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UN DAILY NEWS from the
UNITED NATIONS NEWS SERVICE
24 March, 2008 =========================================================================
UN FOOD AID AGENCY APPEALS FOR $500 MILLION TO OFFSET SOARING PRICES
The United Nations agency that is feeding 73 million people caught up in crises around the world this year is appealing for funding to close a $500 million gap caused by a global spike in food and fuel prices.
“We urge your Government to act quickly on this request so that we may avoid cutting the rations for those who rely on the world to stand by them during times of abject need,” Josette Sheeran, Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), said in a letter to donors send out on 20 March.
The price of food and fuel has risen to record levels in recent years, shooting up at an aggressive pace of 55 per cent since June 2007, Ms. Sheeran noted, saying that WFP had taken many steps to mitigate the increases, including buying 80 per cent of its food supplies in local and regional markets.
Due to the sharp price rises, however, the new estimated figure to cover this year’s projects across 78 countries is $3.4 billion, which does not include unforeseen emergency operations, the agency said.
Rising prices also mean that the world’s poorest people will have to spend a larger proportion of their income on food, the agency said, and they will buy less food, food that is less nutritious, or rely on aid.
“Our efforts will include working with governments, UN agencies and other partners to address long-term solutions while we tackle these urgent needs,” Ms. Sheeran said.
Countries where price rises are expected to have a direct impact include Zimbabwe, Eritrea, Haiti, Djibouti, the Gambia, Tajikistan, Togo, Chad, Benin, Myanmar, Cameroon, Niger, Senegal, Yemen and Cuba, according to WFP.
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UN’S BAN KI-MOON CONGRATULATES CYPRUS LEADERS ON PROGRESS TOWARD TALKS
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today congratulated the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot leaders on their agreement to start full-fledged negotiations within three months on resolving the long-running dispute on the Mediterranean island.
“The United Nations stands ready to lend its full support to the Cypriot people in their efforts to reach a settlement,” Mr. Ban’s spokesperson, Michele Montas, said today in New York.
A meeting between the Greek Cypriot leader, Demetris Christofias, and the Turkish Cypriot leader, Mr. Mehmet Ali Talat, was hosted by the Secretary-General’s Special Representative, Michael Møller, last Friday.
Mr. Ban “warmly” welcomed the leaders’ decisions to set up a number of working groups and technical committees in advance of talks, and said that their agreement on the opening of a crossing at Ledra Street in Nicosia as soon as technically possible “was a positive step forward,” Ms. Montas said.
Later this month, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs B. Lynn Pascoe will go to Cyprus to help the UN determine how it can be as helpful as possible to the success of the process, she added.
The UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) was established in March 1964 following the outbreak of inter-community violence on the Mediterranean island. The mission is tasked with preventing a recurrence of fighting, contributing to a return to normal conditions and the maintenance of law and order.
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AFGHANISTAN: TOP UN ENVOY SPEAKS OUT AGAINST ‘ABHORRENT’ ATTACK ON DEMINERS
The top United Nations envoy to Afghanistan today said that he is both appalled and saddened by an “abhorrent” attack on a group of deminers which claimed five lives and injured seven others.
Two unknown assailants on a motorcycle opened fire yesterday on a 12-person team working for the Afghan Technical Consultants, a partner of the UN Mine Action Centre for Afghanistan (UNMACA).
“Deminers put their lives at risk every day to ensure the safety of Afghanistan’s communities,” Bo Asplund, the Secretary-General’s Acting Special Representative, said in a statement issued in Kabul. “It is abhorrent that anyone would target individuals working to free the people of Afghanistan from the scourge of landmines.”
The attack took place in Chimtal district in Balkh province, situated in the north of the war-ravaged country.
Mr. Asplund paid tribute to the deminers, extending his condolences to the families of those affected by yesterday’s attack.
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TO FIGHT TUBERCULOSIS, ROOT CAUSES MUST BE ADDRESSED, SAYS SECRETARY-GENERAL
Tackling tuberculosis – a disease which still kills 4,000 people every day – requires dealing with its root causes, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today on the occasion of World TB Day.
The theme of this year’s Day is “I am stopping TB,” and it is a pledge “we must uphold as we battle the epidemic throughout the year and into the future,” Mr. Ban said in a message.
Multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB), which is man-made, and the even more lethal extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) are both spreading.
“If we are to prevent a virtually untreatable tuberculosis epidemic, we must tackle the roots of the problem: poor services, poor supplies, poor prescribing and poor use of drugs,” the Secretary-General observed.
The fight against tuberculosis “can be won only with the collective commitment of millions of individuals – donors and researchers, doctors and health-care workers, patients and family members.”
As a result of collaboration among a range of partners, the proportion of people falling ill with TB is declining. But the advances are not being made at the same rate as population growth, Mr. Ban said, adding that the disease becomes ever more deadly when it overlaps with the HIV epidemic.
He also urged a stepped up global response to save lives from tuberculosis, noting that the UN will convene a Global Leaders’ HIV/TB Forum this June.
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FORMER NICARAGUAN FOREIGN MINISTER SET TO BE NEXT GENERAL ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT
The former Nicaraguan foreign minister Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann is likely to become the next President of the General Assembly after the Latin American and Caribbean countries at the United Nations agreed to endorse his candidature, an Assembly spokesperson said today.
Ambassador Francisco Javier Arias Cárdenas, the chairman of the Latin American and Caribbean Group of countries (GRULAC) at the UN, sent a letter last week to the current President, Srgjan Kerim, informing him of the group’s decision, the spokesperson told reporters in New York.
Under the Assembly principle of regional rotation, the next GA President – who is scheduled to start serving on 16 September this year – should come from one of the countries in GRULAC.
In recent years the election of a General Assembly President has been by acclamation, with the last case of a formal vote occurring at the 46th session (1991-92), when there were three declared candidates. Assembly rules and procedures state that a president must be elected at least three months before the new session, which in the case means before 16 June.
Mr. D’Escoto Brockmann, 75, served as foreign minister of Nicaragua from July 1979 to April 1990 and in February last year he was appointed special senior adviser, with the rank of minister, for foreign policies and boundary issues to Nicaragua’s current President Daniel Ortega Saavedra.
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UN-BACKED BIOMASS GAS PROJECT PROVIDES CLEAN POWER FOR RURAL AREAS IN INDIA
The latest biomass gasifier, which converts wood or agricultural residues into a combustible gas mixture, was fired up today in a remote village of southern India, as part of a project to provide clean power for rural dwellers, according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
“This project looks at how remote communities can have better access to electricity in an environment friendly, carbon neutral way,” Kemal Dervis, UNDP Administrator, said at the commissioning ceremony for the small plant in Boregunte, a village in Karnataka state.
“The project not only improves their lives but also helps reduce the greenhouse gas emissions,” Mr. Dervis said, adding: “The fact that they manage the project on their own gives them the opportunity to have additional sources of income.”
The plant was funded by the UN’s Global Environment Facility, and supported by the Ministry of Environment and Forests of the Government of India, the Government of Karnataka, and UNDP, the agency said.
It is the second plant commissioned under the project and has the capacity of delivering 250 kilowatts of electricity, with excess power to be sold to the Bangalore Electric Supply Company, according to UNDP.
In the gasifiers, wood or coconut shells are reduced to small pieces and burned in a reactor that converts them to combustible gases, a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. This so-called ‘producer gas’ runs the engines, which produce power.
The first plant under the project was inaugurated in the village of Kabbigere on 24 January and has provided around 10,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity to four villages since then.
A third plant, producing 250 kilowatt-hours, will be commissioned soon in Seebirayanapalya and another in Chinnenahalli has been proposed to be commissioned by the end of 2008.
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AS BHUTAN HOLDS FIRST DEMOCRATIC ELECTIONS, UN AGENCY PLEDGES ONGOING SUPPORT
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has pledged to continue its support of Bhutan’s transition to democracy as voters went to the polls today in historic elections in the small Himalayan country.
UNDP said in a press statement issued in Thimphu, the capital, late last week that it was committed to helping the Election Commission of Bhutan (ECB) fulfil its mandate beyond the current elections for a National Assembly – the first ever multi-party elections in the country.
The agency has been assisting the ECB since last year, including by training election officials, providing them with better equipment, building temporary polling stations, printing print and audio-visual voter educational material and staging mock elections to help ensure that the country was ready for today’s vote.
UNDP has also trained 40 Bhutanese journalists on how to effectively cover an election process and backed the Anti-Corruption Commission with its efforts to make both the electoral process and the Government more accountable.
Bhutan had been an absolute monarchy until these elections; now the king will remain head of State while the National Assembly will comprise an upper house and a lower house that will form the Government.
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NEARLY A MILLION SOUTHERN AFRICANS HIT BY FLOODS, CYCLONES THIS SEASON – UN
Almost a million people across Southern Africa have suffered as a result of floods, cyclones and heavy rains so far during the annual wet season, and although the worst of the weather is over for another year, problems could persist until the end of April, United Nations relief officials report.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in its latest update on the situation in Southern Africa that further heavy rains are still expected, including in central Mozambique, where the rivers are already swollen after two days of intense rainfall last week.
In recent weeks heavy rains have also hit southern Angola, Namibia and the eastern part of South Africa, OCHA reported. But Cyclone Jokwe, which struck the Mozambican province of Nampula earlier this month, has since dissipated without causing further damage to either Mozambique or Madagascar.
In total, local authorities estimate that 987,516 Southern Africans have been affected adversely by rains, floods and cyclones since October last year. The hardest hit is Madagascar, where several cyclones as well as rains and floods have affected more than 332,000 people. Angola, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe have also been affected.
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ADVANCE OF INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE PRE-EMINENT LEGACY OF ANNAN – BAN KI-MOON
Honouring Kofi Annan at the conferral of a new MacArthur Award, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says that the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the acceptance of the principle of the responsibility to protect stood out as the culmination of his predecessor’s tenure.
“In his decade at the helm, he stood particularly tall for his contributions to international justice – fighting to end impunity, to advance the rule of law, to protect the weak and vulnerable,” Mr. Ban said as Mr. Annan was accorded the inaugural International Justice Award by the MacArthur Foundation at a dinner last Thursday night.
One hundred and six countries have ratified the Rome Statute that sets up the ICC, the independent, permanent court that tries people accused of the most serious crimes, such as genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Late last year Judge Philippe Kirsch, the ICC President, called for those countries that have not yet ratified or acceded to the Rome Statute to do so, saying the court, based in The Hague in the Netherlands, was already deterring crimes and improving the chances for sustainable peace in some countries.
The responsibility to protect is a doctrine that holds States responsible for shielding their own populations from genocide and other major human rights abuses and requires the international community to step in if this obligation is not met.
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HAITI: UN MISSION ASKS FOR PUBLIC SUPPORT IN FIGHT AGAINST RISING CRIME
The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Haiti is calling on locals to cooperate with its troops and with members of the national police at roadblocks and other checkpoints being set up to try to combat widespread crime and insecurity.
The mission, known as MINUSTAH, has increased its logistical and material support to the national police (HNP) in the wake of a recent surge in crime, particularly kidnappings. It has also asked for the population’s support so that its blue helmets can help ensure public safety and security.
In a statement issued late last week in the capital, Port-au-Prince, MINUSTAH said the roadblocks and patrols were being established across the country, which is the most impoverished in the Western Hemisphere.
UN spokesperson Michele Montas told reporters today in New York that the total number of motorized patrols had been boosted to 2,740 this month alone and the number of foot patrols to 2,152.
Meanwhile, the mission is financing a series of projects in Cité Soleil and Martissant, two of the most notorious neighbourhoods in Port-au-Prince, which aim to create jobs, boost the local economy, reduce violence and improve the environment.
The projects, which cost just over $500,000 in total, include the cleaning of local canals, the rehabilitation of public spaces and street paving in the troubled districts.
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GREECE, FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA TO HOLD UN-BACKED TALKS
The United Nations envoy tasked with helping Greece and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia resolve their dispute over the official name of the latter country, will hold talks tomorrow with both sides at the world body’s headquarters in New York.
A substantial gap remains between the two parties’ positions despite their willingness to continue the process of UN-led negotiations, Matthew Nimetz, the Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy on the issue, said after a round of talks earlier this month.
Since those talks, Mr. Nimetz has met with President Branko Crvenkoski, Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki and Skopje’s primary negotiator on the issue, Ambassador Nikola Dimitrov in Skopje.
The Envoy has also travelled to Thessaloniki for a meeting with Ambassador Adamantios Vassilakis, a representative of Greece.
The Interim Accord of 13 September 1995, which was brokered by the UN, details the difference between the two countries regarding the official name of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. It also obliges the two sides to continue negotiations under the auspices of the UN Secretary-General to try to reach agreement.
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BAN KI-MOON PRAISES DEVELOPMENT OUTREACH CENTRES FOR SOUTH-EAST ASIA
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today welcomed a proposal for outreach centres throughout South-East Asia to promote international targets to slash a raft of global ills by the year 2015, known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
“The new centre, and its local and regional affiliates, will provide continuity for your initiatives,” he said in a video address to a meeting on achieving the MDGs held by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Bangkok, Thailand.
Praising the proposed centres, based at the Regional Center of Excellence at the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok, he added: “I hope that they will help step up the pace, and ensure that all South East Asia reaches the Goals in full, and on time.”
In reaching the MDGs, he said South-East Asia has made progress in reducing the number of people living in extreme poverty and the number of children who die of preventable causes. It had also raised primary school enrolment.
However, he continued, progress is uneven, both between countries and across indicators. Income disparities have grown, too many young children are underweight and the environment is threatened.
Such initiatives as the current meeting and the Center for Excellence could help close the gaps, he said, by bringing together policymakers, experts and representatives of civil society to formulate fresh approaches to existing challenges and to broaden MDG awareness and outreach.
“The Millennium Development Goals are no mere aspirations,” he said. “They are commitments – sacred vows to the poorest, most vulnerable sections of humanity. Let us keep our promises. Let us build a world we can all be proud of,” he concluded.
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