Preparations continue for UN peacekeeping deployment in southern Sudan

24 January - The United Nations envoy for Sudan is continuing preparations for the deployment of a UN peace support mission in the south of the vast country to consolidate the recently signed peace agreement between the Government and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A).

Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Special Representative Jan Pronk is now back in Khartoum, the national capital after meeting yesterday in Rumbeck, the provisional capital of southern Sudan, with SPLM/A Chairman John Garang.

Talks will continue with both sides to expedite deployment of the UN mission and keep up the momentum for peace. Earlier this month the two parties agreed to end the civil war that has left more than 2 million people dead and displaced nearly 4 million others since it began in 1983. The deal includes provisions on power-sharing, some autonomy for the south and more equitable distribution of economic resources, including oil.

Mr. Pronk earlier met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, with the Chairman of the African Union (AU) commission, Alpha Omar Konaré, on UN-AU cooperation.

The two also discussed the situation in Sudan's western Darfur region, where tens of thousands of people have died and nearly 2 million have been uprooted in fighting between the Government, pro-government militias and rebels in a separate conflict.

The UN Advance Mission in Sudan (UNAMIS) said today that several security incidents were reported last week in Darfur, including an attack by an armed group on an Arab convoy and clashes involving Government forces and armed tribesmen.
UN envoy holds intensive meetings with Iraqi leaders in run-up to elections

24 January - The United Nations special envoy for Iraq Ashraf Qazi has been holding intensive meetings with Iraqi leaders to identify specific mechanisms to improve the security and political environments in which Iraq's Independent Electoral Commission will hold elections next Sunday, the UN mission in Baghdad said today.

"In his separate meetings with President of the Independent Democratic Alliance Adnan Pachachi and the leading member of the United Iraqi Alliance and other political personalities and groupings contesting the polls, Mr. Qazi stressed the importance of unifying the efforts of all Iraqis in ensuring a smooth transitional process that would lead to the building of a democratic, stable and prosperous Iraq," the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) said.

Noting the UN's leading role in providing the commission with technical support, strategic advice and training, UNAMI said Mr. Qazi had repeated the UN's commitment to assisting the Iraqis "through these challenging times," including in drafting a permanent constitution after the 30 January elections and in preparing the subsequent elections for a permanent government by the end of the year.

Last week, during a visit to Syria, Mr. Qazi called for greater efforts to reach out to "Arab nationalists," especially the minority Sunni Muslims who have been ruling the predominantly Shiite Muslim country and who have voiced reservations about the polling process.
UN envoy in Burundi deplores killing of provincial governor

24 January - The murders of the governor of Bubanza province and his bodyguard were deplorable, the top United Nations envoy for Burundi said today.

As accusations and counter-accusations flew among rebels and former rebels, it was not clear who gunned down Governor Isaie Bigirimana yesterday about 25 kilometres north of Bujumbura, the Burundian capital.

Carolyn McAskie, the Special Representative of Secretary General Kofi Annan for the central African nation, said she was equally concerned about renewed threats against the refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Tutsi, or Banyamulenge, community in Burundi.

Any incitement to hatred, any demonization of a community living on Burundi's soil and any targeted violence against individuals or ethnic groups were not acceptable, she said.

She also urged the Government and the country's political leaders to return to secure conditions by urgently removing any obstacle to the establishment of new defence and security structures.

The UN Operation in Burundi (ONUB) said respect for the Declaration of Human Rights, international humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions was a legal obligation for all Burundians.
Annan calls for wide array of contributors to help preserve biodiversity

24 January - The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity has been ratified by almost every Member State, but with ecosystems being destroyed at rates never before seen, international and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the private sector and individuals must play their part in ending destructive behaviours, according to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Unsustainable patterns of production and consumption and other harmful practices, "exacerbated by poverty and other social and economic factors, continue to destroy habitats and species at an unprecedented rate," he said in an address delivered by the Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Koïchiro Matsuura, at the opening of the five-day UN International Conference on Biological Diversity, or "Biodiversity 2005."

Scientific literature has described fewer than 1.5 million living species out of an estimated 30 million, UNESCO said in a background paper. The result of the loss of their ecosystems was exemplified by the decline of coral reefs which increased the vulnerability of coastal areas to such natural disasters as last month's Indian Ocean tsunami, it said.

"Biological diversity is one of the pillars of life. It stabilizes the Earth's climate and renews soil fertility. It provides millions of people with livelihoods, helps to ensure food security, and is a rich source of both traditional medicines and modern pharmaceuticals. It is essential to our efforts to relieve suffering, raise standards of living and achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)," Mr. Annan said.

Under-appreciated as a resource, biodiversity was also under-appreciated as an issue meriting high-level attention, he told the 1,000 participants at the meeting.

"I therefore call on those Governments that have not yet done so to ratify the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and its Biosafety Protocol. These instruments and the processes they have set in motion are crucial for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, and for the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the use of genetic resources," he said.

"The Protocol gives us an international regulatory framework to ensure the safe transfer, handling and use of living modified organisms resulting from modern biotechnology, thus making it possible to derive maximum benefits from biotechnology while minimizing the potential risks to the environment and human health."

Biodiversity 2005 had to come to grips with the gaps in overall knowledge – the rates of loss, extinction trends, causes of decline – and the inability to monitor its status and trends, said Hamdallah Zedan, Executive Secretary of the Montreal-based CBD.

One ray of hope was that the international community had recognized the magnitude of the looming biodiversity crisis and had set a global target to reduce significantly the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national levels by 2010, Mr. Zedan said.

24 January - As the relief effort for the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster moves into its fifth week, United Nations agencies are producing topographical satellite maps to aid rehabilitation while raising the alarm for extra vigilance to avoid the further spread of AIDS through people forced into the sex trade because they have lost their other means of livelihood.

Beyond the immediate UN relief work of providing shelter, food and urgent medical and preventive care, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has prepared the Tsunami Atlas using satellite images collected from FAO data bases and completed by major spatial data sources on the web to assist in rebuilding lives and livelihoods.

"The atlas shows the tsunami-affected areas before and after the disaster, thus helping experts in evaluating the damage and estimating reconstruction and rehabilitation needs especially in the agricultural lands, the mangroves areas, as well in the coastal infrastructure that is used by farmers and fishermen," FAO remote sensing expert Dominique Lantieri said.

The atlas is well advanced for Indonesia and Sri Lanka, the areas hardest hit by the 26 December tsunami, which killed at least 165,000 people, injured half a million others, left up to 5 million more in need of basic services and caused incalculable damage. FAO is also working intensively regarding others among the dozen affected countries.

Meanwhile, the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) has urged the Government of Thailand and its non-government partners to be extra vigilant in promoting HIV/AIDS prevention as it rebuilds its tsunami-stricken coastline.

The main risk factors centre on an immediate lack of prevention resources such as condoms and education materials. Increased vulnerability is mainly due to people seeking unhealthy livelihood alternatives because their principal means of income generation has been destroyed.

"Not just lives have been lost due to the tsunami, but livelihoods as well, most notably in fishing and tourism," UNAIDS Country Coordinator Patrick Brenny said. "For this reason there is a critical need for prevention programmes and sexual health information among this population, not to mention getting people back to work and restoring their livelihoods."

For its part, the World Health Organization (WHO) notes that persons affected by a catastrophe like the tsunami are exposed to extreme stressors, such as personal danger and loss of kin, which represent risks of mental health problems. Most of the affected people live in resource-poor countries and this makes the task of providing assistance more difficult, it warns.
Tsunami shows that children worldwide need safe water and sanitation – UNICEF

24 January - The drive to bring safe water and sanitation to youngsters in the tsunami-affected Indian Ocean area has highlighted the need for these basics in schools around the world to improve the health and education of millions of schoolchildren, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said today.

"The tsunami has turned the spotlight on a global crisis affecting more than 1 billion people every day, particularly children," UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy told the opening of the three-day "Roundtable on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Education for Schools" in Oxford, England.

"Safe water and sanitation are essential to protect children's health and their ability to learn at school. In this sense, they are as vital as textbooks to a child's education."

If it failed to provide these basic services for schoolchildren, the international community could very well miss three of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the 2015 deadline: gender parity in education, universal primary education and environmental sustainability, UNICEF said.

Only 57 per cent of children in sub-Saharan Africa have been drinking safe water and only 35 per cent of children in South Asia have had access to basic toilets. The two regions also have the lowest rates of school enrolment and the highest numbers of girls who do not go to school, even though a study in Bangladesh has shown that separate toilets for girls could increase their school enrolment by 15 per cent.

"Getting and keeping girls in school is a major step toward reducing poverty in the next generation and improving child survival rates," Ms. Bellamy told the event, co-hosted by the International Water and Sanitation Centre. "And making schools more girl-friendly means they automatically become better environments for boys, too."

The lack of basic sanitation and safe water was also denying children a critical opportunity to learn basic hygienic activities like when to wash their hands, which by itself could reduce deadly diarrhoeal diseases by at least 40 per cent, UNICEF said. It noted that some 1.6 million children die annually from these diseases every year and millions more are left malnourished, weak and unable to learn.

Education in good hygiene would also enable children to become health educators for their families, passing on vital information and skills that could reduce the vulnerability of their households to deadly waterborne diseases, the agency said.
Chief UN adviser on Colombia to conclude term in April

24 January - Secretary-General Kofi Annan's top aide dealing with the peace process in Colombia will wrap up his current term in April after five years on the job, putting a temporary pause to active United Nations involvement in helping to end the country's decades-long conflict.

The announcement regarding Mr. Annan's Special Adviser on Colombia, James LeMoyne, was made following a meeting at UN Headquarters in New York between senior UN officials and a high-level delegation from the Colombian Government, which has been locked in a multi-sided war involving mainly the left-wing Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

According to a press statement, "there was an open and constructive exchange, particularly on the human rights and humanitarian situations in Colombia, and on the good offices provided by the Secretary-General since 1999 in the search for a negotiated solution to the conflict.

"It was made clear at today's meeting that the good offices of the Secretary-General remain available to Colombia," the statement added. "Should circumstances change and the parties request that the United Nations resume an active good offices role in the future, the Secretary-General will be ready to consider how best to help."

The two sides also agreed to continue talks "aimed at strengthening cooperation in the areas of human rights and humanitarian assistance, for the benefit of the Colombian people," the statement said.

The meeting was chaired by the UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Kieran Prendergast, and included Colombian Vice-President Francisco Santos and Foreign Minister Carolina Barco.

Mr. Prendergast was joined on the UN side by Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland, as well as representatives from the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).

Mr. LeMoyne, who has worked in peace processes, complex crises and peace-building for 20 years, previously had been involved with the situations in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Haiti, the former Yugoslavia, Northern Ireland and Guatemala.

The Secretary-General has been exercising his good offices in Colombia since 1 December 1999 with the appointment of Mr. Egeland as his first Special Adviser. The post serves as the focal point for the UN system in its efforts to mobilize international assistance for social, humanitarian, human rights, drug control and peace-building activities in Colombia.

The Special Adviser also is a channel between the Secretary-General and the Colombian Government and other relevant actors, and consults widely within and outside the country on how the UN system can best promote human rights, humanitarian assistance, development and peace.
UN disaster assessment and aid team goes to flood-stricken Guyana

24 January - A four-member United Nations team has been sent to Guyana to assess the needs of thousands of people who have been forced out of their homes in the flooded capital and coastal villages of the South American country, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said today.

Responding to last week's appeal by the Guyanese Government for food, boats, power generators and water pumps, OCHA had given an emergency cash grant of $50,000 to buy inflatable motor boats, while the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) had donated $75,000 and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) $100,000. OCHA said that logistics was also still a major problem.

A significant amount of water from four weeks of very heavy rain had drained from higher ground in central Georgetown, but then had caused the water level on the east coast to rise, forcing more people to evacuate their homes and seek shelter, OCHA quoted the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) – the UN World Health Organization's (WHO) regional office for the Americas – as saying.

The OCHA Regional Disaster Response Adviser (RDRA), based in Panama, was leading the four-member UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) team and the other members were scheduled to arrive tomorrow, it said.

Nepalese Government, Maoist rebels urged by UN official to respect human rights

24 January - The top United Nations human rights official today called on the Nepalese Government and Maoist rebels to do more to tackle the grave human rights abuses that were taking place in the Himalayan kingdom.

At the start of an official visit to the country, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour took part in the Conference on Peace and Human Rights, which is being organized by the National Human Rights Commission of Nepal.

During her three-day trip she will meet with senior officials of the Government, the judiciary and the military as well as non-governmental organizations (NGOs), human rights defenders and journalists.

On Wednesday, she is scheduled to take part in the launching of a report on children in the Nepal conflict issued by Watchlist – a New York-based NGO network.

In December, the UN Commission on Human Rights' Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances called on the Government to institute such measures as a total ban on incommunicado detention and full protection for human rights workers. Although the group's mandate is restricted to the obligations of state authorities, it also called on the Maoists to respect human rights.

24 January - With Afghanistan’s opium production having jumped last year 22 per cent to $3 billion in value and to 87 per cent of the world’s illicit output, the head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) will visit the Central Asian country this week to discuss ways of stopping the march towards an “opium economy.”

Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa, due to start his five-day mission on Wednesday, said everything must be done “to make sure that the increasing trend of recent years is reversed” and the country does not “further drift into an opium economy, generated from illicit activities and largely going into the hands of criminals.”

The Geneva-based UNODC’s “Afghanistan Opium Survey 2004” showed that although bad weather and plant diseases significantly reduced the opium yield, the output in 2004 was about 4,200 tons, “the second-largest opium harvest in the history of Afghanistan,” and its farming now covered 130,000 hectares, or 2.9 per cent of the country’s arable land.

Some 356,000 households grew the opium poppies used to make heroin last year, compared with 264,000 households using 80,000 hectares in 2003, it said.

“There is no easy way to solve the opium problem in Afghanistan and the focus must be on long-term development, which may take a generation or more,” Mr. Costa said.

UNODC has said mounting evidence shows drug money being used to finance criminal activities and it has called on security forces in the country to break up narco-trafficking chains and clandestine laboratories. Among its recommendations have been providing alternative crops, seeds, fertilizers and equipment for opium farmers and finding alternative sources of income for landless workers and returning refugees.
No improvement in rate of Romanian babies abandoned at birth, UN report finds

24 January - Underscoring the importance of new child rights legislation that entered into force this month in Romania, a United Nations-backed report has found that babies are just as likely to be abandoned in the country’s maternity and paediatric hospitals as they were three decades ago.

Around 4,000 newborn babies were abandoned in Romanian maternity hospitals immediately after delivery in 2004 – 1.8 per cent of all newborns – according to the survey supported by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Ministry of Health and carried out in over 150 medical institutions.

“Unfortunately, young mothers going into hospitals are confronted with conservative attitudes and practices,” UNICEF Representative in Romania Pierre Poupard said. “The system remains very traditional and penalizes the poor and marginalized.”

The report, The Situation of Child Abandonment in Romania, finds that many of the mothers who abandon their children are very young, poorly educated and living in extreme poverty. The percentage of abandoned babies who are born underweight (34 per cent) is four times higher than the norm for Romania (8.5 per cent).

The study calls for the development of appropriate indicators and effective monitoring and evaluation measures to ensure steady improvements in the quality of basic services for children and families – a bulwark against child abandonment.

The new legislation promotes a holistic approach to child protection, with responsibilities shared across sectors such as health, education and social welfare and integrated services within communities.
UN watchdog agency uses nuclear technology to help Mexico City breathe easier

24 January - With air pollution contributing to some 12,000 deaths each year in Mexico City, the United Nations atomic watchdog agency, better known for its efforts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons, is using nuclear technology to help the citizens of the Mexican capital breathe easier.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has teamed up with local scientists and regulatory authorities on a project aimed at making the air safer by using nuclear “know-how” to analyze air samples collected from across the city.

Unlike traditional methods for analyzing air samples, nuclear tools are sensitive enough to extract key information about contaminants in small, fine particles. The smaller a toxic particle the more damaging it is to human health because it can penetrate deeply into the lungs.

It is hoped that better information about release rates of elements like sulphur, nickel, copper and zinc in fine particles will help authorities improve health care and preventative strategies.

Regular air samples taken throughout Mexico City are analyzed using a technique known as PIXE (proton induce x-ray emission). The IAEA is providing around $300,000 in equipment and training to scientists at the National Nuclear Research Institute of Mexico (ININ) who conduct the analysis. The scientists use an accelerator to shoot a beam of protons at a dust sample collected from the air.

The results of the reaction reveal a wealth of information which helps scientists to pinpoint the exact source of toxic emissions, valuable information in a city where industry and the city’s 20 million inhabitants often live side by side. Importantly, it gives decision makers and regulators better information on which to act and develop laws to control harmful emissions.