Category: UN INSIDER

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – Ahead of the third straw poll – an upcoming game of musical chairs – on August 29, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has made public his preference for a woman to replace him as the head of the United Nations.

“It’s high time now” for a female Secretary-General after eight men at the helm of the world organization in over 70 years, said Ban whose second term comes to an end on December 31, 2016.

“We have many distinguished and eminent women leaders in national governments or other organizations or even business communities, political communities, and cultural and every aspect of our life,” he said in an Associated Press interview on August 11. “There’s no reason why not in the United Nations.”

By Ramesh Jaura

BERLIN (IDN) – For the seventh year in succession, the world would commemorate on August 29 the International Day against Nuclear Tests, which would coincide with the 25th anniversary of the closure of the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test site the central Asian republic inherited from the Soviet Union in the aftermath of its breakup.

The ATOM Project initiated a global moment of silence on that day to honour all victims of nuclear weapons testing. Kazakhstan suffered more than 450 Soviet nuclear weapons tests at the Semipalatinsk site beginning August 29, 1949 and ending on that date in 1991 when the country’s first and current President Nursultan Nazarbayev, responding to a civil society campaign, shut down the site.

By Ronald Joshua

GENEVA (IDN) – The United Nations human rights chief has voiced concern over serious human rights violations in the Oromia and Amhara regions of Ethiopia early August, and urged the Government to ensure access for independent observers to affected areas.

At least 97 people were killed and hundreds more injured when Ethiopian security forces fired live bullets at peaceful protesters across Oromia region and in parts of Amhara over the weekend of August 6-8, according to credible sources who spoke to Amnesty International.

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – As the ancient proverb goes, “there is many a slip between the cup and the lip”, but if Somalia – often described as a ‘failed state’ – abides by the postponed timeline for this year’s parliamentary and presidential elections, the United Nations would have reason to record success in a long-winded process.

The United Nations Security Council’s 15 members in their meeting on August 19 adopted the Presidential Statement applauding the progress under way for the last four years, and underscored “the need to maintain the momentum towards democratic governance, with an inclusive, transparent and credible electoral process in 2016 as a stepping stone to universal suffrage elections in 2020”.

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which manages the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) on behalf of the UN Secretary-General, estimates that this year, there will be a $50 million shortfall on the annual $450 million funding target.

“I am very concerned that this could force the Fund to significantly reduce allocations for underfunded emergencies in the future,” the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, Stephen O’Brien, has said, and appealed to all UN Member States, regional organizations and private citizens “to scale up their support to CERF and enable us to save more lives”.

By Jamshed Baruah

GENEVA (IDN) – The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) Consultative Group has named Vitit Muntarbhorn, a Thai law professor who has held prior UN rights posts, as the world body’s first independent expert to monitor violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The Group comprises five diplomats. One of them, Amr Ramadan, Egypt’s ambassador to the Council, has refused to participate in the selection process. He detailed his reasons to the council president in a letter obtained by UN Watch, a non-governmental organization based in Geneva.

By Jaya Ramachandran

NEW YORK (IDN) – Two of the five veto wielding members of the Security Council, China and Russia, and two from among the ten non-permanent ones, Egypt and Venezuela, abstained from the resolution renewing on August 12 the mandate of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) until June 30, 2017, authorizing the expansion of peacekeeping forces and stressing the priority of civilian protection in its mandate.

The Council adopted a U.S.-drafted resolution that also threatened to impose an arms embargo on South Sudan if the government blocks the deployment of a robust force of 4,000 troops.

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – As UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s second term comes to an end on December 31, 2016, he has intensified efforts to focus on the concerns and aspirations of world’s youth, urging them to lead a global drive to break the patterns of the past and set the world on course to a more sustainable future.

“Young people are directly affected by the tragic contradictions that prevail today: between abject poverty and ostentatious wealth, gnawing hunger and shameful food waste, rich natural resources and polluting industries,” Ban said in his message on International Youth Day, celebrated annually on August 12.

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – Three months after being constrained to quit as Chancellor of Austria and head of the country’s Social Democratic Party, Werner Faymann has been named by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as a new Special Envoy for Youth Employment.

Faymann was Chancellor of Austria and chairman of the country’s Social Democratic Party from 2008 to 2016. He resigned both posts on May 9, 2016, after losing confidence from a considerable number of party members, after his party’s candidate and the candidate from its coalition partner were both eliminated in the first round of the presidential elections held on April 24, 2016.

By Bernhard Schell

AMMAN (IDN) – Two years after the Gaza conflict, paucity of sufficient funds is hampering a speedy clearance of Explosive Remnants of War (ERW) that pose a serious threat to the life and physical integrity of the population in the tiny self-governing Palestinian territory.

During the 2014 conflict, Israel launched more than 6,000 airstrikes and fired nearly 50,000 tank and artillery shells in the 51-day operation in Gaza, killing 1,462 Palestinian civilians, a third of them children.

The United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry’s report on Gaza conflict, published on June 22, 2015, found that Palestinian armed groups fired 4,881 rockets and 1,753 mortars towards Israel in July and August 2014, killing 6 civilians and injuring at least 1,600.