate closely and effectively with
others.”

UN Mine Action Service Director Max Gaylard stressed that the Protocol
obliged its parties to provide crucial information on the location of
such explosives to humanitarian workers.

“This is welcomed by all of us at the United Nations,” he said, noting
that humanitarian organizations often deploy to areas affected by
landmines and other explosive remnants. “We will appreciate the additional
protection.”
2006-11-13 00:00:00.000 

 

UN HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL TO HOLD SPECIAL SESSION ON ISRAEL’S ACTIONS IN
GAZA

New York, Nov 13 2006  5:00PM
The United Nations Human Rights Council will hold a special session on
Wednesday in response to Israel’s recent military actions in the
Occupied Palestinian Territory, including the recent attack that killed 19
civilians and injured 60 others in Beit Hanoun in the Northern Gaza
Strip.

The special session, convened after a request by the Ambassador of
Bahrain on behalf of the Group of Arab States and the Ambassador of
Pakistan on behalf of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, will be the
third called since the new enhanced Council came into being in June.

All of them have been on Israel. The first was held in July on the
situation in the occupied Palestinian territory and the second in August
Israel’s attacks in Lebanon.

The Human Rights Council meeting on the latest developments will also
follow the defeat, through a United States veto, of a resolution in the
Security Council on Saturday on the same issue.

Meanwhile an independent United Nations human rights expert has
rejected Israel’s explanation that its artillery shelling of Beit Hanoun last
week was a mistake, saying it indicated premeditation.

“Since 25 June 2006, the most recent Israeli incursion into the Gaza
Strip, I continue to receive alarming reports about deliberate attacks by
Israeli forces resulting in the destruction of homes, civilian property
and infrastructures in the Gaza Strip,” Special Rapporteur on adequate
housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living,
Miloon Kothari, said in a statement.

“The explanation by Israeli authorities that this wantonly criminal act
was a mistake is unacceptable,” he added of the Beit Hanoun attack.
“The shelling and subsequent killing of civilians indicates a premeditated
military tactic constituting a form of collective punishment against
the Palestinian people.”

Special Rapporteurs are unpaid independent advisory experts with a
mandate from the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council. Israel began its
latest action in Gaza on 25 June after one of its soldiers was kidnapped
by Palestinian militants.

Mr. Kothari said “forced evictions and unjustifiable destruction” by
Israeli forces constitute breaches of international human rights laws.

“Israel’s practice of confiscating Palestinian land, demolishing
Palestinian homes, closure and the implantation of illegal settlements also
continues throughout the West Bank and Jerusalem,” he added, calling on
Israel to cease these practices and reinstate confiscated lands in the
interest of regional peace and security.

“These latest killings by Israel must act as a call for the
international community to awaken from the inaction and hesitation that has marked
its attention to the grave crisis in Gaza,” he said, calling for an
international independent investigation and the deployment of
international forces in the region.

He also urged the international community “to reconsider the
continuation of military cooperation with Israel in light of the overwhelming
evidence of violations of a range of human rights, including the right to
adequate housing.”
2006-11-13 00:00:00.000 
 

 SUDAN: ANNAN CALLS FOR HIGH-LEVEL MEETING ON DARFUR AS MILITIA ATTACKS
KILL SOME 40 PEOPLE

New York, Nov 13 2006  6:00PM
Secretary-General Kofi Annan today called for a high-level meeting in
Ethiopia this week involving the United States, European Union, Russia
and China to discuss the deadly violence in Darfur, a United Nations
spokesman said.

The announcement came as the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) reported
nearly 40 civilian deaths in the last few days in attacks in Darfur by Arab
militiamen – some of whom were backed by Sudanese military vehicles.

Along with the five permanent members of the Security Council and the
European Union, Mr. Annan and the Chairman of the African Union also
invited representatives from Congo, Gabon, Egypt, and the League of Arab
States to the meeting in Addis Ababa that starts on Thursday, spokesman
Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York.

Mr. Annan will attend the meeting as will representatives of the
Sudanese Government, Mr. Dujarric said, adding that its purpose will be to
“discuss ways in which to address the situation and move forward the
peace process decisively.”

Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping, Heidi Annabi, is
currently in Addis Ababa after visiting Sudan where he held weekend meetings
with President Omar Hassan Al Bashir and with the defence and foreign
ministers. UNMIS said his discussions focused on Darfur, including the
UN’s support package for the African Union Mission in Darfur (AMIS).

The security situation continues to be volatile in all of Darfur’s
three states, with a number of reported deadly militia attacks on
civilians, violent acts of banditry and clashes between Government and rebel
forces in the past few days, UNMIS has reported.

In North Darfur on Friday, UNMIS said Arab militias attacked three
villages, killing six civilians including four children, while in West
Darfur, 300 armed militiamen backed by 18 military vehicles attacked camps
for the internally displaced in the village of Sirba, killing 31 people
and injuring 18 others, including women and children.

The Mission also said the attackers burned down almost 100 houses and,
following this incident, 10 international non-governmental organization
(NGO) staff members were relocated to El Geneina.

In a related development, Mr. Annan’s latest
<"http://www.un.org/Docs/journal/asp/ws.asp?m=s/2006/870">report to the
Security Council on Darfur, covering the month of September, deplores
the increasing violence and repeats calls on all sides to negotiate,
adding that UN efforts to strengthen the African Union force on the ground
will not solve the underlying problem.

“Even as efforts to strengthen AMIS continue, it is important to
reiterate that a comprehensive and lasting resolution to the crisis will come
only through a broadbased political settlement, which will require the
complete commitment of the Government and the rebel movements.”

“This settlement will be achievable only if discussion and dialogue
replace the bombings, attacks and counter-attacks of the last two months… 
The suffering of the Darfurian population has lasted far too long.”

Scores of tens of thousands of people are estimated to have died in
Darfur as a result of the conflict between Government forces, allied
militias and rebels seeking greater autonomy, and more than 2 million others
have been displaced. However the Government has rejected the expansion
of UNMIS to Darfur and at present the UN assists AMIS.

Mr. Dujarric said today that the UN was continuing to strengthen the
African Union mission with a $21 million package that has the support of
the African Union and the Sudanese Government.
2006-11-13 00:00:00.000

UN AID CHIEF CALLS FOR RELEASE OF CHILDREN AND WOMEN WHILE MEETING
UGANDAN REBEL LEADER

New York, Nov 13 2006  8:00PM
The top United Nations aid official has called on the Lord’s Resistance
Army (LRA) to release children, women and other non-combatants during a
landmark meeting with rebel leaders in a remote jungle outpost,
stressing it was “make-or-break time” in the peace process to end 20 years of
brutal conflict with Uganda’s Government.

Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland
<"http://ochaonline.un.org/DocView.asp?DocID=5233">met Joseph Kony
yesterday on the border between southern Sudan and the Democratic Republic of
the Congo (DRC) in discussions that lasted for 30 minutes, and which
also involved the Vice-President of South Sudan, as well as members of
the Ugandan and LRA negotiating teams.

“This is the first time the international community was able to impress
upon the senior command of the LRA and their supreme leader the
importance of humanitarian issues, including ongoing respect for the cessation
of hostilities and the transfer of individuals among the LRA, including
women, children and wounded,” Mr. Egeland said in a press release
today.

He noted that the LRA leadership had agreed to come back within a month
with an answer to this request and they had also agreed to identify, by
22 November, those sick and wounded in need of care.

“If we succeed in this peace effort led by the Government of Southern
Sudan and supported by the UN, there is a good chance peace will break
out in the region as a whole. Failing to do so may have catastrophic
consequences – not only in northern Uganda, but also in southern Sudan,
the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic
(CAR) – for local communities.”

The meeting took place in Ri-Kwangba, one of two locations where the
LRA is to assemble according to the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement it
signed with the Ugandan Government on 26 August, and Mr. Egeland
emphasized the importance of moving this process along.

“There is progress to be made at the peace talks, though the process is
slow… It is now make-or-break time in the region and for northern
Uganda. The UN will continue to act as brokers and supporters.”

Mr. Kony, who has been indicted for war crimes by the International
Criminal Court (ICC), raised the issue of the indictment against him and
other senior LRA leaders, although Mr. Egeland reiterated that he would
not speak on behalf of the ICC, which is an independent organization.

During its long conflict with the Ugandan Government, the LRA became
notorious for abducting children and then using them as soldiers or
porters, while subjecting some to torture and allocating many girls to
senior officers in a form of institutional rape.

The UN has begun to provide humanitarian assistance to the areas
affected by LRA violence, while the non-governmental organization (NGO)
Caritas is providing basic services to the LRA assembly areas.  The UN will
provide logistical support to the peace process through the UN Mission
in Sudan (UNMIS) and will also be observers of the Cessation of
Hostilities Monitoring Team.

Following his meeting on Sunday with the LRA leadership, Mr. Egeland
went today to the Ugandan capital, Kampala, where he is expected to meet
with high-level Government officials. Mr. Egeland is on his last
mission before stepping down as the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian
Affairs and also from his other post as Emergency Relief Coordinator.
2006-11-13 00:00:00.000

RAINWATER HARVESTING COULD END MUCH OF AFRICA’S WATER SHORTAGE, UN
REPORTS

New York, Nov 13 2006 12:00PM
African countries suffering or facing water shortages as a result of
climate change have a massive potential in rainwater
<"http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/LSGZ-6VHKED?OpenDocument&rc=1&emid=ACOS-635NZE">harvesting,
with nations like Ethiopia and Kenya capable of meeting the needs of
six to seven times their current populations, according to a United
Nations report released today.

“The figures are astonishing and will surprise many,” UN Environment
Programme (UNEP) Executive Director Achim Steiner said of the study,
compiled by his agency and the <"http://www.worldagroforestry.org">World
Agroforestry Centre, which urges governments and donors to invest more
widely in a technology that is low cost, simple to deploy and maintain,
and able to transform the lives of households, communities and countries
Africa-wide.

Overall the quantity of rain falling across the continent is equivalent
to the needs of 9 billion people, one and half times the current global
population. About a third of Africa is deemed suitable for rainwater
harvesting if a threshold of 200 millimetres of arrival rainfall,
considered to be at the lower end of the scale, is used.

Although not all rainfall can or should be harvested for drinking and
agricultural uses, with over a third needed to sustain the wider
environment including forests, grasslands and healthy river flows, the
harvesting potential is still much more than adequate to meet a significant
slice of human needs, the report notes.

“Africa is not water scarce,” it concludes. “The rainfall contribution
is more than adequate to meet the needs of the current population
several times over. For example Kenya would not be categorized as a ‘water
stressed country’ if rainwater harvesting is considered. The water
crisis in Africa is more of an economic problem from lack of investment, and
not a matter of physical scarcity.”

Until recently the importance of such harvesting as a buffer against
climate-linked extreme weather has been almost invisible in water
planning with countries relying almost exclusively on rivers and underground
supplies, the report notes.

Unlike big dams, which collect and store water over large areas,
small-scale rainwater harvesting projects lose less water to evaporation
because the rain or run-off is collected locally and can be stored in a
variety of ways.

“Over the coming years we are going to need a range of measures and
technologies to capture water and bolster supplies,” Mr. Steiner said.
“Conserving and rehabilitating lakes, wetlands and other freshwater
ecosystems will be vital and big dams, if sensibly and sustainably designed
and constructed, may be part of the equation too.

“However, large-scale infrastructure can often by-pass the needs of
poor and dispersed populations. Widely deployed, rainwater harvesting can
act as a buffer against drought events for these people while also
significantly supplementing supplies in cities and areas connected to the
water grid,” he added.

The report mapped the rainwater harvesting potential of nine countries
in Africa –Botswana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Uganda,
Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Kenya, with a population of somewhere under 40 million people, has
enough rainfall to supply the needs of six to seven times its current
population, according to the study. Ethiopia, where just over a fifth of the
population is covered by domestic water supply and an estimated 46 per
cent of the population suffer hunger, has a potential rainwater harvest
equivalent to the needs of over 520 million people.
2006-11-13 00:00:00.000

US VETOES SECURITY COUNCIL DRAFT RESOLUTION ON ISRAELI OPERATIONS IN
GAZA

New York, Nov 11 2006  8:00PM
Exercising its veto in the Security Council today, the United States
blocked a draft resolution that won the endorsement of 10 other members
and would have called for a United Nations fact-finding mission in
response to a recent Israeli operation in Gaza resulting in at least 18
civilian deaths.

Sponsored by Qatar, the draft would have condemned Israeli military
operations in Gaza as well as Palestinian rocket fire into Israel, while
calling for an immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza
Strip and a cessation of violence by both parties.

Four countries -- the United Kingdom, Denmark, Japan and Slovakia --
abstained on the text, which would have requested that Secretary-General
Kofi Annan establish within 30 days the fact-finding mission on the 8
November incident in Beit Hanoun, where some eight children were among
the dozen and a half people killed.

Today's action followed a day of debate in the Council on Thursday. At
that meeting, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs
Angela Kane voiced shock at the Beit Hanoun incident. She called on Israel
to review the implications of its military actions and on the
Palestinians to stop rocket attacks by militants, while urging both sides to
return to the negotiating table.

The draft resolution would have called on the diplomatic Quartet --
made up of the UN, United States, European Union and Russian Federation --
to take immediate steps to stabilize the situation, including through
the possible establishment of an "international mechanism for the
protection of the civilian populations."

The representative of the United States joined other Council members in
voicing deep regret over the loss of life in Beit Hanoun, while noting
that the Israeli authorities had admitted that the incident had been a
mistake and intended to conduct an investigation.

2006-11-11 00:00:00.000

UN OFFICIAL MEETS SEPARATELY WITH MYANMAR LEADERS, DAW AUNG SAN SUU KYI

New York, Nov 11 2006  2:00PM
The top United Nations political official held separate meetings today
in Myanmar with government leaders as well as the most prominent member
of the opposition: detained Nobel Peace Laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

Under-Secretary-General Ibrahim Gambari and his delegation traveled on
Saturday to Nay Pyi Daw, the country's new administrative center, to
meet with Myanmar's senior leadership. 

UN officials said he had a "frank and extensive dialogue" with the SPDC
Chairman, Senior General Than Shwe, and Vice Chairman, General Maung
Aye, covering a range of political and humanitarian issues.  Mr. Gambari
was "pleased at the willingness of the leadership to continue to engage
with the United Nations in this way," the officials said.

During a subsequent meeting with Ms. Suu Kyi, of the National League
for Democracy (NLD), she told Mr. Gambari that she welcomes continued UN
engagement in the hopes that it can be of help in addressing the many
issues he has raised, the officials said. In previous meetings, the UN
Under-Secretary-General has emphasized the importance of transparency
and the need to open up the political process to all the country's
people.

Ms. Suu Kyi, who has been under house detention for 10 of the past 16
years, also conveyed to Mr. Gambari that she is in good health but
requires more regular medical visits. 

Mr. Gambari held separate meetings with other NLD officials as well as
members of the diplomatic corps based in Yangon.  More meetings with
senior officials are planned before his scheduled departure tomorrow.

New York, Nov 10 2006  8:00PM
The world is beginning to recognize that empowering women and girls is
key to development thanks to a United Nations women’s commission that
is “ahead of its time,” UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said, marking
the body’s 60th anniversary.

“The world is also starting to grasp that there is no tool for
development more effective than the empowerment of women and girls,” Mr. Annan
said
<"http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/sgsm10727.doc.htm">addressing the Commission on the Status of Women today. “Study after study
has taught us that no other policy is as likely to raise economic
productivity, or to reduce infant and maternal mortality.”

That policy also improves nutrition and promote health – including the
prevention of HIV/AIDS, and increases the chance of education for the
next generation, Mr. Annan added.

He praised the Commission for helping to develop legal measures, shape
new policies, and raise awareness of the challenges confronting women.
“The Commission not only moves with the times: it is ahead of its
time.”
In 1979, the Commission paved the way for the General Assembly’s
adoption of the landmark Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women, which 185 countries have ratified to date. In
2000, the commission laid the groundwork for the adoption of the
Optional Protocol to CEDAW, which women in 80 countries can now use to seek
remedies for violations of their rights, Mr. Annan said.

Mr. Annan voiced hope that the Commission will play a supportive role
as the UN works to strengthen and consolidate its gender architecture,
drawing on the recommendations presented yesterday by the High-level
Panel on System-wide Coherence.

“Women have an absolutely crucial role to play in reinvigorating our
human rights machinery, in managing the difficult transition from war to
peace, in strengthening democratic institutions and ensuring that all
people can exercise their democratic rights,” Mr. Annan told the
commission. “Your leadership can help make the voices and needs of women heard
in all those areas.”
2006-11-10 00:00:00.000

UN REFUGEE AGENCY APPLAUDS ARGENTINA FOR APPROVING NEW LAW PROTECTING
RIGHTS

New York, Nov 10 2006  8:00PM
The United Nations refugee agency today welcomed Argentina’s recent
approval of a refugee law, saying it provides a solid framework for
protection of rights, and noting in particular its special provisions for
refugee women and children.

Argentina’s Congress approved the refugee law last Wednesday, the
latest move by the South American country that has been making steady
progress over the past few years in handling refugee issues, the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees
(<"http://www.unhcr.org/news/NEWS/45545e160.html">UNHCR) said.

“The law provides a very solid framework for the full exercise of
refugees’ rights. It guarantees the processing of asylum claims in a
reasonable timeframe, facilitates access to documentation, education, health
and employment,” UNHCR spokesperson William Spindler told reporters in
Geneva.

“It has special provisions for refugee women, children and victims of
violence… It is the result of the current Government’s demonstrated
interest in human rights and refugee issues, as well as of a concerted
effort by refugees, legislators, civil society and of UNHCR’s Office in
Argentina.”

Argentina, which ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention over four decades
ago, is host to more than 3,000 refugees from some 60 countries.
2006-11-10 00:00:00.000 


 

 ANNAN URGES END TO ATTACKS NEAR CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC’S BORDER WITH
DARFUR, SUDAN
New York, Nov 10 2006  8:00PM
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today decried the growing
violence near the Central African Republic’s border with the strife-torn
Darfur region of Sudan, while the top UN human rights official warned
that attacks in West Darfur could intensify unless the Khartoum
Government curbs and disarms militias there.

“The Secretary-General is deeply concerned about worsening security
conditions in north-eastern Central African Republic on the border with
Sudan’s Darfur region,” his spokesman said in a
<"http://www.un.org/apps/sg/sgstats.asp?nid=2298">statement issued in New
York.

Warning that the situation continues to deteriorate amid ongoing rebel
attacks in different parts of the country and the recent violent
seizure of Birao, he called for the immediate end to the occupation of that
city so that humanitarian and security conditions can be alleviated for
civilians living in the area.

“The Secretary-General stresses the urgent need to find a comprehensive
solution to the security problems along the borders of Chad, the
Central African Republic and Sudan,” the spokesman said.

Meanwhile, High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said in a
<"http://www.unhchr.ch/huricane/huricane.nsf/view01/E096FA8D6F090A80C1257222004A760A?opendocument">statement
that over the past month, West Darfur has witnessed intensified
movements and consolidation of armed militias, especially in the northern and
south-western part of the state. At the same time, there are increased
reports of the distribution of weapons to these groups in Geneina and
outlying areas.

“I am deeply concerned that if the Government of Sudan does not take
control of the militias, disarm them, and put an end to the proliferation
of arms, the militias will continue to launch attacks on civilians, as
they did on 29 October in an area south and west of Jebel Moon,” she
said. Over 50 civilians were killed and thousands of others displaced
during that incident.

Soon after that attack, Mr. Annan called for the authorities to prevent
such atrocities and protect civilians – demands that Ms. Arbour echoed
in a report on the killings issued by her office last week.

The report also called for an investigation into the Jebel Moon
attacks. Today, she said it was encouraging that the Governor of West Darfur
had begun such a probe.

“An impartial, transparent, and timely inquiry is needed to send a
message that attacks against civilians are unacceptable. We will observe
the process of investigation closely and hope it will lead to justice.”

Militia attacks on civilians and aid workers, burning of houses and
crops are taking place everyday throughout the whole of strife-torn
Darfur, the UN has reported, and today the Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs
(<"http://ochaonline.un.org/webpage.asp?Page=873&Lang=en">OCHA) expressed
serious concern about the Norwegian Refugee Council having to withdraw
from the region.

That Council “has played a key role in the largest and most difficult
camp housing displaced persons in Darfur, the Kalma camp, and the
largest IDP (internally displaced persons) concentration in the region which
is located in the town of Gereida,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told
reporters in New York.

Violence in Darfur has also spilled over into neighbouring countries,
particularly Chad, and today the UN refugee agency said that a
multi-agency mission had found that recent attacks on remote border villages by
armed men on horseback have spread to other areas in the east of the
country.

“We remain extremely concerned about the deteriorating security
situation in the region and the effect it might have on our humanitarian
operation,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees
(<"http://www.unhcr.org/news/NEWS/45545d462.html">UNHCR) spokesperson
William Spindler told reporters in Geneva.

Yesterday, the agency estimated that these attacks may have killed more
than 200 people in the past week, with dozens more wounded and many
more forced to flee for safety. High Commissioner for Refugees António
Guterres also reiterated calls for an international presence in eastern
Chad and stronger Chadian efforts to maintain security in the area.

In a related development and as part of continuing UN efforts to end
the bloodshed in Darfur, the Security Council has decided to send a
mission to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to attend a consultative meeting on the
troubled region on Monday, organized by the African Union. That mission
will be led by Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry of the United Kingdom.
Assistant Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Hédi Annabi, who left for
Sudan yesterday, will also be attending, a spokesman said.

Scores of tens of thousands of people are estimated to have died in
Darfur as a result of the conflict between Government forces, allied
militias and rebels seeking greater autonomy, and more than 2 million others
have been displaced. However the Government has rejected the expansion
of the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) to Darfur and at present the UN
assists an African Union mission (AMIS) there.
2006-11-10 00:00:00.000

LEBANON: INDONESIAN TROOPS ARRIVE TO BOOST UN FORCE NUMBERS TO ALMOST
10,000

New York, Nov 10 2006  8:00PM
Indonesian troops arrived today in Lebanon to boost the enhanced United
Nations peacekeeping force there to almost 10,000, made up of soldiers
from 21 different countries, the mission said.

The UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), expanded this summer to
monitor the ceasefire between Hizbollah and Israel after their month-long
conflict, now has around 9,700 troops following the arrival of 129
soldiers of the Indonesian Battalion.

Around 8,000 troops are deployed on the ground between the Litani River
and the Blue Line separating the two countries, plus the UNIFIL
Maritime Task Force with 1,700 naval personnel, the mission said.

On the humanitarian side, from 3 to 10 November, around 700 civilians
received medical and dental treatment from the French, Indian, Italian
and Spanish battalions, while the veterinarian from the Indian battalion
treated 567 animals for various ailments.

<"http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/unifil/index.html">UNIFIL
engineers also conducted 58 controlled demolitions of pieces of unexploded
ordnance. UN de-mining officials have expressed concern about up to 1
million pieces of such ordnance in southern Lebanon left over from the
war. The UN Children’s Fund (<"http://www.unicef.org/">UNICEF) has also
warned that children face “a terrible situation” from the munitions as
they go across fields to and from school.
2006-11-10 00:00:00.000

ANCIENT SILK ROAD TO GET MODERN RAILWAY COUNTERPART UNDER UN-BACKED
AGREEMENT

New York, Nov 10 2006 11:00AM
A 50-year-old dream to forge a railway version of the famed Silk Road
of old moved a step closer to realization today at a regional United
Nations transport conference with the signing of an agreement to create an
81,000-kilometre network originating on the Pacific seaboard of Asia
and ending up on the doorstep of Europe.

The Intergovernmental Agreement on the Trans-Asian Railway Network
(TAR), signed by 18 Member States of the UN Economic and social Commission
for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) at its ministerial
<"http://www.mct2006.or.kr/00main/main.htm">conference on transport in
Busan, Republic of Korea, compliments a 2005 accord on the Asian Highway
Network.

“Through these two Agreements,
<"http://www.unescap.org/unis/index.asp">UNESCAP will usher in a new era of cooperation and partnership for
regional integration,” Commission Executive Secretary Kim Hak-Su said,
stressing the so-called ‘Iron’ Silk Road’s projected role in facilitating
international trade and tourism.

“What underpins that vision? Certainly the conviction that the
possibility to move and trade freely creates new opportunities and opens up new
horizons for people,” he added of the proposed network, which will link
up and rehabilitate existing lines.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in a message to the conference, termed
the agreement “a milestone in cooperation” within the region.

“Sustainable transport has a significant role to play in advancing
efforts towards reaching the Millennium Development Goals
(<"http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals">MDGs), by improving access for those
that today are far removed from opportunities, services and markets,”
he added, referring to the ambitious targets for slashing a host of
social ills such as extreme poverty, hunger, maternal and infant mortality,
and a lack of access to education, all by 2015. 

TAR is crucial for landlocked countries whose access to world markets
is heavily dependent on efficient links to the region’s main
international ports. Twelve of the world’s 30 landlocked countries are in Asia,
and 10 are TAR members. With 60 per cent of the world’s population
generating 26 per cent of its gross domestic product, Asia’s demand for
efficient transport is greater than at any time in its history, Mr. Kim
said.
UNESCAP experts believe that port efficiency can be enhanced through
the integration of rail and shipping to avoid port congestion, a key
factor in Asia, which is home to 13 of the world’s top 20 container ports.
Signing the agreement today were Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, China,
Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Laos, Mongolia, Nepal, the Republic of
Korea, Russia, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, Uzbekistan, and
Viet Nam. Also expected to participate are Bangladesh, Democratic
People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Myanmar,
Pakistan, Singapore and Turkmenistan.

The accord will be deposited with the UN Secretary-General in New York
and remain open for signature for two years. It will come into force 90
days after eight states deposit instrument of ratification or the
equivalent.

The seeds for the ‘Iron Silk Road’ were sown some five decades ago. In
1960 the initial plan provided for a continuous 14,000 kilometre rail
link between Singapore and Turkey, via South-East Asia, Bangladesh,
India, Pakistan and Iran.

Today’s projected network is far more ambitious, with 81,000 kilometres
of railway line selected as vital arteries by member countries to
provide regional connections as well as links to Europe.
2006-11-10 00:00:00.000 

 

LEBANESE ARMY DEPLOYS IN MORE TERRITORY VACATED BY ISRAEL, UN REPORTS

New York, Nov  9 2006 11:00AM
The Lebanese army today began deploying troops in one of the last
positions that Israel still occupied in the south of the country after this
summer’s war with Hizbollah, the United Nations peacekeeping mission
reported.

Lebanese troops moved in after the UN Interim Force in Lebanon
(<"http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/unifil/index.html">UNIFIL)
confirmed that Israel had withdrawn its forces from most of the surrounding
area of Ghajar village as agreed upon earlier this week.

Israeli soldiers still remain in the northern part of Ghajar inside
Lebanese territory, and in the immediate vicinity of the village, which
straddles the line separating the two sides, the only post Israel still
holds following its withdrawal from all other positions on 1 October.

The latest Israeli withdrawal and Lebanese deployment followed a
meeting on Tuesday between UNIFIL Force Commander Major-General Alain
Pellegrini with senior officers from both sides.

A complete Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, together with Lebanese army
deployment in the area, is a key clause in UN Resolution
<"http://www.un.org/Docs/journal/asp/ws.asp?m=s/res/1701(2006)">1701 that
ended the 34 days of fighting in August.

The resolution also mandates strengthening UNIFIL to a maximum of
15,000 troops. At present it has some 9,500 troops on the ground and
patrolling the coastline against arms smuggling, close to the 10,000 that
Maj.-Gen. Pellegrini considers to be currently sufficient.
2006-11-09 00:00:00.000

 UN EXPERT ON HUMAN TRAFFICKING CALLS ON OMAN TO DO MORE TO HELP VICTIMS

New York, Nov  8 2006  6:00PM
While Oman has made some progress in helping combat the global problem
of human trafficking, it needs to do more to follow-up on international
obligations, an independent United Nations expert has said after
completing a five-day fact-finding mission to the Sultanate, during which she
met officials, victims and representatives of civil society.

“I am pleased to note that, following its accession in 2005 to the
Palermo Protocol to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons,
especially women and children… the Government has established a technical
committee to review all related legislation, assess outstanding needs
and propose measures,” Sigma Huda, the Special Rapporteur on trafficking
in persons told reporters yesterday.

“Yet much remains to be done for the Government to implement Oman’s
international obligations related to human trafficking… I have found that
a number of human beings, including women, travel to Oman in order to
make a living for themselves and earn money to send to the families and
loved ones they leave thousands of kilometres behind,” she said.

“Some of these migrant workers are often lured in their country of
origin by unscrupulous recruiting agents with false promises of a certain
job or certain working conditions. More often than not they are shocked
to find themselves in exploitative situations upon arrival,” she said,
adding that “casual labourers” are one of the most disadvantaged groups
and most open to abuse.

Ms. Huda said that the authorities of both sending and receiving
countries have a “responsibility to identify, prosecute and punish those
unscrupulous recruiting agencies,” and she also highlighted that some
domestic workers experience “degrading conditions” from their employers,
although their suffering often goes unnoticed.

She also expressed concern at reports of an “extensive sweep of
arrests” of foreign workers during the summer aimed at identifying those
without valid documents and deporting them back to their countries of
origin, highlighting also that access to justice for domestic and other
migrant workers with complaints of abuse “remains inadequate.”

“Applicable international standards oblige Oman to identify and treat
victims of human trafficking as victims. However, domestic workers who
flee situations of exploitation and abuse are frequently re-victimized,”
she pointed out, encouraging the Government “to consider the
possibility of creating shelters that could accommodate safely victims of abuse
and exploitation including domestic migrant workers, following the
examples of other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council.”

Special Rapporteurs are unpaid independent experts with a mandate from
the Human Rights Council who also make periodic reports to the General
Assembly.
2006-11-08 00:00:00.000

 LOCAL LEADERS SHOULD BE RESPONSIBLE FOR REFORM IN BOSNIA AND
HERZEGOVINA: UN ENVOY

New York, Nov  8 2006  7:00PM
The international community should continue to hand over responsibility
for reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina to its leaders despite the
magnitude of the challenges involved as the country emerges from the
devastation of inter-ethnic bloodshed, the United Nations envoy to the country
<"http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs//2006/sc8864.doc.htm">told the
Security Council today.

“Bosnia and Herzegovina’s reality today is in many ways uncomfortable,”
Christian Schwarz-Schilling, High Representative for the Implementation
of the Peace Agreement in the Balkan country told the 15-member body,
noting the impatience of the world community for progress and the
reluctance of local politicians to step forward, as well as the frustration
of citizens who needed jobs.

Even so, he said the international community must hold its course and
continue handing over responsibility to those leaders, not so quickly as
to overwhelm them, but not so slowly that they failed to develop a
sense of duty towards the citizens who had elected them.

And in many respects, the situation of the country was fortunate – the
direction in which it is travelling was clear and the European Union
was offering it the prospect of membership, despite the problematic
assertions of leaders in Republika Srpska and lack of reform progress on the
Constitution, the economy, education and other areas, said Mr.
Schwarz-Schilling.

In regard to transitional issues, he said he was overseeing the closure
of the Office of the High Representative, as determined in June by the
Peace Implementation Council Steering board, but many difficulties
remained, and he recognized the wisdom of that Council’s decision to review
the situation.

Mr. Schwarz-Schilling also noted that progress in constitutional reform
had stalled, after an initiative had barely failed in Parliament in
March and he urged all parties to compromise. In addition, he said the
fact that war crimes suspects like Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadžic
remained at large continued to impede the consolidation of peace.

He also noted that the final status of the UN-run province of Kosovo
affected the entire region and was potentially destabilizing.

Adnan Terzic, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, along with the representatives from 16 other countries also
spoke during the Council’s open meeting.
2006-11-08 00:00:00.000

DR CONGO PRESIDENTIAL CONTENDERS SAY THEY WILL ACCEPT ELECTION RESULTS
– UN
New York, Nov  8 2006  6:00PM
Leading Congolese presidential contenders President Joseph Kabila and
Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba are committed to supporting an
independent commission tallying the votes from last month’s runoff between
them, the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
(<"http://www.monuc.org/Home.aspx?lang=en">MONUC) said today.

Mr. Kabila and Mr. Bemba reaffirmed that commitment yesterday in a
joint statement pledging not to speculate on results of the election, which
was the first to be held in the country in over four decades. Both
candidates also acknowledged that the Independent Electoral Commission
(IEC) as the sole authority empowered to announce the results, MONUC said.

Since the election, rampant speculation on the final tally triggered
the IEC to issue preliminary results earlier this week, while the
Congolese High Authority on Media will impose sanctions on local media outlets
that might deliberately misrepresent or disrupt the proper announcement
of the election results, according to MONUC.

To date, 85 per cent of the ballots have reached the capital city of
Kinshasa for certification and final results are expected 19 November,
the Mission said.

MONUC also announced that results from the South Kivu province have set
a new record for the DRC, with 90.16 per cent of the region’s 1.6
million registered voters cast their ballots in the 29 October election.
Voters in that region largely supported incumbent Mr. Kabila, MONUC noted.
The mission praised Congolese voters for their “courage and optimism”
during last month’s presidential run off in the country’s first election
in over 40 years.

While describing the situation as more calm than tense, MONUC voiced
concern about insecurity in certain areas. The DRC Armed Forces still
fail to demonstrate discipline on the ground and others are perpetrators
of human rights violations, MONUC military spokesman Lt. Col. Stéphane
Lescoffit said today at a press briefing, pointing to corruption cases
in Ituri district and reports of violent demonstrations in Mbandaka,
Boende, Bumba and Basankusu.

He added that MONUC will remain vigilant and prevent any recourse to
violence by those who want to oppose the choice of the Congolese people.

MONUC currently has over 18,000 uniformed personnel in the DRC to help
the country rebuild after the six-year conflict ended in 1999.
2006-11-08 00:00:00.000

CHINESE BIRD FLU EXPERT NOMINATED AS NEW HEAD OF UN HEALTH

New York, Nov  8 2006 11:00AM
A Chinese doctor who has played a key role in United Nations efforts to
prevent bird flu from mutating into a deadly human pandemic was today
<"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2006/pr65/en/index.html">nominated
to become the new head of the UN health agency.     

Margaret Chan, who until July was the top UN World Health Organization
(<"http://www.who.int/en/">WHO) official for communicable diseases and
the point person for pandemic influenza, was chosen by WHO’s Executive
Board from a short list of five to succeed Director-General Lee
Jong-wook, who died suddenly in May.     

The World Health Assembly, WHO’s supreme decision making body, will
meet in Geneva in a one-day special session tomorrow to formally appoint
the next Director-General.     

In July, Dr. Chan took a leave of absence from her WHO positions in
connection with her candidacy for the position of Director-General.     

In 2003, she became Director of WHO’s Department of Protection of the
Human Environment. In June 2005, she was appointed Director,
Communicable Diseases Surveillance and Response and Representative of the
Director-General for Pandemic Influenza as well as Assistant Director-General
for the Communicable Diseases cluster.     

Dr. Chan obtained her medical degree from the University of Western
Ontario in Canada. She joined the Hong Kong Department of Health in 1978,
where her career in public health began.     

In 1994, she was appointed Director of Health of Hong Kong. In her
nine-year tenure she launched new preventive and promotive health care
services. She also introduced new initiatives to improve communicable
disease surveillance and response, enhance training for public health
professionals, and establish better local and international collaboration.     

She has effectively managed outbreaks of avian influenza and of severe
acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), a flu-like disease which over a
nine-month period from November 2002 to July 2003 infected more than 8,000
people, killing 774 of them, mostly in China and elsewhere in Asia.        

In March, Dr. Chan presided over a meeting of 70 public health experts
in Geneva to draw up an operational plan to contain an initial outbreak
of human pandemic flu. Although containing a pandemic at its source has
never been tried before, evidence that it may be possible has been
mounting.     

“It may be that containment efforts would only slow the spread of a
pandemic,” she said then. “But even that will buy us time so that
countries can begin activating their pandemic preparedness plans and companies
can begin on the lengthy process of manufacturing an effective human
pandemic vaccine.”     

The so-called Spanish flu pandemic that broke out in 1918 is estimated
to have killed from 20 million to 40 million people worldwide by the
time it had run its course two years later.     

Anders Nordström, appointed Acting Director-General of WHO in May, will
continue in his role until the new Director-General takes office.       
2006-11-08 00:00:00.000

CAMPAIGN TO PLANT A BILLION TREES WITHIN A YEAR LAUNCHED AT UN CLIMATE
CHANGE CONFERENCE
New York, Nov  8 2006 11:00AM
A campaign to plant a billion trees within a year was launched at the
United Nations Climate Change Conference in Nairobi, Kenya, today in a
bid to encourage all sectors of society, from concerned citizens to
philanthropic corporations, to take small but practical steps to combat
what is probably the key challenge of the 21st century.         

“Action does not need to be confined to the corridors of the
negotiation halls,” UN Environment Programme
(<"http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=485&ArticleID=5417&l=en">UNEP)
Executive Director Achim Steiner said, noting that intergovernmental
talks on tackling climate change can often be difficult, protracted and
sometimes frustrating, especially for those looking on.       

“But we cannot and must not lose heart,” he added. “The campaign, which
aims to plant a minimum of 1 billion trees in 2007, offers a direct and
straight-forward path down which all sectors of society can step to
contribute to meeting the climate change challenge.”         

The Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign, backed by Nobel Peace
Prize laureate and Green Belt Movement activist Wangari Maathai, Prince
Albert II of Monaco and the World Agroforestry Centre-ICRAF, is being
coordinated by UNEP.        

Rehabilitating tens of millions of hectares of degraded land and
reforesting the Earth is necessary to restore the productivity of soil and
water resources, and expanding tree cover will mitigate the build-up of
atmospheric carbon dioxide, a global warming greenhouse gas.        

To make up for the loss of trees in the past decade, 130 million
hectares, or 1.3 million square kilometres, an area as large as Peru, would
have to be reforested, amounting to  planting some 14 billion trees
every year for 10 consecutive years.         

“The Billion Tree Campaign is but an acorn, but it can also be
practically and symbolically a significant expression of our common
determination to make a difference in developing and developed countries alike,”
Mr. Steiner said. “We have but a short time to avert serious climate
change. We need action.       

“We need to plant trees alongside other concrete community-minded
actions and in doing so send a signal to the corridors of political power
across the globe that the watching and waiting is over – that countering
climate change can take root via one billion small but significant acts
in our gardens, parks, countryside and rural areas,” he added.        

Other actions include less driving, switching off lights in empty rooms
and turning off electrical appliances rather than leaving them on
standby. If everyone in the United Kingdom switched off rather than left TV
sets and other appliances on standby it is estimated it would save
enough electricity to power close to 3 million homes for a year.        

The idea for the campaign was inspired by Ms. Maathai. When a corporate
group in the United States told her it was planning to plant a million
trees, she replied: “That’s great, but what we really need is to plant
a billion trees.”        

People and entities from around the world are encouraged to enter
pledges on a web site www.unep.org/billiontreecampaign.  The campaign is
open to all – individuals, children and youth groups, schools, community
groups, non-governmental organizations, farmers, private sector
organizations, local authorities, and national governments. Each pledge can be
anything from a single tree to 10 million trees.        

The campaign identifies four key areas for planting: degraded natural
forests and wilderness areas; farms and rural landscapes; sustainably
managed plantations; and urban environments but it can also begin with a
single tree in a back garden. Advice on tree planting will be made
available via the website.         
2006-11-08 00:00:00.000

ANNAN CALLS FOR IMMEDIATE ACTION TO CURB USE OF CLUSTER BOMBS

New York, Nov  7 2006 11:00AM
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today
<"http://www.unog.ch/80256EDD006B9C2E/(httpNewsByYear_en)/50BC47BEC5B98674C125721F004BE1DA?OpenDocument">called
for urgent actions to address the “disastrous impact” of cluster
munitions, warheads that can scatter scores of smaller bombs, especially when
used in populated areas, as occurred in this summer’s conflict between
Israel and the Lebanese Hizbollah group.

“Recent events show that the atrocious, inhumane effects of these
weapons – both at the time of their use and after conflict ends – must be
addressed immediately, so that civilian populations can start rebuilding
their lives,” Mr. Annan told the Review Conference of the Convention on
Certain Conventional Weapons
(<"http://www.unog.ch/80256EE600585943/(httpPages)/4F0DEF093B4860B4C1257180004B1B30?OpenDocument">CCW) in Geneva.

“I urge States Parties to the CCW to make full use of this framework to
devise effective norms that will reduce and ultimately eliminate the
horrendous humanitarian and development impact of these weapons,” he said
in a message delivered by UN Deputy Secretary-General of the
<"http://www.unog.ch/80256EE600585943/(httpPages)/2D415EE45C5FAE07C12571800055232B?OpenDocument">Conference
on Disarmament Tim Caughley.

While some progress has been made these weapons have continued to be
used with devastating effect, most recently in Lebanon and Israel by both
sides during the 34-day conflict, which ended in August.

The UN Mine Action Coordination Centre
(<"http://www.maccsl.org/War%202006.htm">UNMACC) in southern Lebanon
reported that their density is higher than in Kosovo and Iraq, especially in
built-up areas, posing a constant threat to hundreds of thousands of
people, humanitarian and reconstruction workers, and peacekeepers.

“I have repeatedly called upon States to comply fully with
international humanitarian law,” Mr. Annan said. “In particular, I call on you to
freeze the use of cluster munitions against military assets located in
or near populated areas. At the same time, we should all remember that
placing military assets in such areas is illegal under international
humanitarian law.

“I also urge you to freeze the transfer of those cluster munitions that
are known to be inaccurate and unreliable, and to dispose of them. And
I challenge you to establish technical requirements for new weapons
systems so that the risk they pose to civilian populations can be
reduced,” he added.
UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland
<"http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/EVOD-6VBKJK?OpenDocument">echoed
Mr. Annan’s call. “As a matter of urgency, I call on all States to
implement an immediate freeze on the use of cluster munitions,” he told the
gathering. “This freeze is essential until the international community
puts in place effective legal instruments to address urgent
humanitarian concerns about their use.”

Lebanon is only the most recent country hit by the legacy of unexploded
cluster munitions. Cambodia and Vietnam continue to bear the burden of
such bombs 30 years after the end of conflict, impeding the safe
cultivation of land and the development of infrastructure.

“Ultimately, as long as there is no effective ban, these weapons will
continue to disproportionately affect civilians, maiming and killing
women, children, and other vulnerable groups,” Mr. Egeland concluded.
2006-11-07 00:00:00.000

UN ENVOY WARNS NEIGHBOURS AGAINST USING SOMALIA AS THEATRE FOR PROXY
WAR

New York, Nov  7 2006  4:00PM
Postponed peace talks for solving the crisis in Somalia, now scheduled
to be held in mid-December, offer the best hope for the war-torn
country, and neighbouring States must avoid interfering in its affairs and
using it for a “proxy war,” a United Nations envoy said today.

“We will continue to prepare the ground for the success of this round
in mid-December with all the key actors,” Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s
Special Representative for Somalia, François Lonsény Fall, told
reporters after briefing the Security Council, noting that the third round of
talks in Khartoum on 30 October were postponed because the two parties
came with some preconditions.

“We think now this is the best way how we can solve peacefully the
Somali crisis,” he said of the conflict, which has increased in scope since
the Union of Islamic Courts seized control of Mogadishu, the capital,
earlier this year and began expanded its authority against the
Transitional Federal Institutions based in Baidoa.

The third round is set to discuss security and power sharing in the
impoverished drought-afflicted country has been wracked by factional
fighting and has not had a functioning national government since President
Muhammad Siad Barre’s regime was toppled in 1991.

Asked how he would rate the chances of a wider conflict developing, Mr.
Fall said the regional dimension of the problem was one of the issues
he discussed with the Council.

He recalled that in a report to the Council in July he highlighted “the
fact that there’s a real danger of engulfing this crisis to all the
Horn of Africa because we see there is some interference in the Somalia
issue” and added that the Council “is well aware about it and that’s why
we are doing our best there to recall to all the Member States in the
region to respect the maximum restraint, to not interfere directly in
the Somalia issue because we know that Somalia can be the theatre of a
proxy war between some countries in the region.”

“That’s why we’re trying to work closely with all of them… to avoid
that conflict to be spread in the region.”
2006-11-07 00:00:00.000