Tag Archives: United Nations

World has not done enough over Khashoggi killing: U.N. investigator

By Jonas Ekblom and Jorrit Donner-Wittkopf

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The world has not done enough to ensure justice is done over the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a special U.N. investigator said on Tuesday.

Agnes Callamard, the United Nations rapporteur for extrajudicial executions, called for more action from the European Union and the United States over Khashoggi’s murder by Saudi operatives at Riyadh’s consulate in Istanbul in 2018.

“I think it is important to recognize that the international community so far has failed in its duty to ensure that there cannot be immunity or impunity for the killing of Jamal Khashoggi,” Callamard told reporters in Brussels.

Callamard is seeking an international criminal investigation instead of a Saudi trial, but Riyadh has rejected her request.

Hatice Cengiz, who had been due to marry Khashoggi, accompanied Callamard on a trip to Brussels which she said was intended to remind people they were still seeking justice.

Khashoggi was a U.S. resident and a critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Eleven Saudi suspects have been put on trial over his death in secretive proceedings. A report by Callamard has called for the crown prince and other senior Saudi officials to be investigated.

The death caused a global uproar, tarnishing the crown prince’s image. The CIA and some Western governments have said they believe Prince Mohammed ordered the killing, but Saudi officials say he had no role.

The EU called on the first anniversary of Khashoggi’s killing for “full accountability for all those responsible” and said there must be a “credible and transparent” investigation.

The United States has called for Saudi Arabia to show tangible progress toward holding those behind the killing to account.

(Editing by Timothy Heritage)

Iran breaches another nuclear deal cap, on heavy water stock: IAEA report

Iran breaches another nuclear deal cap, on heavy water stock: IAEA report
VIENNA (Reuters) – Iran has breached another limit of its nuclear deal with major powers by accumulating slightly more than 130 tonnes of heavy water, a substance used in a type of reactor it is developing, a U.N. nuclear watchdog report showed on Monday.

The limit is the latest in a series imposed by the deal that Iran has exceeded in protest at Washington’s withdrawal from the deal last year and its imposition of punishing economic sanctions against Tehran.

Heavy water is not as sensitive as uranium, which Iran is enriching in a quantity and to a level of purity beyond limits in the deal. However, the 2015 deal says Iran should not have more heavy water than it needs, specifying this is estimated to be 130 metric tonnes.

“On 16 November 2019, Iran informed the Agency that its stock of heavy water had exceeded 130 metric tonnes,” the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report to member states obtained by Reuters.

“On 17 November 2019, the Agency verified that the Heavy Water Production Plant (HWPP) was in operation and that Iran’s stock of heavy water was 131.5 metric tonnes.”

Heavy water is, among other things, used as a moderator to slow down reactions in the core of nuclear reactors like one Iran has been developing at Arak.

Since that reactor could eventually have produced plutonium, which can also be used in atom bombs, the deal required Iran to remove its core and fill it with concrete. The reactor is now being redesigned with a view to reducing any weapons proliferation risk.

It is not the first time Iran has breached the heavy-water cap. Iran first went over that limit in 2016 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-nuclear/iran-once-again-exceeds-a-nuclear-deal-limit-iaea-report-idUSKBN1342T1, soon after the deal went into force and well before the U.S. withdrawal in 2018. Major powers then agreed Iran could store its excess heavy water outside the country while it sought a buyer for it.

(Reporting by Francois Murphy; Editing by Catherine Evans)

U.S. raps global health summit over abortion, sex education

By Nita Bhalla

NAIROBI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Ten countries – including the United States, Brazil and Egypt – criticised a global conference on sexual and reproductive health on Thursday, saying it promoted abortion and sex education.

Heads of state, financial institutions and donors were among the 9,500 delegates in Nairobi this week to address maternal mortality, violence against women and voluntary family planning.

But 10 of the United Nation’s 192 member states said they did not support the International Conference on Population and Development’s (ICPD) use of the term “sexual and reproductive health and rights” as it could be used to promote abortion.

Valerie Huber, senior policy advisor with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said not all countries had been fully consulted ahead of the event, organised by the United Nations, Denmark and Kenya.

“There is no international right to abortion. In fact, international law clearly states that everyone has the right to life,” said Huber.

“We cannot support sex education that fails to adequately engage parents and which promotes abortion as a method of family planning,” she said in a joint statement on behalf of the group.

In 2017, President Donald Trump reinstated a decades-old, U.S. government policy that restricts international aid to charities that support abortion.

The so-called global gag rule has forced the closure of health clinics, outreach programs and refugee services by charities, risking the health of millions of women, reproductive rights experts said.

UNDER ATTACK

Sexual and reproductive rights campaigners said the U.S.-led statement was discouraging with women’s rights already threatened by far-right, populist rhetoric across the world, including moves to restrict abortion in the United States.

The ICPD conference marks 25 years since a landmark summit in Cairo when nations agreed to address issues such as maternal health, violence against women and equal opportunities.

Every day, more than 800 women die from preventable causes during pregnancy and childbirth, according to the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA). More than 230 million women want to prevent pregnancy but are not using modern contraception.

One in three women globally have faced some form of physical or sexual violence in their lifetime, according to the UNFPA.

Organisers of the Nairobi summit denied any suggestion the event was exclusively focused on abortion or sex education.

“I believe their statement is based on some misunderstandings of what this is about,” IB Petersen, Denmark’s special envoy for the ICPD, told a news conference.

“This is not a pro-abortion summit – it is about the ICPD program of action – abortion is part of that.”

Petersen said the summit had already yielded results, citing a pledge by Kenya to end female genital mutilation by 2022.

Almost $10 billion in investments has also been pledged by countries – including Britain, Norway, Germany and Denmark – and a host of private organisations.

The UNFPA estimates countries need about $264 billion to end maternal deaths, gender-based violence, child marriage, and provide family planning to all women by 2030.

(Reporting by Nita Bhalla @nitabhalla, Editing by Claire Cozens and Lyndsay Griffiths. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s and LGBT+ rights, human trafficking, property rights and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org)

Strikes on Syrian medical facilities appear deliberate: U.N.

Strikes on Syrian medical facilities appear deliberate: U.N.
By Emma Farge

GENEVA (Reuters) – More than 60 medical facilities have been hit in Syria’s Idlib province in the past six months, including four this week, and appear to have been deliberately targeted by government-affiliated forces, a U.N. rights spokesman said on Friday.

Idlib in Syria’s northwest, the target of a Russian-backed offensive launched this summer to capture it and surrounding areas, is part of the last major rebel bastion in Syria’s 8 1/2-year war.

Since April 29, 61 medical facilities have been hit there, including some that were struck several times, U.N. human rights spokesman Rupert Colville told journalists.

“We can’t determine if every single attack is deliberate but the large scale of these attacks…strongly suggests that government-affiliated forces conducting these strikes are, at least partly, if not wholly, deliberately striking health facilities,” he said at a Geneva news briefing.

“They can’t possibly all be accidents,” he told Reuters later. He said that, if it is proven that any or some of these were deliberate, they would amount to war crimes.

Damage was reported at the Kafr Nobol hospital on Nov. 6 – which had also been hit in May and July – and two air strikes also directly hit the al-Ikhlas hospital in southern Idlib, incapacitating it this week, Colville said.

Pressure is building for an investigation into attacks on Syrian hospitals amid allegations that hundreds have taken place over the course of the 8-1/2 year conflict.

The United Nations passes on information provided by NGOs about the location of medical facilities along with other data to parties to the conflict. The aim of this is to avoid attacks on such facilities, which are protected under international humanitarian law, but it has been criticized as a means of facilitating exactly the opposite.

Syria’s war has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands and forced 13 million people from their homes, half of whom have left their wrecked country.

Since a Turkish-led offensive across Syria’s northern border a month ago to push out Kurdish YPG fighters, at least 92 civilians have been killed in northern and northeastern Syria, Colville added.

That offensive displaced 200,000 people, of whom nearly half of them remain displaced are dispersed across camps and shelters, Najat Rochdi, Senior Humanitarian Adviser to the United Nations Special Envoy for Syria, said on Friday.

A U.N.-backed panel met for the first time in Geneva this week, with delegates from the government, opposition and civil society, in what the United Nations says is an important step on the long road to political rapprochement in Syria.

(Additional reporting by Marina Depetris; Writing by Emma Farge; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Pompeo says U.S. troubled by reports of China harassing families of Uighur Muslim activists

Pompeo says U.S. troubled by reports of China harassing families of Uighur Muslim activists
By Humeyra Pamuk

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States remains deeply troubled by multiple reports that the Chinese government has “harassed, imprisoned, or arbitrarily detained” family members of Uighur Muslim activists and survivors of Xinjiang internment camps who have made their stories public, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Tuesday.

“In some cases, these abuses occurred shortly after meetings with senior State Department officials,” Pompeo said in a statement, reiterating Washington’s call for Beijing to release those detained.

China has been widely condemned for setting up complexes in remote Xinjiang that it describes as “vocational training centers” to stamp out extremism and give people new skills. The United Nations says at least 1 million ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims have been detained.

China has denied any mistreatment of Uighurs, and insists Xinjiang is its internal affair.

Any escalation of tensions between Beijing and Washington worries investors, as the world’s two largest economies are also embroiled in a 15-month old trade war. Beijing also views U.S. support for pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong as interfering with its sovereignty.

In his statement, Pompeo referred to several individuals whose families he said were directly impacted by the Chinese government’s treatment of Uighurs, including Zumrat Dawut, who was one of the speakers at an event in New York on the sidelines of United Nations General Assembly in September.

Dawut had spoken on how she was detained by Chinese authorities earlier this year and was kept in a camp.

“Most recently, Ms. Dawut learned her elderly father, who was reportedly detained and interrogated multiple times by Chinese authorities in Xinjiang in recent years, recently passed away under unknown circumstances,” Pompeo said.

The U.S. government last month widened its trade blacklist to include some of China’s top artificial intelligence start-ups and announced visa restrictions on Chinese government and Communist Party officials it believes responsible for the detention or abuse of Muslim minorities in Xinjiang region.

“We once again call on Beijing to cease all harassment of Uighurs living outside of China… and to allow families to communicate freely without repercussions,” Pompeo said.

(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Dan Grebler)

Venezuela exodus set to top 5 million as long-term needs grow, officials say

Venezuela exodus set to top 5 million as long-term needs grow, officials say
By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – The exodus of Venezuelans is on track to reach 5 million people, as pressure grows on neighboring countries to provide them with long-term support, United Nations and European Union officials said on Wednesday.

Some 4.5 million refugees and migrants have fled Venezuela since 2015, according to official figures, but more are using illegal crossing points because they lack identity papers, said Eduardo Stein, joint special representative of the U.N. refugee and migration agencies.

The crisis has worsened since the United States imposed sanctions, including on the pivotal oil industry, in an effort to oust leftist President Nicolas Maduro in favor of opposition leader Juan Guaido. Dozens of nations recognize Guaido as interim president, saying Maduro rigged a 2018 election.

Roughly 5,000 people leave Venezuela daily, although the number fluctuates as more states require visas, Stein said.

“The experience of other crises in the world shows us that those who would want to go back to Venezuela if the crisis in political terms were to be solved today, it will take a good two years or maybe even more,” Stein told a news conference.

A U.N. regional humanitarian response plan of $739 million for this year is expected to nearly double for 2020, he added.

The initially welcoming attitude to Venezuelans around South America has soured amid accusations they bring crime, crowd the job market, and strain social services.

The United Nations and European Union are hosting a meeting on Oct. 28-29 in Brussels to raise awareness of needs. Donors and officials from the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank are due to attend, but no Venezuelan representatives.

“This is the most severe and fastest-growing refugee migrant crisis in Latin American history, at least recent history,” said Walter Stevens, EU ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva. “There are estimates also that it could further increase if the situation does not change, quickly reaching 5 million.”

Colombia is the top destination for Venezuelan migrants fleeing the long-running crisis, which has caused widespread shortages of food and medicine. Some 1.4 million Venezuelans live in Colombia.

The flow is overwhelming the financial and administrative capacities of host countries to provide education and health services, Stein said.

“Nine receiving countries have agreed to accept expired (Venezuelan) passports as valid documents. And so with an expired passport you can get a temporary permit sometimes for two years,” he stated.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay, editing by Larry King)

Afghanistan suffers record 4,300 civilian casualties in three months: U.N.

An internally displaced Afghan girl stands outside her tent at a refugee camp in Herat province, Afghanistan October 14, 2018. Picture taken October 14, 2018. REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail - RC1633CE5420

Afghanistan suffers record 4,300 civilian casualties in three months: U.N.
By Abdul Qadir Sediqi

KABUL (Reuters) – A record 4,313 civilians were injured or killed in Afghanistan’s war against the Islamist Taliban between July and September, the United Nations said on Thursday.

The tally was up 42 percent from the same period last year – in a war that ebbs and flows with the seasonal weather – and included more than a thousand deaths, according to data from the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA).

That made it the bloodiest period in the world’s longest-running war since UNAMA began collecting like-for-like figures in 2009. It brought the total of casualties for the first nine months of 2019 to over 8,000.

“Civilian casualties at record-high levels clearly show the need for all parties concerned to pay much more attention to protecting the civilian population, including through a review of conduct during combat operations,” said Tadamichi Yamamoto, one of the U.N.’s top officials in Afghanistan.

Taliban insurgents fighting the U.S.-backed Kabul government control more of Afghanistan than at any time since being ousted from power nearly two decades ago.

They have stepped up a campaign of suicide bombings in recent years as Washington tries to pull its forces out.

Around 62 percent of casualties were caused by what UNAMA called “anti-government elements”, though casualties caused by pro-government forces also rose 26 percent.

UNAMA said on Tuesday that 85 civilians had been killed and more than 370 wounded in violence linked to last month’s election.

The two presidential front-runners have both already claimed victory despite the count being delayed.

(Reporting by Abdul Qadir Sediqi in Kabul; writing by Alasdair Pal; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Council of Europe, U.N. agency urges Bosnia to move migrants camp

Council of Europe, U.N. agency urges Bosnia to move migrants camp
SARAJEVO (Reuters) – The U.N. migration agency and the Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner urged Bosnia on Thursday to relocate an overcrowded migrant camp, warning of a humanitarian risk because of “deplorable” conditions.

Bosnia has been struggling with a rise in migrant arrivals since nearby European Union member states Croatia, Hungary and Slovenia sealed their borders against undocumented immigration.

The Vucjak camp, about eight km (five miles) from the border with Croatia, lacks running water and electricity and was built over a former landfill where land mines remain as a legacy of the 1990s wars triggered by the disintegration of Yugoslavia.

“The living conditions in this camp…are already deplorable … With winter coming, the situation cannot but worsen,” Dunja Mijatovic, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement.

The Council of Europe is the continent’s main human rights watchdog.

Peter Van Der Auweraert, the sub-regional coordinator of the Western Balkans at the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), urged the authorities to find “alternate, safe and secure accommodation in line with national and international laws and obligations (and) humanitarian principles and practices.”

Over 40,000 migrants have entered Bosnia since 2018, of whom around 7,300 have settled in the northwest Bihac area, hoping to cross into nearby Croatia and go on to the affluent north and west of the EU.

Nearly 20% of the migrants are children.

Bihac’s mayor said this week the cash-strapped town would next week stop providing food and water to migrants at Vucjak, where over 1,000 migrants have been steered to, to force national authorities in Sarajevo to tackle the problem.

Mijatovic urged Bosnian authorities to uphold their responsibilities to handle migration in a way that is compliant with human rights and provide the necessary help to local authorities who have been dealing with this issue by themselves.

In July the EU pledged 14 million euros ($15.56 million) in aid for new shelters but the scheme has been held up by bickering among rival ethnic parties and anti-migrant rhetoric.

Mijatovic said it was as a matter of urgency that all the migrants in Vucjak are relocated to facilities with adequate standards in Bosnia’s two autonomous regions, the Bosniak-Croat Federation and the Serb Republic.

The nationalist Serb-dominated Serb Republic has refused to accept any migrants on its territory.($1 = 0.8998 euros)

(Reporting by Maja Zuvela and Daria Sito-Sucic; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Timothy Heritage)

Trump to sign trade agreements with Japan on Monday: White House

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump will sign two trade agreements with Japan later on Monday, the White House said in a statement.

Trump is scheduled to sign the pacts — U.S.-Japan Trade Agreement and U.S.-Japan Digital Trade Agreement — at 3:30 p.m. (1930 GMT), it said.

Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held a signing ceremony on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly last month after reaching a limited deal.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Catherine Evans)

Nearly 600 Burundian refugees head home as mass repatriation starts

By Nuzulack Dausen

DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) – Nearly 600 refugees left Tanzania to return to their homes in neighboring Burundi on Thursday, the United Nations said – the first batch in a mass repatriation that some migrants fear could force them back against their will.

Hundreds of thousands of Burundians fled a surge of political violence in 2015 when President Pierre Nkurunziza ran for a third disputed term in office and opponents accused him of breaching the constitution.

A U.N. Commission on Burundi reported last month that there was risk of a fresh wave of atrocities as the landlocked state approached a 2020 election with its political crisis unresolved.

But Burundi and Tanzania agreed in August to start repatriating 200,000 refugees, saying that conditions in Burundi had improved.

A Tanzanian government official and the United Nations said all of Thursday’s returns had been voluntary.

“All refugees who had registered to return home voluntarily from all camps gathered at Nduta camp and departed from there,” said Athuman Igwe, responsible for coordinating refugees affairs in Kigoma, western Tanzania.

The U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, said 590 Burundian refugees had returned on flights that it had organized with the U.N.’s International Organization of Migration (IOM).

It said it had not promoted the repatriation program but was ready to help anyone who wanted to go back.

“We urge the governments of Tanzania and Burundi to respect their commitments to uphold international obligations and ensure that any refugee returns remain voluntary and that no refugee or asylum seeker is returned to Burundi against their will,” it added in a statement.

Some refugees have expressed fears that they might be forcibly returned to Burundi after Tanzania’s Home Affairs Minister Kangi Lugola said in a video posted to Twitter in August that Tanzania would send home “all Burundians” because “Burundi is peaceful”.

(Additional reporting by Katharine Houreld; writing by Clement Uwiringiyimana; editing by Katharine Houreld and Andrew Heavens)