BAN LEADS UN TRIBUTE TO COLLEAGUES KILLED IN HAITI EARTHQUAKE
Secretary-General addresses memorial
Service for 101 UN staff members who
perished in Haiti's earthquake
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon led UN staff and the family and friends of personnel who perished in the Haitian earthquake in honouring the memory of the 101 men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice in the service of the organisation (9/3/10).
“Today, we commemorate the single greatest loss the UN has suffered in its history,” a visibly shaken Mr Ban stated during the memorial ceremony held at UN Headquarters in New York.
The 7.0-magnitude quake, affecting one third of Haiti’s 9-million strong population, brought down the Christopher Hotel, which houses the UN headquarters in Port-au-Prince, and other buildings hosting the world body’s offices.
“We remember 101 lives of consequence,” Mr Ban told the gathering, which was also attended by senior officials, representatives of member states, and colleagues from the UN stabilisation mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH).
The Secretary-General’s Special Representative to Haiti and head of MINUSTAH, Hédi Annabi, his Deputy Luiz Carlos da Costa and Acting Police Commissioner Doug Coates were among those killed.
“We honour 101 unique paths that joined in Haiti to write the larger story of the United Nations,” he said of the diplomats, humanitarians, doctors, drivers, police officers, soldiers and various other professionals who died on January 12. Though they came to Haiti from all corners of the world, from all walks of life, they had one thing in common, said the Secretary- General. “They shared a common conviction… a belief in a better future for the people of Haiti, and a common resolve to help them build it.” REPORT: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=34021&Cr=haiti&Cr1=
UN EXPERT: CULTURALLY SENSITIVE REFORMS NEEDED
The Australian Aboriginal flag flying in
Victoria Square, Adelaide
Despite recent advancements in tackling the human rights of Indigenous people in Australia, an independent United Nations expert today called on the country’s authorities to develop new social and economic initiatives and to reform existing ones to allow respect for cultural integrity and self-determination, the UN News reported (9/3/10).
“Having suffered a history of oppression and racial discrimination, including dispossession of lands and social and cultural upheaval, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples endure severe disadvantage compared with non-Indigenous Australians,” said James Anaya, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of Indigenous people.
In his report, issued following an official visit to Australia last August, the Special Rapporteur said that the so-called Northern Territory Emergency Response – a government plan rolled out in 2007 to address problems faced by Aborigines, particularly women and children – contains problematic features from a human rights standpoint.
As part of the emergency response, police were sent to Aboriginal areas to help curb alcohol abuse, sex abuse and domestic violence. The program also contains provisions for compulsory income management, assertion of extensive powers by the Australian Government over Aboriginal communities, and alcohol and pornography restrictions.
“Effective control of their lands and territories continues to be denied to many Indigenous communities in Australia,” the Special Rapporteur said, voicing concerns over some aspects of the emergency response.
The program continued in 2008, while Prime Minister Kevin Rudd offered a national apology to Indigenous peoples and called for a genuine partnership between the government and Indigenous communities to move towards a future “based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility.”
In his report, Professor Anaya recommended Indigenous participation in the design, delivery, and monitoring of programs, and promoting culturally appropriate programs that incorporate or build on Indigenous people’s own initiatives.
“Governmental programs must secure just social and economical well-being for Indigenous peoples, while advancing their self-determination and strengthening their cultural bonds,” Professor Anaya said. The rapporteur, who reports to the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council, serves in an unpaid and independent capacity.
On March 2008, the Human Rights Council appointed Professor S. James Anaya (United States of America) as Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people. Professor Anaya is the James J. Lenoir Professor of Human Rights Law and Policy at the University of Arizona (USA).
(Copy & paste): www.un.org.au/files/files/United Nations Special Rapporteur - Feb 2010.pdf
FURTHER INFORMATION: OHCHR Country Page – Australia: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Countries/AsiaRegion/Pages/AUIndex.aspx; www.un.org.au
Geneva: Lydie Ventre on + 41 22 917 9313.
UN HAITI MISSION HEAD: HUMANITARIAN AID NEEDED UNTIL 2011
Edmond Mulet, Acting Special
Representative of the Secretary-General
Nearly two months after Haiti was struck by a catastrophic earthquake, the top UN official there says the country is moving towards recovery and reconstruction but will need continued urgent humanitarian relief for at least the next 12 months (9/3/10).
“That first phase of humanitarian aid and assistance will have to be there in a parallel track with the other two – recovery and reconstruction – because the rainy season is already arriving and we will have the hurricane season in June,” Edmond Mulet, Acting Special Representative of the Secretary-General for the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), said in New York.
Emergency shelter, site management, sanitation and food continued to the main priorities in Haiti, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
To date, emergency shelter material has reached nearly 525,000 people, or 41 percent of those in need.
Haitian officials and aid workers have also been finalising plans for five transitional settlements on plots of land chosen by Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive. The idea is to move some of the 1.3 million homeless people out of the congested capital of Port-au-Prince.
Officials are also concerned about a lack of funding for agriculture, which usually supplied 60 per cent of national food production needs, before the main planting season begins later this month.
The Haitian Government, already in a weak situation before the earthquake, is actively participating in the recovery effort, Mr Mulet said. Aid officials and the Haitian Government are in the process of creating the Post Disaster Needs Assessment and Recovery Framework (PDNA), which will be presented to donors at a meeting in New York on March 31. The PDNA will include plans and programs for the mid- and long-term development of Haiti.
2010: INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF THE SEAFARER LAUNCHED
The International Year of the Seafarer was launched in Australia by the Anthony Albanese, Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, saying it was an occasion to reflect on the unique but often overlooked contribution merchant seafarers make to the well-being of communities and the prosperity of the global economy.
The world's 1.5 million merchant seafarers are responsible for transporting more than 90 per cent of the products and produce traded globally, a job that involves long periods of separation from family and friends as well as the risks posed by pirates and the weather.
As well as paying tribute to the dedication of seafarers and educating the community about the challenges they confront every day, the International Year of the Seafarer also gives the industry a good opportunity to step up its recruitment efforts and encourage more young people to consider a career at sea.
Without merchant seafarers global trade would collapse, leaving hundreds of millions of people without a livelihood and yet more without the necessities of life.
SOMALIA FOOD AID SCAM: SECURITY COUNCIL REPORT CLAIM
As much as half the food aid sent to Somalia is diverted from needy people to a web of corrupt contractors, radical Islamist militants and local UN staff members, according to a new Security Council report, claims the New York Times (9/3/10).
The report, which has not yet been made public but was shown to the New York Times by diplomats, outlines a host of problems so grave that it recommends that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon open an independent investigation into the World Food Program’s Somalia operations.
It suggests that the program rebuild the food distribution system — which serves at least 2.5 million people and whose aid was worth about $485 million in 2009 — from scratch to break what it describes as a corrupt cartel of Somali distributors.
In addition to the diversion of food aid, regional Somali authorities are collaborating with pirates who hijack ships along the lawless coast, the report says, and Somali government ministers have auctioned off diplomatic visas for trips to Europe to the highest bidders, some of whom may have been pirates or insurgents.
Up to half the food aid in Somalia is diverted to corrupt contractors, local UN workers and Islamist militants, a leaked UN report says, according to the BBC (10/3/10). The report, by the UN monitoring group in Somalia, is particularly critical of the UN's own World Food Program and recommends an independent inquiry. It says WFP contracts are awarded to a few powerful individuals who operate cartels that sell the food illegally. The report has not been made public yet, but its contents have been leaked.
REPORT: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8560970.stm
SRI LANKAN PRESIDENT DENOUNCES PLAN FOR UN PANEL INTO HUMAN RIGHTS
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has denounced plans by UN chief Ban Ki-Moon to ask a panel of experts to look into human rights issues on the island, the BBC reported (6/3/10).
Mr Rajapaksa told Mr Ban the move was "uncalled for and unwarranted", the president's office said in a statement. Human rights groups want some sort of accountability for abuses alleged to have been committed during the war against Tamil Tiger separatists. Mr Ban plans to ask a panel of experts to advise the UN on "accountability issues" relating to possible human rights abuses in Sri Lanka, his spokesman said last week.
REPORT: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8553095.stm
WOMEN IN WORLD'S PARLIAMENTS ‘LAGGING’: UN STUDY
The number of women in the world's parliaments is lagging at just under 19 per cent, with some Pacific and Islamic countries counting none at all, a UN study shows.
The Sydney Morning Herald (6/3/10) reported that the UN had set a target for 30 per cent of leadership positions to be held by women by 1995. But in 2010 the global average of female participation in parliaments has only reached 18.8 per cent, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union study released in time for International Women's Day on Monday.
''We are a far cry from this goal [of 30 per cent],'' said Rachel Mayanja, the UN Secretary-General's special adviser on gender issues. ''We cannot afford any further delays in action to achieve the gender equality goals, including for women's political participation.'' Countries that counted no women parliamentarians include Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Oman, the Solomon Islands, Palau and Micronesia.
The highest proportion of women in parliament was recorded in Nordic countries, such as Sweden (46.4 per cent), Iceland (42.9 per cent) and Finland (40 per cent). Rwanda topped the list, with 56.3 per cent of MPs being female. South Africa came third (44.5 per cent).
REPORT: http://www.smh.com.au/world/rwanda-tops-the-list-the-world-lags-behind-20100305-pore.html