Category Archives: United Nations

US and Saudi Arabia blocking regulation of geoengineering, sources say

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Delegates at UN environment assembly say the oil producers are protecting their industries

The United States and Saudi Arabia have hamstrung global efforts to scrutinise climate geoengineering in order to benefit their fossil fuel industries, according to multiple sources at the United Nations environment assembly, taking place this week in Nairobi.

The world’s two biggest oil producers reportedly led opposition against plans to examine the risks of climate-manipulating technology such as sucking carbon out of the air, reflective mirrors in space, seeding the oceans and injecting particulates into the atmosphere.

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Ethiopian Airlines crash – a visual guide to what we know so far

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Disaster marks second crash for Boeing 737 Max 8 in four months, with passengers from 35 different countries

An Ethiopian Airlines plane crashed on Sunday near Addis Ababa, killing all 157 people on board. Here’s what we know about the crash.

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No peace in Yemen until south’s wish to split with north heard, MPs told

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Head of southern transitional council says ignoring will of people is ‘recipe for instability’

Peace in Yemen is impossible without acknowledgement of southern Yemen’s calls for independence from the north, leaders of the United Arab Emirates-backed southern transitional council (STC) are due to tell British MPs and officials as they step up efforts to be involved in the peace talks.

The south of Yemen, briefly a communist state, was united with the north in 1990 and southern separatists were then beaten militarily when they tried to secede in 1994. Continued southern resentment at the north’s control of the country’s resources, including by the rebel Houthis, is a large undercurrent in the civil war.

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UN says Israel’s killings at Gaza protests may amount to war crimes

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Inquiry accuses army of killing demonstrators ‘who were not posing an imminent threat’

UN investigators have accused Israeli soldiers of intentionally firing on civilians and said they may have committed war crimes in their lethal response to Palestinian demonstrations in Gaza.

The independent Commission of Inquiry, set up last year by the UN’s human rights council, said Israeli forces killed 189 people and shot more than 6,100 others with live ammunition near the fence that divides the two territories.

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Infant mortality in Venezuela has doubled during crisis, UN says

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UN security council officials clash over ‘politicised’ aid to troubled country as peace-building chief warns of ‘grim realities’

Infant mortality in Venezuela has soared by roughly 50% during the prolonged political crisis in the country.

Briefing the UN security council, the UN’s political and peace building chief, Rosemary DiCarlo, depicted a devastating collapse in Venezuela’s health system. She warned that 40% of medical staff had left the country and said hospital stocks of medicine had dwindled to 20% of the required level.

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Rohingya crisis: UN investigates its ‘dysfunctional’ conduct in Myanmar

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Exclusive: Inquiry follows claims it ignored warning signs before alleged Rohingya genocide

The UN has launched an inquiry into its conduct in Myanmar over the past decade, where it has been accused of ignoring warning signs of escalating violence prior to an alleged genocide of the Rohingya minority.

UN sources have confirmed to the Guardian that the initially hesitant UN secretary general, António Guterres, decided to proceed with the investigation after a “build-up in pressure” within the organisation.

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Trump’s UN ambassador pick, Heather Nauert, withdraws from consideration

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Former Fox News host says she is not going ahead with appointment for family reasons

The state department says Donald Trump’s nominee for US ambassador to the United Nations, Heather Nauert, has withdrawn.

The department released a statement on Saturday evening Washington time saying Nauert had withdrawn and another nominee would be announced “soon”.

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Condom handouts in schools prevent disease without encouraging sex

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UN study finds misgivings over impact of condom distribution in secondary schools are misplaced

Making condoms available to teenagers at school does not make them more promiscuous – but neither does it reduce teenage pregnancy rates.

According to a major review by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), giving out condoms in secondary schools does not increase sexual activity, or encourage young people to have sex at an earlier age.

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Saudi crown prince wanted to go after Jamal Khashoggi ‘with a bullet’ – report

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US media quotes intelligence sources who intercepted a conversation between Mohammed bin Salman and an aide in 2017

Saudi Arabia’s crown prince told a senior aide he would go after Jamal Khashoggi “with a bullet” a year before the dissident journalist was killed inside the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate, according to a US media report.

US intelligence understood that Mohammed bin Salman, the country’s 33-year-old de facto ruler, was ready to kill the journalist, although he may not have literally meant he planned to shoot him, according to the New York Times ($).

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Yemen war: UN anchors ship off Red Sea port for ‘neutral ground’ talks

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Vessel moored near Hodeidah hosts meetings with Yemen government delegates and Houthi rebels

Yemen peace talks have been held onboard a UN-chartered boat anchored in the Red Sea in an attempt to find a neutral venue acceptable to both sides.

Patrick Cammaert, a retired Dutch general and head of the UN mission in Yemen, chaired the meeting on the ship moored off the port city of Hodeidah. Houthi rebel military officials had refused to meet in government-held areas in southern Hodeidah, citing security fears.

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Hodeidah residents fear Yemen violence will rupture ceasefire

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Houthi fighters resume planting landmines and aid workers say families are sifting through rubbish for food

Residents and aid workers in the besieged Yemeni city of Hodeidah fear that growing violence in the city will rupture the fragile ceasefire, despite insistences from the UN that both sides remain committed to negotiating the end of the four-year-old civil war.

The Saudi-led coalition fighting Houthi rebels in control of the city sparked fears of escalation this week after UAE foreign minister Anwar Gargash said it struck 10 Houthi training camps elsewhere in the country in retaliation for what he said was a spike in Houthi violations of the truce.

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Djibouti: scores feared dead after two migrant boats overturn

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Coastguard warns death toll will rise, as UN reveals six migrants die at sea each day

Scores of people are feared to have drowned off the coast of Djibouti after two migrant boats capsized, amid new warnings from the UN that six people a day die on maritime smuggling routes to Europe and elsewhere.

According to the International Organization for Migration, the alarm was raised over the latest incident after two survivors were recovered. As the search for more survivors continued, the IOM said on Wednesday that 38 people had been confirmed dead.

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Indonesia to let UN workers into West Papua as violence continues

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UNHCHR wants access after Indonesian military crackdown in response to guerrilla attack

Indonesia has agreed in principle to allow the UN office of the human rights commissioner into West Papua amid continuing violence in the region.

The long-running low-level insurgency violently escalated late last year, after West Papuan guerrillas attacked a construction site in Nduga, killing at least 17 people they claimed were Indonesian military but who Jakarta insists were civilian workers.

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UN court judge quits The Hague citing political interference

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Christoph Flügge warns over ‘shocking’ moves by Trump administration and Turkey

A senior judge has resigned from one of the UN’s international courts in The Hague citing “shocking” political interference from the White House and Turkey.

Christoph Flügge, a German judge, claimed the US had threatened judges after moves were made to examine the conduct of US soldiers in Afghanistan.

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Yemen ceasefire: Houthi retreat suffers setback, says UN envoy

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Plans for prisoner exchanges have also not gone to plan, says Martin Griffiths

Deadlines for a retreat of Houthi troops in Yemen, agreed in talks last month, have had to be delayed, the UN special envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, has said. He also conceded plans for prisoner exchanges have not gone to plan.

Griffiths also had to deny that the retired general Patrick Cammaert, appointed by the UN to implement the ceasefire in the Red Sea port of Hodeidah, had quit due to disagreements with Griffiths’s team.

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UN executions expert to visit Turkey to lead Khashoggi inquiry

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Investigation comes as Saudi efforts to normalise relations with west move on to Davos

A UN expert on executions is to travel to Turkey next week to lead an “independent international inquiry” into the death of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi Arabian journalist killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October.

Agnes Callamard, the special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said she would evaluate the circumstances of the crime and “the nature and the extent of states’ and individuals’ responsibilities for the killing”. She will report on the findings from her five-day visit to the UN human rights council in June.

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UK gives £2.5m to help salvage Yemen ceasefire

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Funding comes as UN officials fear cessation of hostilities in Hodeidah might soon collapse

The UN’s increasingly fraught attempt to salvage a ceasefire in the Yemeni port of Hodeidah that could lead to a wider peace across the war-torn country is to be shored up by extra money from the UK to support the civilian administration of the city.

The foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, announced an initial extra £2.5m funding on Tuesday amid signs that the UN special envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, is struggling to gain agreement even on basic confidence-building measures such as prisoner swaps.

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Coups and murder: the sinister world of apartheid’s secret mercenaries

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A South African militia that claimed to be behind the murder of a UN chief was involved in deadly work across the continent, its members say

Keith Maxwell, the self-declared “commodore” of the South African Institute for Maritime Research (SAIMR), liked to dress up on special occasions in the garish costume of a 18th-century admiral, with a three-cornered hat, brass buttons and a cutlass. Ordinary members of his organisation were expected to show up in crisp naval whites.

Gathered together in upmarket restaurants, or the quiet of the Wemmer Pan naval base in south-central Johannesburg, they had the air of eccentric history buffs. Maxwell talked about the group’s roots in a Napoleonic-era treasure-hunting syndicate, and told outsiders it was still focused on deep-sea exploration.

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Libya: reconciliation conference delay could fuel military solution

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Political process is being sabotaged by those who believe conflict is only option, says UN special envoy

Failure to hold a national reconciliation conference in Libya could open the path to those who want a military solution to the country’s divisions, Ghassan Salamé, the UN special envoy has warned.

The conference, which was due to be held this month, is intended to be a precursor to presidential and parliamentary elections this spring designed to end the splits that have paralysed the country ever since the ousting and killing of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

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Yemen ceasefire: new UN resolution seeks to save agreement

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Fresh resolution will increase UN monitors overseeing Hodeidah deal

The UN has tried to prevent the collapse of the ceasefire agreement in Yemen by endorsing a fresh security council resolution urgently increasing the number of monitors overseeing the deal in Hodeidah, the strategic port that lies at the heart of the three-year civil war.

The resolution, drafted by the UK, extends the UN monitoring role for a further six months and increases the number of monitors to as many as 75 people. UN personnel are likely to be transferred from Djibouti to Hodeidah.

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