UN Deploys Unarmed Weapon in Humanitarian & Peacekeeping Operations

By Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 28 2022 (IPS) - A sign outside the United Nations reads, perhaps half-seriously, that it is a “No Drone Zone”—and “launching, landing or operating Unmanned or Remote-Controlled aircraft in this area is prohibited”.

The “warning” comes even as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) – or drones – are some of the new weapons of war deployed mostly by the US, and more recently, by Iran, Ukraine and Russia in ongoing military conflicts.

But the unarmed versions continue to be deployed by UN peacekeeping forces worldwide and by national and international humanitarian organizations.

In a recently-released report, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA says for women in Botswana, especially those living in remote communities where medical supplies and blood may not be in stock, giving birth can be life-threatening.

In 2019, the country recorded a maternal mortality rate of 166 deaths per 100,000 births, more than double the average for upper-middle-income countries.

Lorato Mokganya, Chief Health Officer in the Ministry of Health and Wellness, is quoted as saying that when a woman has lost a lot of blood during childbirth and may need to be transferred to a bigger medical facility, she first needs to be stabilized where she is before being driven out of that place. Timely delivery of blood can be lifesaving.

“A drone can be sent to deliver the blood so that the patient is stabilized,”

In an effort to curb the country’s preventable maternal deaths and overcome geographical barriers this innovative initiative will revolutionize the delivery of essential medical supplies and services across Botswana, says UNFPA.

Joseph Chamie, a former director of the UN Population Division and a consulting demographer., told IPS the increased use of drones for humanitarian and peacekeeping missions of the United Nations is certainly a good idea and should be encouraged.

“Why? Simply because the numerous benefits from the use of drones greatly outnumber the possible disadvantages”.

As is the case with all new technologies, he pointed out, resistance to the use of drones is to be expected. The public’s distrust in the use of drones is understandable given their use in military operations and surveillance activities.

Also, it should be acknowledged that drones could be misused and efforts are needed to ensure privacy, security and safety, said Chamie.

“In brief, the use of drones should be promoted and facilitated in the work of the UN’s humanitarian and peacekeeping operations as it will greatly enhance the effectiveness of their vital work,” he declared.

Drones have been deployed in several UN peacekeeping missions, including the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda and Uganda—going back to 2013.

Although this technology is not a magic solution, “the promise of drones is really tremendous,” says Christopher Fabian, principal advisor on innovation at the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

For UNICEF and other humanitarian and development agencies, he said, in an interview with UN News, drone technology can make a big difference in three ways.

First, drones can leapfrog over broken infrastructure in places where developed transportation networks or roads do not exist, carrying low-weight supplies.

Second, UAVs can be used for remote sensing, such as gathering imagery and data, in the wake of natural disasters like mudslides, to locate where the damage is and where the affected peoples are.

Third, drones can extend wi-fi connectivity, from the sky to the ground, providing refugee camps or schools with access to the Internet.

As big as a Boeing 737 passenger jet and as small as a hummingbird, a huge variety of drones exist. According to research firm Gartner, total drone unit sales climbed to 2.2 million worldwide in 2016, and revenue surged 36 per cent to $4.5 billion.

Although UNICEF’s use of drones has been limited, the agency is exploring ways to scale up the use of UAVs in its operations, Fabian said.

“Hardware itself does not violate human rights. It is the people behind the hardware,” said Fabian, stressing the need to “make sure that any technology we bring in or work on falls within the framing of rights-based documents,” such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

UNICEF has a set of guiding principles for innovation, which includes elements like designing with the end-user.

For drone applications to spread further, Fabian said, the UN has a strong role in advocating this technology and ensuring that policy is shared with different governments.

In addition, governments have to clearly define why they need drones and what specifically they will be used for, while also building up national infrastructure to support their use.

The private sector must understand that the market can provide them real business opportunities.

In 10 to 20 years, drones might be “as basic to us as a pen or pencil,” said Fabian.

“I believe this technology will go through a few years of regulatory difficulty but will eventually become so ubiquitous and simple that it’s like which version of the cell phones you have rather than have you ever use the mobile phone at all,” he said.

Meanwhile, armed UAVs are being increasingly used in war zones in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and most recently Ukraine.

The US has launched drone strikes in Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan targeting mostly terrorist groups. But the negative fallout has included the deaths of scores of civilians and non-combatants.

In recent months, the use of drones by both Russia and Ukraine has triggered a raging battle at the United Nations while Iran has launched drone attacks inside Iraq.

The US, France, UK and Germany have urged the UN to investigate whether the Russian drones originated in Iran. But Russia has denied the charge and insisted the drones were homemade.

Russia’s First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy, urged Secretary-General António Guterres and his staff on October 25 not to engage in any “illegitimate investigation” of drones used in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, going back to 2017, Malawi, in partnership with UNICEF, launched Africa’s first air corridor to test the humanitarian use of drones in Kasungu District.

Also with UNICEF, Vanuatu has been testing the capacity, efficiency and effectiveness of drones to deliver life-saving vaccines to inaccessible, remote communities in the small Pacific- island country, according to the United Nations.

Vanuatu is an archipelago of 83 islands separated over 1,600 kilometres. Many are only accessible by boat, and mobile vaccination teams frequently walk to communities carrying all the equipment required for vaccinations – a difficult task given the climate and topography.

To extend the use of drones, UNICEF and the World Food Programmes (WFP) have formed a working group.

In addition, UNICEF, together with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), chairs the UN Innovation Network, an informal forum that meets quarterly to share lessons learned and advance discussions on innovation across agencies, the UN points out.

“Drones are also used in other parts of the UN system. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its partners have introduced a new quadcopter drone to visually map gamma radiation at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which was damaged by the devastating 2011 tsunami”.

ROMEO, or the Remotely Operated Mosquito Emission Operation, met the competition’s aim of improving people’s lives. It was designed to transport and release sterile male mosquitoes as part of an insect pest birth control method that stifles pest population growth.

Some UN peacekeeping missions, such as those in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali and the Central African Republic, have deployed unarmed surveillance UAVs to improve security for civilians, according to the UN.

The UN, however, warns that drone technology can be a double-edged sword. UN human rights experts have spoken out against the lethal use of drones.

Source: Inter-Press Service (IPS).

Link: https://www.ipsnews.net/2022/11/un-deploys-unarmed-weapon-humanitarian-peacekeeping-operations/.

China, Russia arming Myanmar junta: UN rights expert

By Nina Larson

Geneva (AFP)

Feb 22, 2022

UN Security Council members China and Russia, as well as Serbia have continued supplying Myanmar's junta with weapons used to attack civilians since last year's coup, a UN rights expert said Tuesday.

United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights situation in Myanmar, Tom Andrews, urged the Security Council to convene an emergency session "to debate and vote on a resolution to, at a minimum, ban those arms transfers that the Myanmar military are known to use to attack and kill Myanmar civilians."

He released a long-awaited report Tuesday detailing where the junta is getting its weapons from, highlighting that two permanent members of the Security Council itself, who hold veto power over its decisions, remain among the main suppliers.

"Despite the evidence of the military junta's atrocity crimes being committed with impunity since launching a coup last year, UN Security Council members Russia and China continue to provide the Myanmar military junta with numerous fighter jets, armored vehicles, and in the case of Russia, the promise of further arms," Andrews said in a statement.

"During this same period, Serbia has authorized rockets and artillery for export to the Myanmar military," said Andrews, who is an independent expert appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, but who does not speak on behalf of the world body.

- 'Crimes against humanity' -

In his report, he maintained that the arms transfers by the three countries had "occurred with the full knowledge that they would be used to attack civilians, in probable violation of international law."

Myanmar has been in chaos, its economy paralyzed, and more than 1,500 civilians have been killed in a military crackdown since the putsch in February 2021, according to the UN.

Since the February 1, 2021 coup, at least 12,000 people have been detained, including the de facto head of the civilian government, Aung San Suu Kyi, while more than 440,000 people have been forcibly displaced.

Andrews reiterated in his report that "there is strong evidence the junta has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity," including murder, sexual violence and torture.

"The situation of human rights in Myanmar is dire and deteriorating," it said.

The report provides an overview of countries that have authorized the transfer of weapons to Myanmar since 2018, when the military's attacks on the Rohingya ethnic minority were widely documented and after a UN fact-finding mission had urged an arms embargo.

Israel, India, Pakistan, South Korea, Belarus and Ukraine also figure on that list, although only China, Russia and Serbia have continued their transfers since the coup.

- 'Imperative' -

The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution last June calling for countries to prevent the flow of arms to Myanmar, but Andrews said that it had failed to have "any discernible impact on the crisis and the capacity of the junta to launch attacks on civilians."

He pointed out that while none of the Security Council members had voted against that resolution, the council had also not even considered voting to make the text binding for member states.

"It is imperative that member states and the Security Council act urgently to stop weapons sales to the military junta. Human lives, and Security Council credibility, are on the line," he said.

The report acknowledges that China and Russia might very well use their veto power to block any such text, but stressed that this "should not deter other members from placing a resolution before the Council for consideration, debate and a vote."

"The people of Myanmar deserve to have a strong resolution."

"The Security Council should consider, at the very least, a resolution to ban weapons that are being used by the Myanmar military to kill innocent people," Andrews said.

Source: Space War.

Link: https://www.spacewar.com/reports/China_Russia_arming_Myanmar_junta_UN_rights_expert_999.html.

UN says over 3 million in Myanmar need "life-saving" aid

November 09, 2021

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. humanitarian chief urged Myanmar’s military leaders on Monday to provide unimpeded access to the more than 3 million people in need of life-saving humanitarian assistance since government forces seized power on Feb. 1 “because of growing conflict and insecurity, COVID-19 and a failing economy.”

Martin Griffiths warned that without an end to violence and a peaceful resolution of Myanmar’s crisis, “this number will only rise.” He also urged donors to respond to the U.N. appeal, saying less than half of the $385 million required has been raised since the military ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Monday was the first anniversary of the 2020 elections in Myanmar, which “were deemed free and fair by domestic and international observers,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. They were won by Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party with approximately 80% of the elected seats in the upper and lower houses of Parliament. The military rejects the results, claiming the vote was fraudulent.

“The United Nations reiterates its call on the military to respect the will of the people and put the country back on track to democratic transition,” Dujarric said, stressing that the U.N. remains “gravely concerned about the intensifying violence in Myanmar” and again urges unimpeded humanitarian access.

Griffiths’ statement was issued as members of the U.N. Security Council held a closed-door meeting on Myanmar requested by the United Kingdom. Diplomats said Russia and China objected to a proposed press statement that would express concern at recent violence including air strikes and reaffirm the council's support for the country's democratic transition, but discussions were continuing.

UK deputy ambassador James Kariuki told reporters before heading into the meeting that Britain is particularly concerned about the buildup of military action in northwest Chin state, “and we are concerned that this rather mirrors the activity we saw four years ago ahead of the atrocities that were committed in Rakhine against the Rohingya” Muslim minority.

“So, we’re very keen to make sure the council is focused, and the military know that we’re watching,” he said. Since Suu Kyi’s ouster, Myanmar has been wracked by unrest, with peaceful demonstrations against the ruling generals morphing first into a low-level insurgency in many urban areas after security forces used deadly force and then into more serious combat in rural areas, especially in border regions where ethnic minority militias have been engaging in heavy clashes with government troops.

On Sept. 7, the National Unity Government, the main underground group coordinating resistance to the military which was established by elected legislators who had been barred from taking their seats when the military seized power, called for a nationwide uprising. Its “People’s Defense Forces” operate in many areas and have received training and weapons from some armed ethnic groups.

Christine Schraner Burgener told The Associated Press shortly before her 3 ½ year term as the U.N. special envoy for Myanmar ended on Oct. 31 that “civil war” has spread throughout the country. She said the U.N. has heard that many soldiers are on the ground conducting “clearing operations” in Chin state, and reminded the world that the military’s “clearing operation” in Rakhine state in 2017 saw villages burned down, widespread rapes and more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims flee to neighboring Bangladesh.

Griffiths also called the situation in the northwest “extremely concerning, with an escalation in hostilities between the Myanmar Armed Forces and the Chinland Defense Force in Chin state, and with the People’s Defense Forces in Magway and Sagaing regions.”

“More than 37,000 people, including women and children, have been newly displaced, and more than 160 homes have been burned, including churches and the offices of a humanitarian organization,” Griffiths said. “Attacks directed against civilians and civilian infrastructure, including humanitarian workers and facilities, are clearly prohibited under international humanitarian law and must stop immediately.”

Since Feb. 1, he said, hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes due to violence across the country, and 223,000 people remain internally displaced. “This includes 165,000 in the southeast of the country and is on top of a significant population of people who were already displaced in Rakhine, Chin, Shan and Kachin states prior to the takeover,” Griffiths said. He noted that 144,000 Rohingya people are still confined to camps or living in camp-like settings in Rakhine, many since their displacement in 2012, and more than 105,000 people have been displaced in Kachin and Shan, many for years.

The U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs said he is also “increasingly concerned about reports of rising levels of food insecurity in and around urban areas, including in Yangon and Mandalay.”

New US envoy to UN gets red carpet welcome from Russia

February 25, 2021

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Linda Thomas-Greenfield takes up her post as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations on Thursday and a senior Russian diplomat said the red carpet will be rolled out and Moscow is ready to work with the Biden administration -- but “it takes two to tango.”

After being sworn in on Wednesday by Vice President Kamala Harris, Thomas-Greenfield headed to New York where she is scheduled to present her credentials to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres Thursday afternoon.

She will be jumping right into her new job, tackling global peace and security issues with Russia, China and a dozen other countries because the United States takes over the rotating presidency of the powerful U.N. Security Council on Monday. And she might even decide to attend a council meeting on Friday.

“We are looking forward to interactions with her,” Russia’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador Dmitry Polyansky told a group of reporters Wednesday. “You can count on our most favorable attitudes and positive emotions towards her as a member of our Security Council family.”

Noting Thomas-Greenfield's decades as a U.S. diplomat, he said “it's always easier to interact with professionals." But he said America’s view that Russia is “an enemy” and a “threat” hasn’t changed under Biden, so “it’s very difficult to imagine how the interaction with us might change with such starting points of the positions of the new administration.”

Nonetheless, Polyansky said, “there are a lot of things Russia and the United States can do together” and “we will judge the new administration by what it does.” “We’re in favor of cooperation,” he said. But “it takes two to tango, and really we’re ready to dance, but we need a good and reliable partner who knows all the moves and who respects us” as a country with certain positions, “doesn’t view us as a threat” and sees “our obvious national interests in many issues.”

Thomas-Greenfield, a retired 35-year veteran of the U.S. foreign service who rose to be assistant secretary of state for Africa, resigned during the Trump administration. She will be the third African-American, and the second African-American woman, to hold the U.N. post.

Her confirmation on Tuesday was hailed by Democrats and advocates of the United Nations who had lamented former President Donald Trump’s “America First” unilateral approach to international affairs and rejoiced at President Joe Biden’s return to multilateralism.

At the Senate hearing on her nomination, Thomas-Greenfield called China “a strategic adversary” that threatens the world, and called a speech she gave in 2019 that praised China’s initiatives in Africa but made no mention of its human rights abuses a mistake.

The Senate voted 78-20 to confirm her with Republican opponents saying she was soft on China and would not stand up for U.S. principles at the U.N. Thomas-Greenfield said at the hearing that Washington will be working not only with allies “but to see where we can find common ground with the Russians and the Chinese to put more pressure on the Iranians to push them back into strict compliance” with the 2015 agreement to rein in their nuclear program. Trump pulled the U.S. out of the agreement in 2018 and Biden has indicated the U.S. will rejoin it, though how that might happen remains a major question.

Polyansky said Russia welcomes the “”positive developments” on the Iran nuclear deal and the U.S. agreement to extend the START nuclear agreement, adding that Moscow is ready for serious and meaningful discussions “first and foremost in the area of strategic stability.”

Thomas-Greenfield stressed at the hearing that the U.S. will be reengaging internationally and promoting American values -- “support for democracy, respect for universal human rights, and the promotion of peace and security.”

Louis Charbonneau, United Nations director for Human Rights Watch, told The Associated Press that Thomas-Greenfield should promote human rights as “a top priority.” “She should abandon the Trump administration’s selective approach to human rights – enthusiastically condemning its enemies’ abuses while ignoring rights violations of allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia,” he said.

“But there’s room for continuity on China and Syria," Charbonneau said. “She should make expanding the coalition of nations willing to speak out against Beijing’s human rights abuses one of her chief goals at the U.N., above trying to bring African, Asian, and Latin American states into the fold. And she should continue to push for expanded humanitarian access to all parts of Syria.”

'Urgent' international response needed in Myanmar after coup: UN

United Nations, United States (AFP)

Sept 29, 2021

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for an "urgent" international response to the political crisis created in Myanmar by the February 1 military coup, in a new report released by the United Nations on Wednesday.

In the document on "the situation of human rights of Rohingya Muslims and other minorities in Myanmar," the UN chief also said he feared that the military's grip on power would become increasingly difficult to counter.

"It is urgent to mount a unified international and regional response to help to put Myanmar back on the path to democratic reform," he said in the document dated August 31.

No explanation was given by the UN for the long delay in its publication.

The text was approved by 119 countries, with 36 including China abstaining and one, Belarus, voting against.

The international effort "must be accompanied by the immediate release of President Win Myint, State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and other government officials," Guterres said in his report.

There must also be "immediate humanitarian access and assistance, especially to vulnerable communities, among them the Rohingya Muslims, many of whom are living in exile in Bangladesh and elsewhere," he added.

"The opportunity to prevent the military from entrenching its rule could be narrowing," and it is important to support "the democratic aspirations of the people of Myanmar," Guterres continued.

Myanmar has been in the grip of unrest since the coup on February 1.

The military has launched a bloody crackdown on opponents, with more than 1,100 civilians killed and 8,400 imprisoned, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP).

At the UN, Myanmar's ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun, who was appointed by the former civilian leader Suu Kyi, has retained his country's seat, defying the junta to do so.

He is an outspoken supporter of democracy and supported by the international community. In May, the junta appointed a former general to replace him, but the United Nations has not yet approved the appointment.

He had not spoken by the time the UN's annual General Assembly closed on Monday.

The withdrawal of his appearance came after a high-level UN diplomat told AFP that an agreement had also been reached between the United States, Russia and China preventing him from doing so.

Source: Terra Daily.

Link: https://www.terradaily.com/reports/Urgent_international_response_needed_in_Myanmar_after_coup_UN_999.html.

Protests, tear gas in Myanmar after UN envoy urges action

March 06, 2021

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Security forces in Myanmar again used force Saturday to disperse anti-coup protesters, a day after the U.N. special envoy urged the Security Council to take action to quell junta violence that this week left about 50 peaceful demonstrators dead and scores injured.

Fresh protests were reported Saturday morning in the biggest city of Yangon, where stun grenades and tear gas were used against protesters. On Wednesday, 18 people were reported killed there. Protests were also reported in Myitkyina, the capital of the northern state of Kachin, Myeik, in the country’s far south where police fired tear gas at students, and Dawei in the southeast where tear gas was also used. Other places included Kyaikto, in the eastern state of Mon, Loikaw, the capital of Kayah state in eastern Myanmar, and Myingyan, a city where one protester was killed on Wednesday.

The escalation of violence has put pressure on the world community to act to restrain the junta, which seized power on Feb. 1 by ousting the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. The coup reversed years of slow progress toward democracy in Myanmar, which for five decades had languished under strict military rule that led to international isolation and sanctions.

Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party led a return to civilian rule with a landslide election victory in 2015, and with an even greater margin of votes last year. It would have taken a second five-year term of office last month, but instead she and President Win Myint and other members of her government were placed in military detention.

Large protests have occurred daily across many cities and towns. Security forces responded with greater use of lethal force and mass arrests. At least 18 protesters were shot and killed last Sunday and 38 on Wednesday, according to the U.N. Human Rights Office. More than 1,000 have been arrested, the independent Assistance Association for Political Prisoners said.

U.N. special envoy for Myanmar Christine Schraner Burgener said in her briefing to Friday’s closed Security Council meeting that council unity and “robust” action are critical “in pushing for a stop to the violence and the restoration of Myanmar’s democratic institutions.”

“We must denounce the actions by the military,” she said. “It is critical that this council is resolute and coherent in putting the security forces on notice and standing with the people of Myanmar firmly, in support of the clear November election results.”

She reiterated an earlier appeal to the international community not to “lend legitimacy or recognition to this regime that has been forcefully imposed and nothing but chaos has since followed.” The Security Council took no immediate action. Council diplomats said Britain circulated a draft presidential statement for consideration, a step below a legally binding resolution.

Any kind of coordinated action at the U.N. will be difficult because two permanent members of the Security Council, China and Russia, are likely to veto it. Schraner Burgener earlier this week warned Myanmar’s army that the world’s nations and the Security Council “might take huge, strong measures.”

“And the answer was, ‘We are used to sanctions, and we survived those sanctions in the past,’” she said. When she warned that Myanmar would become isolated, Schraner Burgener said “the answer was, ‘We have to learn to walk with only a few friends.’”

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies urged immediate protection for all Red Cross volunteers and health workers. The statement came after video from a surveillance camera that was circulated widely on social media showed members of an ambulance crew in Yangon being savagely beaten after they were taken into custody by police on Wednesday.

“We express profound sadness that Myanmar Red Cross volunteers have been injured while on duty providing lifesaving first aid treatment to wounded people, in line with fundamental principles of humanity, neutrality and impartiality. Red Cross volunteers should never be targeted," the federation said.

Mass anti-coup protests in Myanmar as UN warns of crackdown

February 17, 2021

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Tens of thousands of demonstrators flooded the streets of Myanmar's biggest city Wednesday, in one of largest protests yet of a coup, despite warnings from a U.N. human rights expert that recent troop movements could indicate the military was planning a violent crackdown.

In Yangon, protesters marched carrying signs calling for ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi to be released from detention, while others feigned car trouble, strategically abandoning their vehicles — and leaving the hoods up — to prevent security forces from easily accessing the demonstrations. Large rallies were also held in the country's second-biggest city, Mandalay, and the capital of Naypyitaw, in defiance of an order banning gatherings of five or more people.

One motorist, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared being targeted, explained tongue-in-cheek that his car had broken down “due to the suffering that our people are undergoing now. We just stopped the cars here on the road to show that we do not want the military regime.”

The demonstrations came a day after U.N. rapporteur Tom Andrews expressed alarm at reports of soldiers being transported into Yangon, noting that such movements had previously preceded killings, disappearances and mass arrests.

“I am terrified that given the confluence of these two developments­ — planned mass protests and troops converging — we could be on the precipice of the military committing even greater crimes against the people of Myanmar,” he said in a statement issued by the U.N. Human Rights office in Geneva.

By Wednesday evening, there had been no reports of major violence at the protests. However, residents of Mandalay reported hearing gunshots about an hour after the start of the nightly curfew at 8 p.m. as dozens of police and soldiers roamed a neighborhood with housing for state railway workers.

There have been similar reports of gunshots and other aggressive actions in several cities since last week — apparently part of attempts to intimate people rather than cause injury. Railway workers could be targets because they have declared their support for the protest movement and carried out work stoppages.

The military seized power on Feb. 1, the day newly elected parliamentarians were supposed to take their seats — a shocking backslide for a country that had been taking tentative steps toward democracy. The junta said the takeover was necessary because Suu Kyi’s government had failed to investigate fraud claims in elections her party won in a landslide; the election commission has dismissed those claims.

The high protest turnout came a day after junta leaders had declared that the demonstrations were dying down — and Kyi Pyar, a former lawmaker from Suu Kyi’s party, said that dismissal only served to spur on the resistance.

“This upset the people,” she said. “We are not weak, we will never step back in the fight against the military regime. So we are back on the street again.” In Naypyitaw, thousands of people, including private bank employees and engineers, marched down the city's wide boulevards, chanting for the release of Suu Kyi and President Win Myint.

Protesters also poured into the streets of Mandalay, where earlier in the week security forces pointed guns at demonstrators and attacked them with slingshots and sticks. Local media reported that several people were injured.

The marches have been organized as part of a civil disobedience movement, spearheaded by medical workers and supported by many civil servants. Police filed a new charge against Suu Kyi, her lawyer said Tuesday, a move likely to keep her under house arrest and further fuel public anger. It was the second charge against Suu Kyi — the first for illegally possessing walkie-talkies, the second for an alleged violation of coronavirus restrictions — both apparent attempts to provide a legal veneer for her detention.

State television also announced charges Wednesday against several prominent entertainers, including actors and directors, who have all been publicly supportive of the protests against the coup. They were charged under a law that penalizes those who act in a manner intended to hinder or prevent members of the military and government employees from carrying out their duties.

The entertainers were apparently accused of inducing civil servants to walk off the job — and the move reflects the junta’s concern about the widespread and increasing involvement of civil servants in the protests.

On Tuesday night, the military for a third day in a row ordered an internet blackout — almost entirely blocking online access from 1 a.m. to 9 a.m. While the military did not say why the internet was being blocked, there is widespread speculation that the government is installing a firewall system to allow it to monitor or block online activity.

UN expert fears violence with troops sent to Myanmar city

February 17, 2021

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — The U.N. expert on human rights in Myanmar warned of the prospect for major violence as demonstrators gather again Wednesday to protest the military’s seizure of power. U.N. rapporteur Tom Andrews said he had received reports of soldiers being transported into Yangon, the biggest city, from outlying regions.

“In the past, such troop movements preceded killings, disappearances, and detentions on a mass scale,” he said in a statement issued by his office in Geneva. “I am terrified that given the confluence of these two developments­ - planned mass protests and troops converging - we could be on the precipice of the military committing even greater crimes against the people of Myanmar.”

More protests were expected Wednesday all over the country despite the possibility of violence by the army and police. “Let’s march en masse. Let’s show our force against the coup government that has destroyed the future of youth and our country,” Kyi Toe, a spokesman for the National League for Democracy party of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi, wrote on his Facebook page late Tuesday.

On Monday in Mandalay, the country’s second biggest city, security forces pointed guns at a group of 1,000 demonstrators and attacked them with slingshots and sticks. Local media reported that police also fired rubber bullets into a crowd and that a few people were injured.

The protests are taking place in defiance of an order banning gatherings of five or more people. Police filed a new charge against Suu Kyi, her lawyer said Tuesday, a move likely to fuel further public anger.

Suu Kyi, who was detained in the Feb. 1 military takeover, already faced a charge of illegally possessing walkie-talkies — an apparent attempt to provide a legal veneer for her house arrest. The new charge accuses her of breaking a law that has been used to prosecute people who have violated coronavirus restrictions, lawyer Khin Maung Zaw told reporters after meeting with a judge in the capital, Naypyitaw. It carries a maximum punishment of three years in prison.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson issued a strong denunciation of the legal maneuver against Suu Kyi. “New charges against Aung San Suu Kyi fabricated by the Myanmar military are a clear violation of her human rights,” he tweeted. “We stand with the people of Myanmar and will ensure those responsible for this coup are held to account.”

A spokesman for the United Nations said any new charges against Suu Kyi don’t change the world body’s “firm denunciation” of the military overturning the “democratic will of the people” and arresting political leaders, activists and peaceful protesters.

“We have called for charges against her to be dropped, for her to be released,” Stéphane Dujarric said. The coup has brought a shocking halt to Myanmar’s fragile progress toward democracy, most visible in Suu Kyi’s tenure as national leader.

For a third night in a row, the military ordered an internet blackout — almost entirely blocking online access from 1 a.m. to 9 a.m. It has also prepared a draft law that would criminalize many online activities.

While the military did not say why the internet was blocked, there is widespread speculation that the government is installing a firewall system to allow it to monitor or block online activity. Social media users have speculated widely that neighboring China, with extensive experience in censoring the internet, was giving technical assistance for such a project.

China has so far not condemned the takeover. Some protesters have accused Beijing — which has long been Myanmar’s main arms supplier and has major investments in the country — of propping up the junta.

China’s ambassador said Beijing has friendly relations with both Suu Kyi’s party and the military, according to the text of an interview posted on the embassy’s Facebook page Tuesday. Chen Hai said he wished the two sides could solve their differences through dialogue.

“The current development in Myanmar is absolutely not what China wants to see,” he said. Chen also denied that China was helping Myanmar to control its internet traffic and that Chinese soldiers were showing up on the Myanmar’s streets.

“For the record, these are completely nonsense and even ridiculous accusations,” Chen said. The military contends there was fraud in last year’s election, which Suu Kyi’s party won in a landslide, and says it will hold power for a year before holding new elections. The election commission found no evidence to support the claims of fraud.

UN agencies press EU over rising migrant pushback cases

February 10, 2021

BRUSSELS (AP) — U.N. agencies are pressing the European Union to end the growing practices of denying migrants their right to apply for asylum, collectively expulsing them and using violence against people trying to enter the bloc without authorization.

Border pushbacks and collective expulsions are illegal under international refugee treaties, which allow people fearing for their safety to apply for protection. Greece and even the EU’s border and coast guard agency Frontex are among those accused of pushbacks or complicity in them. They deny using such methods.

The International Organization for Migration said Wednesday that it continues to receive documented reports of human rights violations against migrants and refugees, including children, involving countries that are part of the 27-nation bloc.

“The use of excessive force and violence against civilians is unjustifiable,” IOM Chief of Staff Eugenio Ambrosi said. He said the sovereignty of EU countries “including their competence to maintain the integrity of their borders must be aligned with their obligations under international law and respect the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all.”

The IOM, which receives EU funds for its work in countries around the Mediterranean and North Africa, said it welcomed a series of investigations launched to get to the bottom of the pushback cases. Late last month, the U.N. refugee agency also warned that the right to asylum is “under attack” at Europe’s borders and it called on countries to investigate and stop illegal pushbacks and expulsions.

The UNHCR said new migrant arrivals to the EU continue to decline each year, with 95,000 arrivals by sea and land last year -- a decrease of 23% compared to 2019 and by one-third compared to 2018, when more than 141,000 people arrived.

Last month, Frontex announced it was ceasing work in Hungary until the nationalist government there brings its laws into line with a ruling by the EU’s top court that the country is denying people entering without authorization the right to apply for asylum and unlawfully detaining them in “transit zones.”

The rising number of pushback allegations comes at an embarrassing time, as the European Commission struggles to win unanimous support among EU nations for its new Pact on Migration and Asylum, which is meant to revamp the bloc’s dysfunctional asylum laws.

First-ever treaty to ban nuclear weapons enters into force

January 22, 2021

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The first-ever treaty to ban nuclear weapons entered into force on Friday, hailed as a historic step to rid the world of its deadliest weapons but strongly opposed by the world's nuclear-armed nations.

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is now part of international law, culminating a decades-long campaign aimed at preventing a repetition of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. But getting all nations to ratify the treaty requiring them to never own such weapons seems daunting, if not impossible, in the current global climate.

When the treaty was approved by the U.N. General Assembly in July 2017, more than 120 approved it. But none of the nine countries known or believed to possess nuclear weapons — the United States, Russia, Britain, China, France, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel — supported it and neither did the 30-nation NATO alliance.

Japan, the world's only country to suffer nuclear attacks, also does not support the treaty, even though the aged survivors of the bombings in 1945 strongly push for it to do so. Japan on its own renounces use and possession of nuclear weapons, but the government has said pursuing a treaty ban is not realistic with nuclear and non-nuclear states so sharply divided over it.

Nonetheless, Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize-winning coalition whose work helped spearhead the treaty, called it “a really big day for international law, for the United Nations and for survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”

The treaty received its 50th ratification on Oct. 24, triggering a 90-day period before its entry into force on Jan. 22. As of Thursday, Fihn told The Associated Press that 61 countries had ratified the treaty, with another ratification possible on Friday, and “from Friday, nuclear weapons will be banned by international law” in all those countries.

The treaty requires that all ratifying countries “never under any circumstances ... develop, test, produce, manufacture, otherwise acquire, possess or stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.” It also bans any transfer or use of nuclear weapons or nuclear explosive devices — and the threat to use such weapons — and requires parties to promote the treaty to other countries.

Fihn said the treaty is “really, really significant” because it will now be a key legal instrument, along with the Geneva Conventions on conduct toward civilians and soldiers during war and the conventions banning chemical and biological weapons and land mines.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the treaty demonstrated support for multilateral approaches to nuclear disarmament. “Nuclear weapons pose growing dangers and the world needs urgent action to ensure their elimination and prevent the catastrophic human and environmental consequences any use would cause,” he said in a video message. “The elimination of nuclear weapons remains the highest disarmament priority of the United Nations.”

But not for the nuclear powers. As the treaty was approaching the 50 ratifications needed to trigger its entry into force, the Trump administration wrote a letter to countries that signed it saying they made “a strategic error” and urging them to rescind their ratification.

The letter said the treaty “turns back the clock on verification and disarmament" and would endanger the half-century-old Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, considered the cornerstone of nonproliferation efforts.

Fihn countered at the time that a ban could not undermine nonproliferation since it was "the end goal of the Nonproliferation Treaty.” Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, said the treaty’s arrival was a historic step forward in efforts to free the world of nuclear weapons and “hopefully will compel renewed action by nuclear-weapon states to fulfill their commitment to the complete elimination of nuclear weapons.”

Fihn said in an interview that the campaign sees strong public support for the treaty in NATO countries and growing political pressure, citing Belgium and Spain. “We will not stop until we get everyone on board,” she said.

It will also be campaigning for divestment — pressuring financial institutions to stop giving capital to between 30 and 40 companies involved in nuclear weapons and missile production including Airbus, Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

UN: Libya talks make progress towards new temporary government

January 17, 2021

A Libyan political dialogue arranged by the United Nations has made progress towards agreeing a new transitional government to oversee the run-up to elections in December, the UN said on Saturday, Reuters reported.

Participants at talks in Geneva agreed on a mechanism for choosing the new government, whose formation has been the subject of wrangling among the main factions in a country that is a major oil producer.

Acting UN Libya envoy Stephanie Williams said the agreement represented the "best possible compromise" on the issue and could lead to the selection of a transitional government "in several weeks".

However, she also warned that there would still be "people seeking to obstruct" peacemaking efforts.

The talks are part of a wider peace process, after years of chaos and warfare, which also involves a military ceasefire and an economic track.

Libya has been split since 2014 between rival factions in Tripoli, in the west, and Benghazi in the east.

The internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli is backed by Turkey, while Khalifa Haftar's eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) is supported by the United Arab Emirates, Russia and Egypt.

However, both sides themselves represent sometimes unstable coalitions of different political, regional and armed factions.

The latest push towards peace began after the GNA turned back a 14-month LNA assault on Tripoli in June. A ceasefire was agreed in Geneva in October.

In November, the United Nations invited 75 Libyans to join a political dialogue in Tunis, which set a date of Dec. 24 this year for presidential and parliamentary elections and agreed on the need for a new, unified transitional government.

The transitional government will be responsible for preparing for the elections, combating corruption and restoring public services across Libya, Williams said.

However, November's Tunis meeting stalled when the delegates started discussing the make-up of the new government. Saturday's agreement was made by a smaller committee drawn from the participants.

All 75 members of the dialogue will vote next week on the mechanism the Geneva committee agreed on Saturday.

Source: Middle East Monitor.

Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20210117-un-libya-talks-make-progress-towards-new-temporary-government/.

UN: New daily record as COVID-19 cases hit more than 350,000

October 09, 2020

GENEVA (AP) — The World Health Organization has announced a new daily record high in coronavirus cases confirmed worldwide, with more than 350,000 infections reported to the U.N. health agency on Friday.

The new daily high of 350,766 cases surpasses a record set earlier this week by nearly 12,000. That tally includes more than 109,000 cases from Europe alone. In a press briefing on Friday, WHO emergencies chief Dr. Michael Ryan acknowledged that even as COVID-19 continues to surge across the world, “there are no new answers.”

He said that although the agency wants countries to avoid the punishing lockdowns that have devastated economies, governments must ensure the most vulnerable people are protected and numerous measures must be taken.

“The majority of people in the world are still susceptible to this disease,” Ryan warned. He said countries should focus not just on restrictive measures, but also on bolstering their surveillance systems, testing, contact tracing and ensuring populations are engaged.

As the virus continues to surge across Europe and elsewhere, Ryan acknowledged that restrictive measures might be warranted at some point. British scientists reported this week that the COVID-19 outbreak is doubling every few weeks, French hospitals are running out of ICU beds, Germany may enlist the army to help contain its outbreak and Spain declared a state of emergency in Madrid as coronavirus cases soar.

Ryan said lockdowns “may be unavoidable where the disease has got out of control again, but we shouldn’t accept that in every country, the return of cases should be seen with an immediate return of the need for lockdown restrictions.”

Globally, more than 36 million cases of COVID-19 have been reported, including more than 1 million deaths. Experts say the tally far underestimates the real number of cases and Ryan said on Monday that the WHO’s “best estimates” were that one in 10 people worldwide — or roughly 760 million people — may have been infected.

Born to prevent war, UN at 75 faces a deeply polarized world

September 22, 2020

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations marked its 75th anniversary Monday with its chief urging leaders of an increasingly polarized, go-it-alone world to work together and preserve the organization’s most important success since its founding: avoiding a military confrontation between the major global powers.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ appeal for a revival of multilateralism — the foundation of the United Nations — was echoed by leaders of countries large and small, rich and poor. But despite largely positive speeches, it was clear that challenges lie ahead in collaborating to beat back the coronavirus pandemic, end numerous smaller conflicts from the Middle East to Africa, and achieve U.N. goals to eradicate extreme poverty and preserve the environment by a 2030 target.

“Today, we have a surplus of multilateral challenges and a deficit of multilateral solutions,” the U.N. chief said, stressing that COVID-19 has “laid bare the world’s fragilities,” which can only be addressed together.

“Climate calamity looms, biodiversity is collapsing, poverty is rising, hatred is spreading, geopolitical tensions are escalating, nuclear weapons remain on hair-trigger alert,” Guterres said. Appealing for a new multilateralism that draws on civil society, cities, businesses, local authorities and young people, Guterres said “no one wants a world government — but we must work together to improve world governance.”

The United Nations marked its actual 75th anniversary — the charter's signing in San Francisco on June 26, 1945 — at a scaled-down event. Monday’s mainly virtual official commemoration was a sobering assessment of the state of the world, the impact of the 193-member world body over seven decades and the struggles ahead. Some leaders appeared in native dress and in unusual settings, adding some color to prerecorded speeches.

The commemoration was suspended with 58 countries waiting to speak, primarily because many leaders spoke far longer than the three minutes they were allotted. No date was set to hear the remaining speakers.

As a sign of the commemoration’s importance, heads of government like Chinese President Xi Jinping and French President Emmanuel Macron spoke. U.S. President Donald Trump was first on the list of 182 speakers, but he didn't offer remarks.

In a snub to the United Nations, the United States instead was represented by its acting deputy U.N. ambassador, Cherith Norman Chalet. The White House had no immediate comment. “In many ways, the United Nations has proven to be a successful experiment,” Chalet said. But for too long, she added, it has resisted “meaningful reform,” lacked transparency and been “too vulnerable to the agenda of autocratic regimes and dictatorships.”

China’s Xi urged U.N. members to recommit to multilateralism and “work to promote a community with a shared future for mankind.” “Unilateralism is a dead end,” he said. “No country has the right to dominate global affairs, control the destiny of others or keep advantages in development all to itself. Even less should one be allowed to do whatever it likes and be the hegemon, bully or boss of the world.”

Macron said the United Nations has remained true to its promises made three-quarters of a century ago: “To save future generations from the scourge of war, to assert human rights and the equality of nations, and to promote social progress in greater freedom.”

But he warned that “our common home is in disarray, just like our world.” “Faced with the health emergency, faced with the climate challenge, faced with the decline in rights," Macron said, “it is here and now that we have to act, with those who want to and with those who can, by exploiting all possible spaces for cooperation.”

Guterres and many others said the founding of the United Nations in 1945 and the commitment to cooperation after two world wars and the Holocaust produced results. “Never in modern history have we gone so many years without a military confrontation between the major powers,” the secretary-general said. “This is a major achievement of which member states can be proud — and which we must all strive to preserve.”

Guterres cited other major U.N. victories over 75 years: peace treaties, decolonization, setting human rights standards, the end of apartheid in South Africa, eradication of diseases, a reduction in hunger, development of international law and landmark pacts to protect the environment.

But 25 years after world leaders adopted a platform to achieve equality for women, he said “gender inequality remains the greatest single challenge to human rights around the world.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel stressed that “the United Nations can be only as effective as its members are united” and urged new efforts “to do everything in our power” to find common responses and end “the most intractable security issues,” including conflicts in Libya and Syria.

Guyana’s President Irfaan Mohamed Ali, the head of what’s called the Group of 77 and China — the main U.N. bloc of developing countries that now has 134 member states — said the commemoration “must send a strong and positive signal to the peoples of the world of our commitment to multilateralism and our resolve to strive for peace, justice and development.”

Echoing broader global concerns, the president of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang, said, “There is no justification for the huge economic gap between rich and poor countries today.” Similarly, Seychelles President Danny Faure warned that issues like climate change know no borders.

“I assure you that the smallest, poorest and weakest of nations can contribute ideas as innovative ... as the biggest, wealthiest and most powerful countries,” Faure said. Diplomats from the U.N. member nations managed to agree after sometimes difficult negotiations on a declaration to mark the U.N.’s anniversary, which was adopted Monday. It recalls the body's successes and failures and vows to build a post-pandemic world that is more equal, works together and protects the planet.

Richard Gowan, U.N. director for the Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank, said the declaration was weakened by the U.S. opposing strong language on climate change and Britain and others objecting to China trying to insert language including its hallmark phrase, “win-win.”

President Xi used it Monday in speaking about “Cold War mentality,” declaring “what we need to do is to replace conflict with dialogue, coercion with consultation and zero-sum with win-win.” Gowan said the dispute over the declaration was minor but “captures the real question that has emerged over the U.N. in 2020, exacerbated by COVID, which is: How is this organization going to navigate an era of U.S.-China tension?”

Amid those questions, the U.N. released results of “a global conversation” it launched in January, using surveys, polls and gatherings to determine what all kinds of people thought about the future. Guterres said the U.N.'s 75th anniversary is an ideal time to realize goals that were expressed, including speeding up the transition to zero carbon emissions, ensuring universal health coverage and ending racial injustice.

“We face our own 1945 moment,” he said. “We must meet that moment. We must show unity like never before to overcome today’s emergency, get the world moving and working and prospering again.”

Cara Anna contributed to this report from Johannesburg and Angela Charlton from Paris.

Longtime international correspondent Edith M. Lederer has been chief U.N. correspondent for The Associated Press since 1998.

Belarus, backers seek to block speeches at UN rights body

September 18, 2020

GENEVA (AP) — A representative of Belarus, backed by Russia, China and Venezuela, tried and failed to limit speeches as the U.N.'s top human rights body held an urgent debate Friday on alleged rights violations by Belarusian authorities under President Alexander Lukashenko.

The president of the Human Rights Council put an end to the repeated interruptions of speakers by the four countries — which in essence argued a breach of procedural rules. Elisabeth Tichy-Fisslberger, the Austrian ambassador in Geneva, allowed speakers who included Lukashenko's main election challenger to continue decrying a string of alleged rights violations in Belarus.

“The council’s consideration of the recent events in Belarus is timely,” U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said in remarks delivered by her deputy. “Peaceful mass demonstrations have continued to contest the declared result of last month’s presidential elections.”

“We are witnessing thousands of arrests. Hundreds of reports of torture and other ill-treatment, including sexual violence and the reported torture of children,” Bachlet's statement said, referring to a police crackdown on post-election protests as well as alleged actions from a decade ago. “Excellencies, it is vital for the future of Belarus to break these cycles of increasing repression and violence.”

In a dramatic conflict at the normally staid Human Rights Council, Belarus' ambassador, Yury Ambrazevich, took the floor to insist that allowing U.N. human rights advocates and other speakers to address the council violated the rules, arguing that only national envoys should be allowed to speak. The council president overrode the objections.

Seconds after the former English teacher who placed second to Lukashenko in the disputed presidential election said in a video message that peaceful protesters were being deliberately beaten and raped in Belarus and some “have been found dead,” Ambrazevich broke in briefly.

"We request that the intervention by Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya be stopped," the Belarusian ambassador said, referring to the opposition leader and her remarks. Council president Tichy-Fisslberger brushed off the appeal, and the former presidential candidate finished her statement.

Ambrazevich, in his more elaborate response, shot back, faulting the "mass media and social networks" for showing a “lopsided picture of reality presented by the losers in the elections.” “We deny the unfounded accusations of sexual violence against protesters. There is no official record of this. There is no confirmation also of claims that people disappeared in association with the protests,” he said. “As with regards to political detentions, this has not taken place. Some people have been taken into custody in compliance with the legal procedural code.”

The debate, during which several European Union countries spoke out in favor of the speakers and decried rights violations in Belarus, came as the 47-member-nation council prepared to vote on a resolution presented by Germany that raises concerns about torture, “arbitrary deprivations of life,” and sexual and gender-based violence linked to the Aug. 9 presidential election.

The resolution also cited alleged intimidation, harassment and detention of opponents of Lukashenko's government before and after the election. The autocratic Lukashenko, who has ruled the ex-Soviet republic for 26 years, was declared the winner, but opposition activists have challenged the election as rigged.

The European Union and the U.S. government have called the vote neither free nor fair and urged the government to enter a dialogue with the opposition as post-election protests continue. The German resolution wants Bachelet to look into recent violations and report back to the council by year-end. That would entail a relatively fast-track response for the often deliberate and slow-moving council.

Germany’s move suggested speed was among its priorities. The resolution stops short of seeking more onerous, in-depth measures in the council’s arsenal, such as deploying a fact-finding mission or assembling a panel of experts to examine the situation.

The text cites allegations of “torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment by law enforcement and prison officials.” It calls on Belarus authorities to “cease the use of excessive force against peaceful demonstrators” and stop arbitrary arrests on political grounds and release all political prisoners, journalists and others detained around the election cycle.

A resolution setting up the urgent debate was adopted Monday on a 25-2 vote with 20 abstentions. Many European nations voted in favor and many African nations abstained.

Greek FM heads to UN amid tense standoff with Turkey

September 04, 2020

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece’s foreign minister is heading to New York for talks with the United Nations secretary general, amid escalating tensions with Turkey over maritime boundaries. The Foreign Ministry said Nikos Dendias was traveling Friday for a meeting with Antonio Guterres. Talks will focus on “issues of international and regional interest, with an emphasis on current developments in the eastern Mediterranean and the Cyprus issue, as well as the role of the U.N.”

Neighbors and NATO allies Greece and Turkey have been locked in a tense standoff in the eastern Mediterranean, where Turkey is prospecting the seabed for energy reserves in an area Greece claims as its own continental shelf. Ankara says it has every right to prospect there, and accuses Greece of trying to grab an unfair share of maritime resources.

Greece’s armed forces have been placed on alert. Both countries have sent warships to the area and have been carrying out live-fire exercises between the islands of Crete and Cyprus and Turkey’s southern coast, while simulated dogfights between Greek and Turkish fighter pilots have multiplied over the Aegean Sea and the eastern Mediterranean. A Turkish and a Greek frigate collided last month, reportedly causing minor damage to the Turkish frigate but no injuries.

The current crisis is the most serious in the two countries’ relations in decades. The neighbors have come to the brink of war three times since the mid-1970s, including once over maritime resources in the Aegean Sea along which both share a border.

On Thursday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the two sides had agreed to start “technical talks” to reduce the risks of military “incidents and accidents.” But Athens quickly denied any such agreement, saying neighboring Turkey must first withdraw its ships from the area where it is carrying out gas and oil prospecting. Ankara, on the other hand, said it backs Stoltenberg’s initiative for military and technical talks and called on Greece to do the same.

UN-backed court to issue verdicts in Lebanon's Hariri case

August 17, 2020

BEIRUT (AP) — More than 15 years after the truck bomb assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in Beirut, a U.N.-backed tribunal in the Netherlands is announcing verdicts this week in the trial of four members of the militant group Hezbollah allegedly involved in the killing, which deeply divided the tiny country.

The verdicts on Tuesday at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, based in a village on the outskirts of the Dutch city of The Hague, are expected to further add to soaring tensions in Lebanon, two weeks after a catastrophic explosion at Beirut’s port that killed nearly 180 people, injured more than 6,000 and destroyed thousands of homes in the Lebanese capital.

Unlike the blast that killed Hariri and 21 others on Feb. 14, 2005, the Aug. 4 explosion was believed to be a result of nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate that accidentally ignited at Beirut's port. While the cause of the fire that provided the trigger is still not clear, Hezbollah, which maintains huge influence over Lebanese politics, is being sucked into the public fury directed at the country’s ruling politicians.

Even before the devastating Beirut port blast, the country’s leaders were concerned about violence after the verdicts. Hariri was Lebanon’s most prominent Sunni politician at the time, while the Iran-backed Hezbollah is a Shiite Muslim group.

Tensions between Sunni and Shiites in the Middle East have fueled deadly conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Yemen and to a smaller scale in Lebanon. Some Lebanese see the tribunal as an impartial way of uncovering the truth about Hariri’s slaying, while Hezbollah — which denies involvement — calls it an Israeli plot to tarnish the group.

One analyst believes the lengthy investigation and trial have rendered the result almost redundant. The defendants remain at large. Michael Young of Carnegie Middle East Center wrote recently that the verdicts “will seem like little more than a postscript to an out-of-print book.”

“The U.N. investigation was glowingly referred to once as a mechanism to end impunity. It has proven to be exactly the contrary,” Young wrote, saying those believed to have carried out the assassination “risk almost nothing today.”

But for others, especially those more closely linked to the violence that has plagued Lebanon, the verdicts still carry significance. “It’s going to be a great, great moment not only for me as a victim but for me as a Lebanese, as an Arab and as an international citizen looking for justice everywhere,” said prominent former legislator and ex-Cabinet Minister Marwan Hamadeh, who was seriously wounded in a blast four months before Hariri’s assassination. Hamadeh said those who killed Hariri were behind the attempt on his life. The tribunal has indicted one of the suspects in Hariri’s assassination with involvement in the attempt on Hamadeh’s life.

Hamadeh resigned as a member of parliament in protest a day after the Beirut port blast. Hariri was killed by a suicide truck bomb on a seaside boulevard in Beirut that killed him and 21 others, and wounded 226 people.

The assassination was seen by many in Lebanon as the work of Syria. It stunned and deeply divided the country, which has since been split between a Western-backed coalition and another supported by Damascus and Iran. Syria has denied having a hand in Hariri’s killing. Following post-Hariri assassination protests, Damascus was forced to withdraw thousands of troops from Lebanon, ending a three-decade domination of its smaller neighbor.

The tribunal was set up in 2007 under a U.N. Security Council resolution because deep divisions in Lebanon blocked parliamentary approval of the court that operates on a hybrid system of Lebanese and international law. The investigation and trial cost about $1 billion, of which Lebanon paid 49% while other nations paid the rest.

Initially, five suspects were tried in absentia in the case, all of them Hezbollah members. One of the group’s top military commanders Mustafa Badreddine was killed in Syria in 2016 and charges against him were dropped.

The other suspects are Salim Ayyash, also known as Abu Salim; Assad Sabra, Hassan Oneissi, who changed his name to Hassan Issa and Hassan Habib Merhi. They are charged with offenses including conspiracy to commit a terrorist act, and face maximum sentences of life imprisonment if convicted. Sentences will not be announced Tuesday but will be determined at later hearings.

The four defendants, however, are unlikely to serve any prison time — they have never been detained despite international arrest warrants and Hezbollah has vowed never to hand over any suspects. Even if they are all convicted, Hezbollah as a group will not officially be blamed as the tribunal only accuses individuals, not groups or states.

Prosecutors based their indictments on telecommunications data of cellular telephones that the suspects allegedly used to track Hariri’s movements starting weeks before the assassination until the explosion occurred. The tribunal heard evidence from 297 witnesses during the trial, which started in 2014 and spanned 415 days of hearings.

Omar Nashabe, who served as a consultant for the defense team in the tribunal for about five years, said that since there was no consensus in Lebanon over the tribunal and parliament did not approve it, the trial “may not be the best process to reach justice in such cases.”

He said that the people of Lebanon are divided between some who want the tribunal to confirm their suspicions about the perpetrators and others who continue to see the court as part of a wider conspiracy to discredit Hezbollah.

“Therefore this tribunal is doomed to fail because of the lack of consensus,” Nashabe said, adding that if the defense appeals the case the verdict will not mark the end. Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah last week insisted on the innocence of the suspects regardless of the verdicts. “For us it will be as if they were never issued,” he said of the verdicts. Nasrallah warned against attempts to exploit the verdicts internally and externally in order to target the group.

Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, son of the late Hariri, has said he will make a statement regarding the verdicts after they are made public. Asked about concerns over repercussions of the verdict, he said “justice must prevail regardless of the cost.”

Since the assassination in 2005, several top Syrian and Hezbollah security officials have been killed, in what some supporters of the tribunal say were the result of liquidations to hide evidence. Hamadeh, the legislator, called such deaths “Godly justice,” adding that “we don’t know how. Some say they were liquidated by their own teams, some say the Syrian regime got rid of them to put the suspicion and the doubts away, some said internal feuds.”

Associated Press writer Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, contributed to this report.

'Palestine is still the issue': UN vote exposes, isolates Canada

August 14, 2020

The notion that ‘Canada is better’, especially when compared with US foreign policy, has persisted for many years. Recent events at the United Nations have, however, exposed the true nature of Canada’s global position, particularly in the matter of its blind and unconditional support for Israel.

On June 17, Canada lost its second bid for the coveted UN Security Council seat, which, had it won, would have allowed Ottawa the opportunity to become a world leader, pushing its own agenda – and those of its allies – on the global stage.

However, this, too, was a wasted opportunity. Only 108 countries voted for Canada while 130 and 128 voted for Norway and Ireland respectively. Both these countries will be admitted to the Security Council, starting January 1, 2021.

What is striking about Canada’s missed opportunity is that it was in retribution for Canada’s bias towards Israel, at the expense of Palestine, international and humanitarian laws.  Over the last twenty years alone, for example, Canada has voted against 166 resolutions supporting Palestinian rights, says Canadian author and human rights advocate, Yves Engler.

Moreover, Canada has lobbied – and continues to lobby – against the International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation of war crimes in Palestine. Along with Germany, Austria and others, Canada has challenged the ICC’s jurisdiction on the matter, erroneously alleging that Palestine is not a State.

Shortly before the June vote on new Security Council members was held, a group of human rights activists circulated a letter to all UN members, detailing Canada’s poor record on Palestine.  “Despite its peaceful reputation, Canada is not acting as a benevolent player on the international stage,” the letter read.

It added, “Since coming to power, the Justin Trudeau government has voted against more than 50 UN resolutions upholding Palestinian rights, even though they have been backed by the overwhelming majority of member states.”

Among the signatories of the letter were renowned American intellectual, Noam Chomsky, famed rock star, Roger Waters and former Quebec National Assembly member, Amir Khadir.

The vote against Canada at the UN was understood to be a stance against Ottawa’s position on Israel and Palestine, despite Canada’s Ambassador to the UN, Marc-Andre Blanchard, going on the defensive in a desperate attempt to dissuade member states from voting against his country.

In a letter sent to all member states, Blanchard argued that an earlier document written by “a group of Canadians regarding Canada’s position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict  … contains significant inaccuracies and characterizes Canada’s longstanding policy positions”.

This succession of actions is unprecedented in recent years, where a country like Canada loses the respect and support of other UN member states largely due to its failure to respect the rights of the Palestinian people. To better understand the significance of this event, we spoke to Yves Engler, who played a direct role in championing the Palestinian cause and pushing for Canadian accountability at the United Nations.

Engler has also authored several books, among them “Canada and Israel: Building Apartheid” and “Left, Right: Marching to the Beat of Imperial Canada”.

“It is important for people to realize that this anti-Palestinian position that Canada pursues today is not new. It is grounded in at least a century of Zionist policy in this country,” Engler said.

The UN Vote

Explaining the context of the June UN vote, Engler said that “the current Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, who is a liberal politician, expended a lot of energy into winning that seat; he undertook a huge campaign, called dozens of leaders around the world, lobbied very hard for that seat but, on the first round of voting, Canada was defeated resoundingly by Ireland and Norway.”

Engler added, “In my mind, there was no issue that contributed more to Canada’s loss in its bid for a Security Council seat than its anti-Palestinian record. And, more specifically, its voting against UN General Assembly resolutions that almost the entire world supports, isolated Canada with the US, Israel, Micronesia, and maybe one or two other countries.”

The Canadian setback at the UN should be directly attributed to grassroots activists and intellectuals like Engler.

“Activists’ groups – that I was part of – exposed records spanning the past two decades of the Canadian government voting consistently against the UN General Assembly resolutions. It voted against 166 UN General Assembly resolutions over the past twenty years. In comparison, Ireland and Norway did not vote against a single one of those UN General Assembly resolutions.”

The Media Lobby

“But how did Canada become pro-Israel?” we asked Engler.

“There is a very well-organized, pro-Israel lobby in Canada that is able to exert its influence over the media,” Engler said. “For instance, the pro-Israel group, ‘Honest Reporting Canada’, concentrates on criticizing every media source that expresses even a hint of solidarity with the Palestinian cause.”

However, compared with the dynamics of Israeli influence over Washington, Canada is quite different. Unlike the US, Engler continues, “Canada has much clearer restrictions on the funding of politicians, so there is nobody like Sheldon Adelson who gives a couple of hundred million dollars to Donald Trump which, then,  sway Trump to adopt even more extreme anti-Palestinian positions. This dynamic does not exist in Canada, but the dominant media has always been sympathetic to the Zionist movement.”

Encouragingly, pro-Palestinian sentiment in Canada has grown over the last twenty years or so, to become a large network, an organized movement in its own right, which has, according to Engler, to “some extent, countered the dominance of the Zionist narrative.”

Canadian media, however, is still unwilling to challenge Israel’s power in the country, leaving the stage open to “pro-Israel groups  … to attack pro-Palestinian activists.”  “There is an incredible amount of trepidation, even in the pro-Palestinian movement, of being labeled as anti-Jewish,” Engler said.

Grassroots Activism

Similar to the trend in other western countries, pro-Palestine groups in Canada are small, diverse and organized at grassroots levels. These groups “tend not to be particularly well-founded or institutionally strong, while the pro-Israel side is far better organized.”

Yet, despite the pro-Israeli influence in government and media, “polls show, repeatedly, that the public is increasingly sympathetic to the Palestinian cause than what appears in the dominant media or in the official protocol. A recent poll has revealed that Canadians are very sympathetic towards boycotting Israel for violating international law.”

A March 2017 poll indicated that 78% of all Canadians believe that “BDS is reasonable”. Engler sees much hope in these numbers, referring to them and to the vote at the UN as “small victories.”

The growing pro-Palestinian sentiment is now also seeping into politics. Following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent decision to annex nearly a third of the occupied Palestinian West Bank, 57 members of parliament strongly protested this decision, demanding action from their government should Tel Aviv proceed with its illegal measures.

The change is far more rewarding within labor unions in the country than in politics. “Forty years, ago… unions were aggressive in their support of Zionism; today, this is no longer the case, as many unions have passed resolutions supporting BDS campaigns.”

While Canada’s support for Israel is, to a certain extent, consistent with Canada’s own colonial past and present interventionist foreign policy, the Canadian people and the international community remain major obstacles, challenging the toxic affinity between Ottawa and Tel Aviv.

The hope is that the growing pro-Palestinian tide, predicated on respect for international law and human rights, will eventually prevail in order to sever the Canada-Israel rapport permanently, and allow Canada to earn its place as a global leader.

Source: Middle East Monitor.
Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200814-palestine-is-still-the-issue-un-vote-exposes-isolates-canada/.

UN top court rules Qatar blockade is illegal

July 14, 2020

In a humiliating defeat for Saudi Arabia and its allies, the top UN court has ruled in a 16-1 decision in favor of Qatar over the ongoing dispute between Doha and its Gulf neighbors.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) dismissed, today, the appeal lodged by Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt and Bahrain against the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). The aviation body had ruled two years ago that the air blockade imposed by the four countries was illegal.

The top UN court backed Qatar and unanimously “rejects the appeal” by the four blockading states against the decision by the world civil aviation body who ruled in favor of Doha over sovereign airspace, ICJ President Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf said.

ICAO ruled in 2018 that it had the jurisdiction to handle a dispute brought by Qatar, which accused its neighbors of violating international conventions that regulate the free passage of its passenger planes through foreign airspace.

Saudi and its allies rejected the verdict insisting that ICAO was not the right body to judge in the dispute and that its decision to do so was “manifestly flawed and in violation of fundamental principles of due process and the right to be heard.” They had asked the ICJ to declare the aviation body’s ruling “null and void and without effect”.

Welcoming the verdict an official Qatari press release said: “Since June 2017, the Blockading States have prohibited Qatar-registered aircraft from flying to or from their airports and overflying their national airspaces, in flagrant violation of international law. In two judgments released today, the ICJ rejected all three grounds of appeal raised by the Blockading States, finding that the ICAO has jurisdiction to hear Qatar’s claims. The ICAO Council will now resume its proceedings.”

Qatar's Communication and Transport Minister added: “We welcome today’s decision by the ICJ that will see the Blockading States finally face justice for violating international aviation rules. We are confident that the ICAO will ultimately find these actions unlawful. This is the latest in a series of rulings that expose the Blockading Countries’ continued disregard for international law and due process. Step by step their arguments are being dismantled, and Qatar’s position vindicated.”

Source: Middle East Monitor.
Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200714-un-top-court-rules-qatar-blockade-is-illegal/.

UN approves aid to Syria's rebel area through 1 crossing

July 13, 2020

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Russia scored a victory for its ally Syria on Saturday by forcing the Security Council to limit humanitarian aid deliveries to the country’s mainly rebel-held northwest to just one crossing point from Turkey, a move that Western nations say will cut a lifeline for 1.3 million people.

Russia argues that aid should be delivered from within the country across conflict lines, and says only one crossing point is needed. U.N. officials and humanitarian groups argued unsuccessfully — along with the vast majority of the U.N. Security Council — that the two crossing points in operation until their mandate expired Friday were essential for getting help to millions of needy people in Syria’s northwest, especially with the first case of COVID-19 recently reported in the region.

The Security Council vote approving a single crossing from Turkey was 12-0, with Russia, China and the Dominican Republic abstaining. The vote capped a week of high-stakes rivalry pitting Russia and China against the 13 other council members. An overwhelming majority voted twice to maintain the two crossings from Turkey, but Russia and China vetoed both resolutions — the 15th and 16th veto by Russia of a Syria resolution since the conflict began in 2011 and the ninth and 10th by China.

Germany and Belgium, which had sponsored the widely supported resolutions for two crossing points, finally had to back down to the threat of another Russian veto. The resolution they put forward Saturday authorized only a single crossing point from Turkey for a year.

In January, Russia also scored a victory for Syria, using its veto threat to force the Security Council to adopt a resolution reducing the number of crossing points for aid deliveries from four to two, from Turkey to the northwest. It also cut in half the yearlong mandate that had been in place since cross-border deliveries began in 2014 to six months.

Before adopting the resolution Saturday, the council rejected two amendments proposed by Russia, including one suggesting that U.S. and European Union sanctions on Syria were impeding humanitarian aid. That contention was vehemently rejected by the Trump administration and the EU, which noted their sanctions include exemptions for humanitarian deliveries. It also rejected an amendment from China.

Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Dmitry Polyansky, said after the vote that from the beginning Moscow had proposed one crossing — from Bab al-Hawa to Idlib — and that Saturday’s resolution could have been adopted weeks ago. He said Russia abstained in the vote because negotiations over the resolution were marred by “clumsiness, disrespect.”

Polyansky accused Western nations on the council of “unprecedented heights” of hypocrisy, saying they were ready to jeopardize cross-border aid over the references to unilateral sanctions. He said cross-border aid to Syria’s northwest doesn’t comply with international law because the U.N. has no presence in the region, which he described as being controlled “by international terrorists and fighters” that make it impossible to control and monitor who gets aid.

German Ambassador Christoph Heusgen retorted that while Russia talks about delivery of aid across conflict lines, “in practice it doesn’t” happen. He said his side fought to maintain multiple crossing points for aid, including the Al-Yaroubiya crossing point from Iraq in the northeast that was closed in January, because that is what is needed for efficient delivery of aid to millions in need — and he asked Polyansky “this is clumsy?”

“This is what we tried to do over these past weeks, to get the optimum to the population,” Heusgen said. U.S. Ambassador Kelly Craft told the council: “Today’s outcome leaves us sickened and outraged at the loss of the Bab al-Salaam and Al Yarubiyah border crossings.”

“Behind those locked gates are millions of women, children, and men who believed that the world had heard their pleas. Their health and welfare are now at great risk,” she said. Still, Craft called the authorization of access through Bab al-Hawa for 12 months “a victory” in light of Russia and China’s “willingness to use their veto to compel a dramatic reduction in humanitarian assistance.”

“This solemn victory must not end our struggle to address the mounting human needs in Syria — that fight is far from over,” Craft said. Belgium and Germany said in a joint statement that 1.3 million people, including 800 000 displaced Syrians, live in the Aleppo area, including 500,000 children who received humanitarian aid through the Bab al-Salam crossing — and now have that aid cut off.

“Today is yet another sad day. It is a sad day for this council, but mostly, it is a sad day for the Syrian people of that region.,” they said. “Both Yarubiyah and Bab al-Salam were vital crossings to deliver, in the most efficient way possible, the humanitarian help, those people deserve.”

In a later statement, they added: “One border crossing is not enough, but no border crossings would have left the fate of an entire region in question.”

UN refugee agency fears for displaced Venezuelans amid COVID

June 18, 2020

GENEVA (AP) — The head of the U.N. refugee agency says he is “very worried” about the impact of the new coronavirus in Latin America, where millions of Venezuelans have fled upheaval at home and could face hardship abroad among lockdowns and other restrictive measures to fight the pandemic.

U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said 164 countries have either partially or totally closed their borders to fight COVID-19, the disease that can be caused by the virus. Many people who flee abroad rely on the “informal economy” often involving day work — activities at risk as host governments ratchet up lockdowns.

“Of course, it is good that countries are taking these measures of prudence” against the virus, Grandi said. “Unfortunately, COVID that has been able to cause the entire world to grind to a halt has not been able to stop wars, conflicts, violence, discrimination.”

“People are still fleeing their countries to seek refuge, to seek protection. This needs to be considered,” he added, appealing to governments. The impact could be especially stark for 3.7 million Venezuelans abroad, the world's second-largest nationality of refugees after the 6.6 million Syrians displaced by their country's war. The Americas have become the world's epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic.

“One region about which we’re very worried is, of course, Latin America and South America and in particular where countries host many millions of Venezuelans,” Grandi said in an interview. “They are particularly hit by COVID."

The comments came as UNHCR issued its annual “Global Trends” report, which found that the number of asylum-seekers, internally displaced people and refugees shot up by nearly 9 million people last year — the biggest rise in its records — to 79.5 million people, accounting for 1% of all humanity, amid conflict, repression and upheaval.

UNHCR chalked up the surge to a new way of counting people displaced from Venezuela and a “worrying” new displacement in the persistent trouble spots of Congo, the Sahel region of Africa, Yemen and Syria, which alone accounted for more than 13 million of those people on the move.

While the total figure of people facing forced displacement rose from 70.8 million at the end of 2018, some 11 million people were “newly displaced” last year, with poorer countries among those most affected.

UNHCR says forced displacement has nearly doubled from 41 million people in 2010, and five countries — Syria, Venezuela, Afghanistan, South Sudan and Myanmar — are the source of nearly two-thirds of people displaced abroad.

Grandi also noted about 30% to 40% of the world’s refugee population lived in camps. He said COVID-19 hasn't affected “in dramatic numbers” camps like those in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh — a country that has taken in nearly a million Rohingya Muslims fleeing from Myanmar — or in Africa.

Amid the outbreak, UNHCR has stepped up its “cash transfer” programs that put money directly in the pockets of displaced people. Grandi says 65 countries now benefit from such programs, “and we have added 40 countries in just the last few months.”