Tag: Un

The UNICEF and the Punjab government signed a two-year work plan amounting to US$38 million to scale-up action for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged...

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday opened an exhibition of photographs marking 50 years of Pakistan’s participation in United Nations peacekeeping operations, saying Pakistani peacekeepers...

GENEVA - The UN human rights chief on Wednesday slammed the Libyan regime for the alleged use of cluster bombs in Misrata, saying such attacks on densely populated urban areas could be international crimes.
In a statement, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay "condemned the reported repeated use of cluster munitions and heavy weaponry by Libyan government forces in their attempt to regain control of the besieged city of Misrata."
She noted that one cluster bomb

GENEVA - The Libyan government's reported use of cluster munitions and heavy weapons in Misrata has caused substantial civilian casualties and may amount to crimes under international law, the United Nations said on Wednesday.
In a statement, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay called for a halt to the siege of Misrata and condemned attacks, including a cluster bomb that exploded last week several hundred metres from the hospital in the western city.

ISLAMABAD - Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani sought United Nations' assistance in developing flood forecasting and early weather warning system for Pakistan before the monsoon season.
Talking to Rauf Engin Soysal, Special Envoy of the UN Secretary General for Assistance to Pakistan at the PM House, Gilani appreciated UN's support and Special Envoy's dedicated work for the flood affected people of the country.
The Prime Minister lauded the personal commitment of

UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. human rights chief called on Friday for an independent investigation into the deaths of 34 people at an Iranian dissident camp in Iraq after Iraqi security forces moved against it last week.
"It now seems certain that at least 34 people were killed in Camp Ashraf, including seven or more women," U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay said. "Most were shot, and some appear to have been crushed to death, presumably by vehicles."
A U.N. spokesman said

SANYA - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Thursday that a UN Security Council resolution on Libya did not authorise the use of military force -- a position he said was backed by his BRICS partners.
"The Security Council resolutions should be implemented," Medvedev told reporters after a summit with the leaders of Brazil, India, China and South Africa in southern China.
"They should be implemented in accordance with their letter and spirit," said the Russian

GENEVA - UN investigators said on Friday they would start next week to probe alleged human rights violations committed in Libya by both forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi and rebels trying to topple him.
The independent three-member commission of inquiry, headed by American war crimes expert Cherif Bassiouni, declined to reveal their exact travel schedule but said that it would stop first in Egypt and also would visit Tunisia and Libya.
He said the team would gather testimony

DAKAR/GENEVA - United Nations staff in western Ivory Coast have found more than 100 bodies in the past 24 hours, some burned alive and others thrown down a well, in a further sign of the ethnic violence gripping the country.
The grim discovery came a week after the International Committee of the Red Cross said at least 800 bodies had been found in the town of Duekoue after an explosion of inter-communal violence. United Nations human rights spokesman Rupert Colville said on

GENEVA - UN investigators have found more than 100 bodies in the past 24 hours in western Ivory Coast in what appeared to have been ethnically driven killings, the UN human rights office said Friday.
"The human rights team investigating... in west Cote d'Ivoire found more than 100 bodies in the past 24 hours in three locations," said Rupert Colville, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
"All the incidents appear to have been at least partly ethnically

UNITED NATIONS - United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon strongly condemned the desecration of the Holy Quran by pastors of a Baptist Church in Gainesville, Florida and said such actions cannot be condoned by any religion.
He said such actions contradict the efforts of the United Nations and many people around the world to promote tolerance, intercultural understanding and mutual respect between cultures and religions.
Terming this despicable and bigotry act

GENEVA - Record loss of the ozone, the atmosphere layer that shields life from the sun's harmful rays, has been observed over the Arctic in recent months, the World Meteorological Organization said on Tuesday.
"Depletion of the ozone...has reached an unprecedented level over the Arctic this spring because of the continuing presence of ozone-depleting substances in the atmosphere and a very cold winter in the stratosphere," the WMO said in a statement.
Observations from the

MOGADISHU - Somalia's prime minister has told UN agencies to move their offices to its capital within 90 days, saying they were not helping the war-torn state from their bases in neighbouring Kenya.
Most aid agencies working in the country have moved their headquarters to Kenya to avoid kidnappings and frequent fighting between Islamists and government-allied troops in Somalia. "Somalia is not worse than Iraq and Afghanistan ... We need you to stay with us and share with us the

TUNIS - The United Nations is talking to all parties in the Libyan conflict to provide aid to those in need "as soon as possible", an envoy said on Sunday. "Nothing is on the table ... the situation is very fluid and unpredictable," Rashid Khalikov, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Libya, told a news conference in Tunis.
"Timeframe, I can give you only one timeframe: as quickly as possible because we have to do something to reduce the suffering of the population ... Dialogue

MAZAR-E-SHARIF - Eleven people, including three foreign United Nations (UN) workers, five Nepalese UN guards and three protesters, were killed on Friday in an attack on a UN headquarters in northern Afghanistan by demonstrators protesting at the desecration of the Holy Quran by a US pastor, police said.
"Ten (UN) people have been killed by the protesters ... All those killed are foreigners," police spokesman Lal Mohammad Ahmadzai said. A spokesman for the UN mission in Kabul, Don

KABUL - Ten foreign UN workers were killed Friday in an attack on the UN headquarters in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif by demonstrators protesting at the burning of the Koran by a US pastor, police told AFP.

ISLAMABAD - The United Nations (UN) conferred medals on Pakistani peacekeepers serving in the UN Stabilisation Mission in Democratic Republic of Congo on Saturday. "A ceremony for award of UN medals to Pakistani peacekeepers serving in the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO) was held at Bukavu in South Kivu province," said an Inter-Services Public Relations press release. Special Representative to the Secretary General (SRSG) Roger A Meece,