The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, has renewed her call on the Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Ms. Pillay briefed the Council on Friday on the situation in Syria between August 2011 and January this year. [...]
The top United Nations envoy in Somalia, Dr. Augustine Mahiga, has condemned the murder of a journalist in the Horn of Africa country. Shabelle radio journalist, Abdihared Osman Adan, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in Mogadishu on Friday. Dr. Mahiga described the incident as "the latest in the series of heinous killings targeting the [...]
The government of Haiti is being urged to hold as soon as possible legislative, municipal and local elections that have been delayed for over a year. The call has come from Mariano Fernandez, the head of the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti, MINUSTAH. UN Spokesman Martin Nesirky says MINUSTAH and the international community are ready [...]
The Working Group on Discrimination against Women has called on Tunisia to adopt stronger measures in its draft constitution to combat gender inequality and discrimination. The Group has just completed a five day visit to the country where two years ago, civil resistance led to the fall of longtime President Zine El Abidine Ben [...]
In the Lao People's Democratic Republic, rice is a staple food and even the word 'eat' actually means 'eat rice'. But rice alone is not sufficient to meet the dietary needs of children. The UN Children's Fund, (UNICEF) in partnership with the European Union and the Government of Laos, started a project called the Maternal and [...]
The UN agency that assists Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) is calling on the warring parties in Syria to pull back from civilian areas, including refugee camps. This follows the recent death of up to 12 Palestinian refugees in fighting which also injured some 20 people. In a statement on Friday, UNRWA reported that women and children [...]
The International Criminal Court formally opened an investigation on Thursday into alleged crimes committed in Mali since January of 2012. The investigation has been prompted by a report compiled by the UN human rights office. Over 412,000 people have been forced to flee the northern part of Mali, while an estimated five million have been [...]
The impeachment and removal of the Chief Justice in Sri Lanka has further eroded the rule of law in the country and could set back efforts for accountability and reconciliation. That opinion comes from UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, in a statement on Friday. Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake was served notice of [...]
The World Health Organization (WHO) has established a team to provide technical and operational support to its offices in Syria and five other countries in the region. The Emergency Support Team will comprise international experts in public health, epidemiology, information management and logistic support. WHO says it will strengthen the critical areas of coordination, information [...]
The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) is ramping up assistance to people fleeing the ongoing fighting in Mali. Following recent military operations in the north, which is controlled by Islamist extremists, UNHCR has increased assistance to its refugee camps in Burkina Faso and deployed staff to monitor the border with Mali. UNHCR says nearly 230,000 [...]
Thousands of people have been displaced by inter-ethnic fighting between the Abbala and Beni Hussein communities at the Jabel Amir gold mines in North Darfur state. On 13 January, the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) deployed a team to the three villages of Saraf Omra, Kabkabya and El Sereif affected by the violence. [...]
The UN Human Rights Office has welcomed the announcement that the International Criminal Court will open an investigation into the situation in Mali. It says the crisis in the West African country has resulted in numerous human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, rape and torture. These findings have been documented in a report published this [...]
The scourge of terrorism was once again under the spotlight in the Security Council. Under the presidency of Pakistan, the Council held a meeting on “a comprehensive approach to counter- terrorism”. Pakistani Foreign Minister, Hina Rabani Khar presided over the meeting which was attended by other foreign ministers and senior government officials of States [...]
