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The UN Security Council has called for an accelerated availability of coronavirus vaccines for Africa and said the continent had so far only received 2% of the vaccines produced globally.
In May, Burundi held a presidential election which was won by Evariste Ndayishimiye, candidate of the ruling National Council for the Defense of Democracy - Forces for the Defense of Democracy (CNDD-FDD) party.
Ndayishimiye was hurriedly sworn in after the untimely death of president Pierre Nkurunziza in June.
Rights violations continue
The Council encouraged donor countries which had suspended aid to Burundi to continue dialogue towards resumption of development assistance.
A report by a UN watchdog in September said human rights violations were still being committed in Burundi, including sexual violence and murder.
The country was plunged into a crisis in April 2015 when Ndayishimiye’s predecessor Pierre Nkurunziza decided to run for a controversial third term, which he ultimately won in July 2015.
His candidature, which was opposed by the opposition and civil society groups, resulted in a wave of protests, violence and even a failed coup in May 2015.
Hundreds of people were killed and over 300,000 fled to neighboring countries.
The UN Security Council on Wednesday unanimously adopted two resolutions to create a mission in Sudan to support the country's political transition and extend the mandate of peacekeepers in Darfur, diplomats said.
The resolution on the new United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS) was drafted by Britain and Germany.
The mission was established \"for an initial period of 12 months,\" according to the text of the resolution, seen by AFP.
Britain and Germany also drafted the resolution on renewing the mandate of the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) through December 31.
Civilians 'on attack frontlines'
In a joint report in March, the UN and the African Union however had recommended that the UNAMID be replaced by a political mission in late October, and called for the peacekeepers to be gradually withdrawn by that time.
WASHINGTON, (Reuters) - Haiti’s ambassador to the United States yesterday called for the international community to support talks between President Jovenel Moise’s government and the opposition as a constitutional crisis escalates, but rejected calls for Moise to leave office.
The article Haitian envoy to U.S. calls for international support to resolve crisis appeared first on Stabroek News.
[East African] Patrick Youssef, the International Committee of the Red Cross Director of Operations for Africa, spoke to Fred Oluoch about the challenges on the continent
[CAJ News] Bangui, Central African Republic -- THE United Nations (UN) peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic (CAR) has denied allegations of electoral fraud leveled against it by the main opposition.
[allAfrica] The United States on Saturday ordered all non-essential personnel, including families of diplomats, out of Chad, as armed groups advanced towards the capital N'Djamena.
The two countries are locked in a bitter dispute over usage of the Nile River waters, with Egypt charging that Ethiopia’s plan to fill the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) will starve Egypt of its primary supply.
“Egypt has elected to bring this matter to the attention of the UN security Council after having explored and exhausted every avenue of reaching an amicable solution to an agreement on the GERD that preserves and promotes the rights and interests of the three riparian states of the Blue Nile,” said Mr Shoukry.
The 1959 agreement allocated nearly 90 per cent of the Nile waters to Egypt and Sudan, with Egypt taking 55.5 billion cubic meters annually while Sudan was allocated 18.5 billion cubic meters per year.
Egypt and Sudan are yet to sign the agreement 10 years on, over this provision, and want Article 14 (b) to read that the use “not to adversely affect the water security and current uses and rights of any other Nile Basin State”.
Ethiopia says it will take three to seven years to fill the dam reservoir with 4.9 billion cubic meters of water for generation of electricity, while Egypt says it will affect the natural flow of the Blue Nile that provides it with 87 per cent of its water and has been pushing for gradual filling of between seven and 10 years to guarantee its annual share.
Donald McHenry is a diplomat, scholar, corporate governor and educator who served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (UN). Because the hospitals of his home town, East St. Louis, Illinois, where he would grow up, were segregated, McHenry was born in St. Louis, Missouri on October 13, 1936. After his parents divorced he and his two siblings were raised by their mother.
McHenry received his bachelor’s degree from Illinois State University in 1957, and his master’s degree from Southern Illinois University in 1959. He found his niche in diplomacy and international affairs between 1963 and 1971, while working at the U.S. Department of State in its Office of Dependent Area Affairs. While there, he received its Superior Honor Award in 1966.
From 1971 to 1973 McHenry served as a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and scholar at the Brookings Institution, and in 1973 he worked on humanitarian policy at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He joined President-elect Jimmy Carter’s Presidential transition team in 1976, and in 1977 President Carter sent him to the UN where he served for two years as Deputy Representative to the UN Security Council. He was then appointed as U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN with rank of Ambassador, a position he held as part of the President’s Cabinet from 1979 to 1981.
Ambassador McHenry has served on numerous corporate boards, commencing in 1981 when he became the first African American to be appointed to the board of the Coca-Cola Company. As the inaugural chair of Coca-Cola’s Public Issues and Diversity Review Committee, McHenry also led corporate efforts to improve internal opportunities.
Because of Ambassador McHenry’s leadership and diplomatic experience, President Bill Clinton appointed him as Special Envoy to Nigeria from 1994 to 1996, where he led efforts to mediate unrest in that country. In 1998 UN Secretary General Kofi Annan tapped Ambassador McHenry to join a delegation to travel to Algeria to gather information and provide guidance on the
The Head of the African Union Mission for Somalia (AMISOM), Ambassador Francisco Madeira, on Thursday reported on the progress Somalia has made in economic recovery, inclusive politics, and security through containing terrorism, dialogue and reconciliation, state building, reconstruction and recovery.
In the area of inclusive politics, Ambassador Madeira said there have been encouraging signs of progress on reconciliation and dialogue processes at the state and local levels, and a degree of readiness by the Federal Government and Federal Member States to move forward on key national issues.
Ambassador Madeira also highlighted recent AMISOM security gains that degraded and disrupted Al-Shabaab's operational capabilities across Somalia, including the March 16 Operation BADBAADO that dislodged the terrorists from the bridge town of Janaale in Lower Shabelle.
Madeira said the recent successes in Lower Shabelle were possible because of the generation of a professional Somali national force that relieved AMISOM forces to other areas where they created mobile units that have made a difference.
However, Ambassador Madeira warned that if the process of generating sufficient, well trained, well equipped and regularly paid Somali security forces does not speed up, the country may not, by the end of 2021, be able to achieve the goal of producing a critical mass of Somali forces capable of taking over from AMISOM, hold and preserve the gains accumulated over the years.slowib
Sierra Leone Telegraph: 01 January 2021: President Julius Maada Bio of Sierra Leone has delivered his 2021 New Year’s address to the nation. Wishing the seven million people of Sierra Leone a happy New Year, after much criticism of abuse of power and human rights, stifling of democracy and poor management of the country’s economy,…
Analysis - President Idriss Deby has ruled Chad for 30 years. His nomination to run for a sixth term in the April election is inflaming tensions in a country marked by economic woes and frustration with the political elite.
June 18: Kenya beats Djibouti for non-permanent UNSC seat
\tKenya defeated Djibouti on Thursday for an African seat on the U.N. Security Council in a second round of voting held under dramatically different procedures because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
AP
June 17: Kenya, Djibouti split regional votes for non-permanent UNSC seat
\tKenya and Djibouti will later today know which of them will take Africa’s non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, UNSC.
The Security Council is the U.N.’s most powerful body and has five permanent members — the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France — and 10 members elected by the General Assembly for two-year terms, with seats allocated to regional groups.
Winning a seat on the council is considered a pinnacle of achievement for many countries because it gives them a strong voice on issues of international peace and security ranging from conflicts in Syria, Yemen and Ukraine to the nuclear threat posed by North Korea and Iran to attacks by extremist groups such as the Islamic State and al-Qaeda.
Normally, ambassadors from the 193 U.N. member states would meet in the horseshoe-shaped assembly chamber at U.N. headquarters overlooking New York’s East River and vote by secret ballot for new Security Council members.
1961: US President John F Kennedy asks the nation to work toward putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade.
1969: Parliamentary Government in Sudan is overthrown in bloodless coup and Major General Jafaar Numeiry heads new military regime.
US President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair hold a White House news conference in which they acknowledge making costly mistakes in Iraq, but vow to keep troops there until the fragile new Government takes hold.
2007: North Korea fires a salvo of test missiles into its coastal waters, flexing naval muscles as South Korea launches its most advanced destroyer ever, armed with a high-tech US air defence system.
2008: Michel Suleiman is sworn in as Lebanon's president after Parliament elected him in a long-delayed vote following an 18-month political stalemate that brought the country to the brink of another civil war.
Mozambique's president, Filipe Nyusi, on Wednesday said Islamic State-linked insurgents had been forced out of Palma, a key northern town that the rebels hit in a brazen raid last month.
The arrest on 16 May of Félicien Kabuga, alleged financier of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, has dominated international justice discussions.
But rather than Kabuga's trial, it is the question of reparations - thus far a major gap in the delivery of justice to survivors in Rwanda - that should take centre stage.
In the ICTR's 21-year existence, not a single order for restitution was made by its judges
As the international community grapples with questions on Kabuga's trial, an opportunity presents itself to place reparations for survivors at the centre of the debate.
Rwandan genocide survivors must be at the centre of designing and implementing a reparations trust
The US$5 million reward issued by the US Department of State under the Rewards for Justice Program for Kabuga's arrest could be seed money for a reparations trust for genocide survivors.
Rwandan genocide survivors must be at the centre of the design and implementation of a reparations trust.
Prime Minister Trudeau’s rejection of a deal with China over the detention of two Canadians has lent a significant twist to the extradition battle over Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou.
A few days earlier 19 former diplomats and politicians argued in a letter to Trudeau that “[r]emoving the pressures of the extradition proceeding and the related imprisonment of the two Michaels [former diplomat Michael Kovrig and entrepreneur Michael Spavor] will clear the way for Canada to freely decide and declare its position on all aspects of the Canada-China relationship.”
Instead he warned that intervention by the federal justice minister – who has the power to dismiss the proceedings against Meng – would embolden China, or any other country, into thinking that “all they have to do to get leverage over the Canadian government is randomly arrest a couple of Canadians.”
Last year while criticising countries which were too closely aligned with the One Belt, One Road initiative the European Commission described China as “an economic competitor in pursuit of technological leadership and a systemic rival promoting alternative models of governance.”
On the other hand, Trudeau’s resistance to China is a powerful reminder that not all “models of governance” are equal and that liberal democracies with independent judiciaries, freedom of speech and other anti-authoritarian encumbrances, are worth defending.
U.S. Department of State Background Note
Although Haiti averages about 302 people per square kilometer, its population is concentrated most heavily in urban areas, coastal plains, and valleys. About 95% of Haitians are of African descent. The rest of the population is mostly of mixed Caucasian-African ancestry. A few are of European or Levantine heritage. Sixty percent of the population lives in rural areas.
French is one of two official languages, but it is spoken by only about 10% of the people. All Haitians speak Creole, the countrys other official language. English is increasingly used as a second language among the young and in the business sector.
The dominant religion is Roman Catholicism. Increasing numbers of Haitians have converted to Protestantism through the work of missionaries active throughout the country. Much of the population also practices voudou (voodoo), recognized by the government as a religion in April 2003. Haitians tend to see no conflict in these African-rooted beliefs coexisting with Christian faith.
Although public education is free, the cost is still quite high for Haitian families who must pay for uniforms, textbooks, supplies, and other inputs. Due to weak state provision of education services, private and parochial schools account for approximately 90% of primary schools, and only 65% of primary school-aged children are actually enrolled. At the secondary level, the figure drops to around 20%. Less than 35% of those who enter will complete primary school. Though Haitians place a high value on education, few can afford to send their children to secondary school and primary school enrollment is dropping due to economic factors. Remittances sent by Haitians living abroad are important in paying educational costs.
Large-scale emigration, principally to the U.S.--but also to Canada, the Dominican Republic, The Bahamas and other Caribbean neighbors, and France--has created what Haitians refer to as the Tenth Department or the Diaspora. About one of every eight Haitians lives
It comes as a unity government was approved in March to lead the war-ravaged North African nation to December elections.
Eritrea's president arrived in Sudan on Tuesday for talks with officials amid tensions over a longtime border dispute between the two nations:
The trial of Charles Taylor, the former Liberian president, on charges of crimes against humanity began at a UN criminal court at The Hague in 2007. He was charged with abetting the violent rebel group in Sierra Leones civil war that was responsible for atrocities, which included hacking off the limbs of civilians, sexual slavery, conscripting child soldiers, and even cannibalism. In April 2012, after deliberating for more than a year, the court, comprised of three judges from Ireland, Samoa, and Uganda, convicted Taylor of crimes against humanity and war crimes for his support of the rebels. His conviction is the first by an international court since the Nuremberg trials.
In June 2007, three former rebel leaders were convicted of crimes against humanity by a UN-backed court. Alex Tamba Brima, Brima Bazzy Kamara, and Santigie Borbor Kanumurder were found guilty of rape and enlisting child soldiers. It was the first time an international tribunal ruled on the recruitment of children under age 15 as soldiers.
In September 2007 elections, the governing party suffered a surprising defeat when opposition leader Ernest Koroma, of the All Peoples Congress (APC), defeated Vice President Solomon E. Berewa, of the Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP), 55% to 45%. The elections were Sierra Leones first since the United Nations peacekeeping force left the county in 2004. Koroma was reelected in November 2012 to a second and final term. It was the first election held without UN supervision, and the results were deemed fair.
The UN Security Council lifted the last sanctions on Sierra Leone in September 2010, having determined that the government had gained control over the country from the rebels and that the rebels had been disarmed and had been integrated into the national army.
In April 2012, after deliberating for more than a year, the war crimes court at the Hague convicted former Liberian president Charles Taylor of aiding and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sierra Leones civil war. His conviction
[Daily Maverick] Fulgence Kayishema, who allegedly bulldozed a church filled with 2 000 Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994, killing hundreds, was living in Cape Town until a year ago
[Cameroon Tribune] Since 2012, the Central African Republic (CAR) has been under a string of crisis. The outbreak of violence, initially political in nature, piloted by armed groups and government forces, quickly took a religious turn as Christians aligned themselves with Anti-Balaka forces, facing off against Muslims associated with the ex-Seleka. The successive coup d'états of 2013 and the massacres that followed led to an intervention by an international military presence, initially through the auspices of the Afri
[The Point] Press release
