UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – As military tensions continue to rise between two of the world’s major nuclear powers – the United States and Russia – the United Nations remains strongly committed towards one of its longstanding goals: a world without nuclear weapons. READ IN JAPANESE
But North Korea’s announcement of its first hydrogen bomb – tested January 6 – is threatening to escalate the nuclear challenge even further.
The United Nations condemned on January 6 the underground nuclear test announced by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon calling it “deeply troubling” and the UN Security Council vowing to immediately begin considering the “significant measures” it had vowed to take in the event of another nuclear test by the country.
By Lee Fang and Zaid Jilani
Saudi Arabia’s well-funded public relations apparatus moved quickly after Saturday’s (January 2) explosive execution of Shiite political dissident Nimr al-Nimr to shape how the news is covered in the United States.
The execution led protestors in Shiite-run Iran to set fire to the Saudi Embassy in Tehran, precipitating a major diplomatic crisis between the two major powers already fighting proxy wars across the Middle East.
The Saudi side of the story is getting a particularly effective boost in the American media through pundits who are quoted justifying the execution, in many cases without mention of their funding or close affiliation with the Saudi Arabian government.
LONDON – The year’s first major atrocity is Saudi Arabia’s execution by beheading on January 2 of 47 people, including an important Shia ayatollah who led Shia protests against discrimination by the Sunni majority but never committed an act of violence.
Even the Islamic State doesn’t behead 47 in one day. Although beheading is swift it strikes most of us as being grotesque as well as medieval. The Saudis are aware of their image in the outside world but nevertheless persist, as if they want to tell the rest of the world: “Back off. Our Wahhabi (ultra puritanical) morality is our morality. We are a belief system unto ourselves.”
They exported the political convictions that have evolved out of Wahhabism to Afghanistan (with money for guns along with the theology), first to fight the Russians, then to arm the Taliban and later to allow them to “ignore” that the Taliban was giving refuge to Al-Qaeda.
Over the last three years rich Saudis, for lack of policing, have been allowed, in effect, to fund IS.
NEW YORK (INPS) – The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian territories is resigning due to Israel’s failure to grant him access to the areas he is tasked with monitoring, according to the UN News Service.
“Unfortunately, my efforts to help improve the lives of Palestinian victims of violations under the Israeli occupation have been frustrated every step of the way,” Makarim Wibisono said of his resignation, which he submitted to the President of the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council on January 4, to become effective as of March 31.
By Ramesh Jaura | IDN-InDepthNews Analysis
BERLIN | NEW YORK (IDN) – UN Seretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s successor will not be elected by a secret ballot by the 193 member states of the United Nations. But the General Assembly and the Security Council presidents have agreed on a selection process that might mark a watershed.
According to the UN Charter, the Secretary-General is appointed by the General Assembly following the recommendation of the Security Council. The format agreed by the General Assembly President Mogens Lykketoft and the President of the Security Council Samantha Power does not axe the powers exercised particularly by the Council.
By J Nastranis | IDN-InDepthNews Report
NEW YORK (IDN) – Nearly one-and-a-half years ago, the United Nations Human Rights Commissioner Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein’s predecessor, Navi Pillay, expressed profound regret that Japan had not provided effective redress to Korean victims of wartime sexual slavery leading back to the end of the Second World War.
The agreement reached on December 28 after protracted negotiations between Japan and South Korea – with support by UN human rights experts – seeks to redress the international community has been asking for. According to UN News, the accord reportedly involves an official apology from Japan and a promised payment of $8.3 million for the victims.
NEW YORK (INPS) – The United Nations tribunal set up 21 years ago to judge those guilty for the genocide in Rwanda of more than 800,000 people – overwhelmingly Tutsi, and also moderate Hutu, Twa and others – formally closed on December 31 after delivering 45 judgments as part of the Organization’s efforts to stamp out impunity for crimes against humanity.
It became the first international tribunal to issue a judgement against a Head of Government since the Nuremburg and Tokyo Tribunals just after the Second World War, when it condemned former Interim Government Prime Minister Jean Kambanda to life imprisonment in 1998. Read in Japanese
The South Centre pleaded for a new strategic framework for the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) with strategic goals aligned to those of the broader UN system in the following statement delivered to the 2015 World Intellectual Property Organization Assemblies held at its headquarters in Geneva on 5-14 October 2015.
By Hamid-Reza Azizi, Middle East Analyst*
The regional coalition led by Saudi Arabia in its onslaught on Yemen has not been able to achieve its goals after about nine months. However, Saudis have now taken a new step by forming an “anti-terrorism coalition.”Nonetheless, the makeup of this coalition and the time it has been proposed have raised serious questions about the goals and intentions of Saudi Arabia. In an analytic approach, a set of political and military considerations can be seen as underlying the formation of this coalition.
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