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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...Exclusive research reveals that a British-trained Belgian mercenary admitted the killing of Dag Hammarskjöld in 1961
Jan van Risseghem was only a teenager when his mother ordered him to flee Nazi-occupied Belgium for her native England with his brother Maurice. After hiding in a convent, and an epic journey across the war-torn continent, they reached safety in Portugal, then took a ship north.
Once in England, the pair signed up with the Belgian resistance, and with the help of an uncle enrolled for flight training with the RAF, a decision that shaped not just their war, but the rest of their lives.
Continue reading...Saudi teen was granted asylum by Canada after flying to Thailand to escape her family
The Saudi woman who barricaded herself in a Thai hotel room in a desperate attempt to flee abuse landed in Canada on Saturday, capping a tumultuous and uncertain journey towards safety.
Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun arrived in Toronto, the country’s largest city. As she entered the airport’s arrivals area, she was accompanied by Canada’s minister of foreign affairs, Chrystia Freeland, who has been a vocal critic of Saudi Arabia’s jailing of female dissidents.
Continue reading...Bill Shorten urges Scott Morrison to accept Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun now that the UN has validated her refugee claim
Labor has said the Saudi teenager Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun should be resettled in Australia now that her refugee claim had been validated.
The party’s foreign affairs spokeswoman, Penny Wong, told ABC radio on Thursday Bill Shorten had written to Scott Morrison urging him to accept Qunun.
Continue reading...Australia to consider asylum request after home affairs minister says she would not get ‘special treatment’
Saudi teenager Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun has been found to be a refugee by the United Nations, and the Australian government will now consider her asylum request, according to the Department of Home Affairs.
The 18-year-old woman barricaded herself in a Bangkok airport hotel room on Sunday to prevent her forcible return to Saudi Arabia, where she claims her family will kill her because she has renounced Islam.
Continue reading...Violence so bad that women wear nappies at night to avoid leaving tents, report says
The EU has been strongly criticised over conditions in Greece’s largest refugee camp, where Oxfam reported women are wearing nappies at night for fear of leaving their tents to go to the toilet.
The British-based NGO described the increasingly dangerous state of the EU-sponsored Moria camp on the island of Lesbos, where a 24-year-old man from Cameroon was found dead in the early hours of Tuesday as temperatures fell below freezing.
Continue reading...Though Abiy Ahmed’s record to date is impressive, the developments he has set in train need a proper political roadmap and institutional backing
Ethiopians could be forgiven for their scepticism when their new prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, promised sweeping reforms last spring. The ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front coalition which appointed him toyed with change in 2005 – only to revert to its usual autocratic form. Now wariness has been replaced by genuine enthusiasm; the transformation is happening at dizzying speed. But the obstacles and perils are also clearer.
Mr Abiy, 42, has followed symbolic shifts with more substantive action. His president, chief justice and half of his ministers are female. He freed thousands of political prisoners and journalists, before arresting senior officials for human rights abuses and corruption. He overturned bans on opposition groups and invited an exiled dissident home to head the election board. The next polls are scheduled for 2020. Last time, not one opposition MP was elected. Mr Abiy’s overtures to Eritrea led to the end of a long-running conflict. He oversaw the meeting of South Sudanese leaders that produced a fragile but desperately needed peace deal. This – along with Eritrea’s ensuing rapprochement with Somalia and Djibouti – led the UN secretary general António Guterres to speak of “a wind of hope blowing in the Horn of Africa”.
Continue reading...Nicholas Haysom told to leave after urging inquiry into civilian casualties during protests over former al-Shabaab leader’s arrest
Somalia has asked the UN secretary general’s special envoy to leave the country “as soon as possible” after accusing him of “interfering with the country’s internal affairs”.
A statement from the ministry of foreign affairs on Tuesday declared top UN official Nicholas Haysom persona non grata. The ministry said that Haysom “is not required and cannot work in this country”.
Continue reading...Questions over relief effort multiply as it emerges aid officials knew for months of armed groups diverting food
The theft of food aid in Yemen by Houthi rebels might be only the tip of the iceberg, officials believe, as questions multiply over international relief efforts in the famine-ravaged country.
It has emerged that aid officials have been aware for months that armed groups – most prominently Houthi rebels in the capital, Sana’a – have been diverting food aid into the key areas they control, including by manipulating data in malnutrition surveys used by the UN.
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