Tag: United Nations

The UN Human Rights Council called Tuesday for an immediate end to all violations in Ethiopia’s conflict-torn Tigray region and for Eritrean troops to quickly withdraw in a verifiable manner.

The top UN rights body approved a resolution presented by the European Union, which hailed a unilateral ceasefire declared by Ethiopia last month and also its participation in a joint investigation into the Tigray situation.

But it voiced grave concern at reported widespread abuses in the region in recent months, including mass killings of civilians and rampant sexual violence.

In particular, it highlighted the reported participation of Eritrean troops in serious abuses there, including violations of international law, “exacerbating the conflict”.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed — who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for rapprochement with neighbouring Eritrea — sent the army into Tigray last November to oust the region’s once-dominant ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).

Abiy had accused them of orchestrating attacks on Ethiopian military bases in Tigray, an important economic and industrial region in the Horn of Africa nation.

After eight months of brutal conflict with federal troops, the Tigray Defence Forces last month swept across large parts of Tigray and seized the regional capital Mekele.

The months of fighting — marked by grisly massacres and widespread sexual violence — has killed thousands of people, while the United Nations says hundreds of thousands are on the brink of famine.

– Joint investigation –

Tuesday’s resolution, adopted with 20 of the rights council’s 47 members in favour, 14 opposing and 13 abstaining, called “for an immediate halt to all human rights violations and abuses and violations of international humanitarian law.”

The text also called for “the swift and verifiable withdrawal of Eritrean troops from the Tigray region.”

Eritrean troops are accused of massacring civilians and forcing Eritrean refugees back across the border, according to rights groups during the eight-month conflict.

For months, both Ethiopia and Eritrea flatly denied the involvement of Eritrean forces in the conflict, but Abiy finally admitted their presence in March, and said they would withdraw.

Before the vote, Eritrea’s representative, Adem Osman Idris, slammed the resolution, insisting that his country’s troops had left the region.

Tuesday’s resolution was met with strong resistance from Eritrea, as well as China and Venezuela, which together presented 15 proposed amendments, which were all rejected.

Ethiopia also categorically rejected the text, saying it interfered with an ongoing investigation into the situation in Tigray.

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The resolution did welcome Ethiopia’s decision to agree to the joint probe with the UN rights office, and urged the government to ensure the conditions needed for a “full, unhindered and independent investigation” and for attaining accountability for all violations.

Anita Pipan of Slovenia, who presented the resolution on behalf of the EU, insisted the intention was not to interfere with the probe, but said “for the process to be credible, transparency is needed.”

“Given the seriousness of the situation, the international community has the right to be kept informed.”

UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet told the council last month that the joint investigation had begun in mid-May was expected to conclude its work in August.

Tuesday’s resolution called on Bachelet’s office to provide the Ethiopian government with advice and technical assistance towards ensuring accountability.

It also called for her to present an oral update to the council during its next two sessions in September and March on progress made in the joint investigation.

AFP

Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean should register GDP growth of 5.2 percent on average in 2021, an improved forecast but not enough to offset coronavirus losses, a UN agency said Thursday.

The UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) upped its April forecast of 4.1 percent for 2021, which comes on the back of a 6.8 percent contraction in 2020 as the region of 33 countries was ravaged by the Covid-19 pandemic.

“This expansion, however, will not manage to ensure sustained growth, because the social impacts of the crisis and the structural problems in the region have deepened and will continue to do so during the recovery,” said an ECLAC report.

Projections for 2022 are for growth of 2.9 percent on average, “meaning a slowdown compared to the rebound in 2021,” said the agency.

“There is nothing to indicate that the low growth dynamic prior to 2020 is going to change,” it added.

Structural problems that held back growth prior to the pandemic have become more acute, said the ECLAC, and “this will have negative repercussions on the economic and labor market recovery despite the uptick in growth in 2021 and 2022.”

These problems include deep social inequality, low investment and lagging productivity.

In terms of per capita income, warned the report, “the region continues on a path toward a lost decade,” with the health crisis having worsened inequality and poverty.

ECLAC said the region had almost a third of the world’s coronavirus deaths despite representing just 8.4 percent of the global population, and most countries were lagging in vaccination efforts.

Poverty in the region now affects a third of people, and extreme poverty 12.5 percent.

In 2020, 44 million more people experienced food insecurity than the year before.

AFP

Grave warnings of the myriad threats to the planet in a draft UN climate report reinforce the message that “we need to act right now”, said Greta Thunberg, in response to AFP’s exclusive on Wednesday.

The draft by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) lays out in relentless detail the potential dangers ahead for species, ecosystems and humanity.

It is not scheduled for public release until February 2022 — after crunch UN summits this year on climate, biodiversity and food systems.

Here are some of the reactions to the report:

– ‘Face reality’ –
“It confirms what we already knew, that this situation is very dire and that we need to act right now,” Thunberg told AFP.

But the Swedish activist, who spearheaded the “Fridays for Future” movement, added she found it hopeful that “many people are becoming more and more ready to tell it like it is”.

“We can of course not face this crisis unless… we are adult enough to tell the truth, and to face the reality,” Thunberg said.

“The worst thing is that when people don’t want to talk about the climate crisis… they try to smooth things over. Try to make it sound more attractive,” she said.

It was important to ensure the message is not “that things will be fine, ‘don’t worry’… when that in fact is not true.”

– Too soon –
In response to AFP’s reporting, the IPCC released a statement saying it “does not comment on the contents of draft reports while work is still ongoing”.

The IPCC explained that the reviewing process involving researchers and “practitioners across a broad range of expertise” was still in progress.

It said this was “designed to ensure that the report is as accurate, comprehensive and objective as possible”.

– ‘After the polar bear’ –
“Climate change isn’t just one more priority on our already over-crowded list,” said Katherine Hayhoe, a prominent climate scientist at Texas Tech University and chief scientist at Nature Conservancy.

“It is a threat multiplier that affects every single other priority already on it, from the air we breathe to the food we eat.”

“Climate change matters: because after the polar bear, we’re next.”

In a Twitter thread on the draft, she stressed that it is pulled together largely from published scientific studies.

“They just hadn’t been pulled together into one overwhelming list,” she said.

Hayhoe notes that previous major climate reports tended to underplay the severity of the threats.

“This tendency to understatement in past reports has been so marked that they even coined a term for it: ‘erring on the side of least drama’ or ESLD,” she said.

– ‘Serious mistake’ –
Respected climate scientist Francois Gemenne, who leads the Hugo Observatory and is an author on the IPPC report, stressed that the draft seen by AFP will undergo revisions before it is finalised and may even include extra sections.

“This is not the version that will be adopted in February 2022”, he said on Twitter.

He added that it would be a “serious mistake” to imagine that any focus on the “key messages” was useful.

“Disclosure of results prior to the outcome of this process undermines the credibility of the work of the IPCC as a whole,” Gemenne said.

The United Nations on Tuesday welcomed an Israeli decision to open the Kerem Shalom crossing to allow aid into Gaza, and urged the opening of a second location to let in humanitarian workers.

Humanitarian aid is urgently needed in the Gaza Strip after over a week of air strikes that have killed more than 200 Palestinians there.

“We very much welcome the Israeli authorities’ opening of Kerem Shalom crossing for essential humanitarian supplies,” Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the UN humanitarian agency OCHA, told reporters in Geneva.

He added that it was now “critical” that a separate crossing, Erez, also open “for the entry and exit of critical humanitarian staff”.

Going forward, he said, “humanitarian access into and out of Gaza for staff and goods must be sustained and appropriate measures taken to continue movements within Gaza.”

Israel launched its air campaign on the Gaza Strip on May 10 after the enclave’s rulers, the Islamist group Hamas, fired rockets in response to unrest in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.

In total, Israeli air strikes have killed 212 Palestinians, including 61 children, in Gaza — whilst rockets fired by Palestinian armed groups have killed 10 people in Israel, including a child, according to officials on both sides.

The conflict risks precipitating a humanitarian disaster, with the UN saying some 47,000 Palestinians have been displaced, while more than 130 residential and commercial buildings in the enclave have been destroyed.

AFP