by admin | May 25, 2021 | Muslim World
United Nations : The United Nations has approved $50 million to meet the humanitarian needs in Yemen, said a UN spokesman on Friday.
The money is the largest ever allocation by the Central Emergency Response Fund, Xinhua quoted Farhan Haq as saying.
UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, Mark Lowcock, who approved the allocation on Friday, said there must be reduction both in fighting on the ground and airstrikes, which have greatly intensified in recent weeks.
He also stressed the need to have all ports open without interruption so that humanitarian supplies can be shipped into Yemen.
Lowcock said he remained deeply concerned by the deterioration in the humanitarian situation in the country although there has been progress in the past month in opening Yemen’s critical Red Sea ports to commercial fuel and food shipments, as well as the resumption of humanitarian shipments and flights.
Lowcock stressed that the Yemeni people need an end to the conflict so that they can begin to rebuild their lives.
For this to happen, the parties to the conflict must cease hostilities and engage meaningfully with the United Nations to achieve a lasting political settlement.
The Saudi-led military coalition, which is launching airstrikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen, sealed off Yemen after Saudi Arabia intercepted a ballistic missile launched by Houthi rebels toward the Saudi capital city of Riyadh in early November.
The blockade was later partially lifted.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Muslim World
By Arul Louis,
United Nations : The number of Bangladeshis living in India has come down by 800,000 since 2000 and now stands at 3.1 million, a UN report said.
In 2000, there were 3.9 million migrants from Bangladesh living in India, according to the 2017 International Migration Report released here on Monday.
It said that the number of migrants from all countries living in India now was 5.2 million, a fall of 1.22 million from 2000.
The definition of international migrants used in the report is broad and takes into account anyone living in a country different from their own and includes refugees and economic migrants, both those immigrating officially and those who do so “irregularly,” said Bela Hovy, the chief of the Migration Section of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA).
According to data from UNDESA’s Population Division made available with the report, there had been 4.375 million people from Bangladesh living in India in 1990.
There are 35,250 people from India now living in Bangladesh, an increase of 12,439 since 2000 when there were 22,811, according to the data.
The data showed that there were about 258,000 fewer people from Pakistan now living in India than in 2000. There are now 1.095 million people originating from Pakistan in India, while there had been 1.353 million in 2000.
The number of migrants from India living in Pakistan has also come down during the period by about 288,000, according to the data. There were now 1.873 million people from India living in Pakistan now while there had been 2.161 million in 2000.
(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Muslim World
Ramallah : UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov met Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah here on Monday and discussed with him the implementation of the intra-Palestinian reconciliation agreement signed in Cairo, Egypt, on October 12.
In particular, the agreement provides for the return of the crossings of Gaza to the Palestinian Authority by November 1.
“The timely and effective implementation of this provision and concrete steps to alleviate the humanitarian crisis will be critical for effectively empowering the Palestinian government in Gaza,” said Mladenov after his meeting with Hamdallah.
“The agreement is also an important step toward achieving the goal of Palestinian unity under a single, democratic and legitimate Palestinian national authority,” added Mladenov.
He also noted that the UN will continue to work with the Palestinian leadership, Egypt and the region in support of the process, highlighting its importance for reaching a negotiated two-state solution and sustainable peace.
Following the signing of the Egyptian-sponsored reconciliation deal between Fatah and Hamas movements last week, UN Secretary General António Guterres congratulated Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on the agreement and emphasized the need to urgently address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza Strip, particularly with regard to the electricity crisis, and improved access to and from the territory.
—AB/OIC-UNA
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Muslim World
Dhaka : The UN’s International Organisation for Migration said on Wednesday that around 18,000 Rohingyas have fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar in the last few days due to an outbreak of violence that has left over 100 people dead.
“So far 18,000 people entered Bangladesh since last Friday (…) This 18,000 is an estimated number,” head of the IOM office in Bangladesh district of Cox’s Bazar Sanjukta Sahany was quoted by Efe news as saying. “So far we have been able to absorb these people with life-saving support.”
The influx of refugees comes despite Dhaka’s reluctance to accept them and attempts by its security forces, deployed along the bank of the Naf River, which acts as a natural border between Bangladesh and Myanmar, to try to stop the members of the Muslim minority from entering.
Many Rohingyas have also died while trying to reach Bangladesh. “We recovered four bodies today (Wednesday) from the Naf River near Shah Parir Dwip,” an official of the Border Guard Bangladesh said.
The fresh wave of violence affecting the Rohingyas has already claimed the lives of 110 people since August 25.
Fighting flared up again when the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army carried out a series of attacks against police posts and military bases in Rakhine in western Myanmar and the armed forces were ordered to respond.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has asked Bangladesh to keep its borders open for Rohingyas, to whom it has given refuge for decades. More than a million Rohingyas live in Rakhine, where they face growing discrimination due to sectarian conflict.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News
Tanmaya Lal
By Arul Louis,
United Nations : India has suggested diverting a portion of the peacekeeping budget to the under-funded peace-building activities because there can be lasting peace only with development and political solutions.
Criticising UN peacekeeping, India’s Deputy Permanent Representative Tanmaya Lal called on Tuesday for reforming the operations to align them with peace-building objectives and finding political solutions to conflicts — a view shared by UN experts and several countries, including the US.
“There is an obvious lack of appropriate investment into the political dialogue and a huge mismatch between resource allocation for peacekeeping and peace-building,” he told a Security Council debate on peacekeeping and sustaining peace.
While this problem was acknowledged, only lip service was paid finding the resources, he said.
Lal noted that only meagre resources are now available for development programmes and peace-building is allocated less than one per cent of the funds set aside for peacekeeping.
The 2017-18 UN budget for peacekeeping operations is $7.3 billion.
Therefore, he said: “We may consider whether allocation of an appropriate percentage of funds from the peacekeeping budget to activities related to peace-building and sustaining peace in those situations could be an option to move forward to achieve sustaining peace in the various intra-state conflicts we are facing.”
“The long extending peacekeeping missions that go on for decades and elusive political solutions remind us the need to focus on long-term investment in sustainable development or institution building and inclusive political processes,” he added.
While peacekeeping operations rely on the deployment of troops contributed by member-nations to try to physically prevent conflict, peace-building and finding political solutions require civilian developmental, diplomatic and institution-building resources.
Lal welcomed Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s idea of ensuring greater cooperation between different departments of the UN, in particular bringing together the department of political affairs and peacekeeping operations for closer internal coordination, to effectively carry out its role of ensuring peace and security.
The Chair of Advisory Group of Experts on UN Peacebuilding Architecture Review, Gert Rosenthal, pointed out that organisationally the responsibilities for peacekeeping and development were split between the Security Council and the Economic and Social Council and the General Assembly.
“While there is considerable overlapping in carrying out these functions, generally the traditional ‘pillars’ of peace, human rights and development do operate in the proverbial ‘silos’ we all sadly have become accustomed to,” he said.
“Peacekeeping missions alone cannot produce lasting peace,” US Permanent Representative Nikki Haley said.
“They can help create space for peace to take hold, but they must be a part of a larger strategy of coordinating the resources of the UN to prevent conflict to begin with and to address its causes,” she said.
Haley called for “a larger strategy of coordinating the resources of the UN to prevent conflict to begin with and to address its causes”.
Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said that the Security Council should set realistic, up-to-date mandates that also have the flexibility to evolve over time.
“Looking ahead, we must work together to ensure that peacekeeping lives up to its full potential as an essential tool for sustaining peace, not in isolation, but as part of our new, integrated approach,” she said.
Lal also drew attention to a major challenge to peacekeeping which has changed its very nature — armed conflicts taking place within a country often involving non-state actors and international terrorist networks.
A member of the UN’s High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations, Youssef Mahmoud, acknowledged this fact. He said: “Given that the drivers of instability tend to be transnational in origin and effect, the analysis should assess the drivers of peace and conflict from a regional perspective.”
(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in)
—IANS
