Day: March 2, 2022

UNITED NATIONS— UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is against discrimination against some foreign nationals attempting to flee the fighting in Ukraine, his spokesman said.

“The secretary-general strongly repudiates, in any shape or form, all discrimination based on race, religion, ethnicity, in the context of this conflict, as well as in terms of the treatment of people trying to leave Ukraine to seek refuge in another country,” said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for Guterres.

The stern statement followed reports of some nationals of other countries, such as students and workers from Africa and Asia, being refused accommodation on transport out of Ukraine.

Several African students and other foreigners said that they were ordered off buses to make room for Ukrainian nationals, left stranded in border towns and beaten.

While the official count of African and Black people in Ukraine has not been updated in 20 years, the media reported that there are more than 16,000 African students in Ukraine, citing the education ministry. As of 2020, Moroccan, Nigerian and Egyptian citizens made up nearly 20 percent of all students in Ukraine.

The Foreign Affairs Ministry called on relevant agencies to support foreign citizens but appeared to dismiss the reports of discrimination as Russian propaganda. Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s minister of foreign affairs, tweeted Tuesday that Africans needed to evacuate the country safely.

“However, do not be misled by Russian disinformation,” the statement read. “There is no discrimination based on the race or nationality including when it comes to the crossing of the state border by foreign citizens. The first-come, first-served approach applied to all nationalities.”

In Geneva, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths, said donors pledged 1.5 billion U.S. dollars toward the 1.7 billion dollars sought in relief for victims of the fighting in Ukraine.

Despite the fighting, UN staffers are still staying and delivering humanitarian aid, the spokesman said.

He told reporters in a regular briefing that the number of staffers in Ukraine remained roughly the same as he reported last week, around 1,500, with some shifting of staff in and out of Ukraine.

The world body’s communication lines with staff remain open, Dujarric said.

The UN Children’s Fund and its partners are mobilizing to treat the mental and emotional damage caused by the conflict, and the first shipments of the World Food Programme are on their way from Turkey to Ukraine, the spokesman said.

The UN Refugee Agency delivered its first truckload of household materials to central Ukraine for families in evacuation shelters and others in need, he added.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

UNITED NATIONS— The United Nations General Assembly is set to reprimand Russia on Wednesday over its invasion of Ukraine and demand that Moscow stop fighting and withdraw its military forces, a move that aims to diplomatically isolate Russia at the world body.

By Tuesday evening, nearly half the 193-member General Assembly had signed on as co-sponsors of a draft resolution ahead of a vote on Wednesday, diplomats said. The text “deplores” Russia’s “aggression against Ukraine”.

It is similar to a draft resolution vetoed by Russia in the 15-member Security Council on Friday. No country has a veto in the General Assembly and Western diplomats expect the resolution, which needs two-thirds support, to be adopted.

“Russia’s war marks a new reality. It requires each and every one of us to take a firm and responsible decision and to take a side,” Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told the General Assembly.

While General Assembly resolutions are non-binding, they carry political weight.

The draft text “demands that the Russian Federation immediately, completely, and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces from the territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders”.

Dozens of states are expected to formally abstain from the vote or not engage at all. In two votes by the 15-member UN Security Council on the Ukraine crisis in the past week, China, India and the United Arab Emirates abstained.

“We must leave space for a diplomatic off-ramp,” UAE UN Ambassador Lana Nusseibeh said on Tuesday. “Channels must remain open and those countries that did abstain have those channels with President Putin and will use them to help and support in whatever way we can.”

The General Assembly vote will come at the end of a rare emergency special session of the body, which was convened by the Security Council on Sunday. Russia was unable to veto the move because it was a procedural matter.

More than 100 countries will have addressed the session before the vote.

The moves at the United Nations are mirroring what happened in 2014 after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region.

The Security Council voted on a draft resolution opposing a referendum on the status of Crimea and urged countries not to recognise it. It was vetoed by Russia.

The General Assembly then adopted a resolution declaring the referendum invalid. It received 100 votes in favor, 11 against and 58 formal abstentions, while two dozen countries did not take part.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

NAIROBI— The United Nations is to launch formal negotiations on Wednesday for a global treaty to address a plastic trash “epidemic” that supporters say is a historic moment for the planet.

The UN Environment Assembly (UNEA), convening in Nairobi, is poised to adopt a resolution creating an inter-governmental committee to negotiate and finalise a legally binding agreement by 2024.

The amount of plastic trash entering the oceans is forecast to triple by 2040, and governments have been under pressure to unite behind a global response to the crisis.

The framework for a comprehensive treaty has been approved by UN member states, including major plastic producers like the US and China, according to sources close to the negotiations.

Officials say it gives negotiators a broad and robust mandate to consider new rules that target plastic pollution from its birth as a raw material to its design, use and safe disposal.

This could include limits on making new plastic, which is derived from oil and gas, though policy specifics will only be determined during later talks.

The mandate provides for the negotiation of binding global targets with monitoring mechanisms, the development of national plans and financing for poorer countries.

Negotiators also have the scope to consider all aspects of pollution — not just plastic in the ocean but tiny particles in the air, soil and food chain — a key demand of many countries.

“We are 100-percent happy with the outcome,” said Ana Teresa Lecaros, director of environment in the foreign ministry of Peru, a country that co-signed one of the draft resolutions.

Inger Andersen, the head of the UN Environment Programme, said a plastics treaty would be “one for the history books” and the most important pact for the planet since the Paris climate agreement.

The rate of plastic production has grown faster than any other material and is expected to double within two decades, the UN says.

But less than 10 percent is recycled, with most winding up in landfill or oceans.

By some estimates, a garbage truck’s worth of plastic is dumped into the sea every minute.

“Plastic pollution has grown into an epidemic of its own,” said Norway’s climate and environment minister, Espen Barth Eide, who chairs UNEA.

He said he was “quite optimistic” about bringing down the gavel on a strong resolution in Nairobi.

Environment groups are also buoyed by the outcome of the talks but like officials and diplomats, caution that the strength of any treaty will only be determined by rigorous negotiations to come.

The first round of discussions is set for May, according to sources involved in the process.

Big corporations have expressed support for a treaty that creates a common set of rules around plastic and a level playing field for competition.

Big plastic makers have underscored the importance of plastic in construction, medicine and other vital industries and warned that banning certain materials would cause supply chain disruptions.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK