Day: June 11, 2021

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UN General Assembly Confirms 5 Countries to Security Council

NEW YORK – The U.N. General Assembly voted Friday to give two-year terms on the powerful 15-nation Security Council to five countries.

Albania, Brazil, Gabon, Ghana and the United Arab Emirates all ran unopposed for available seats in their regional groups, and each secured the necessary two-thirds majority required of the secret ballots cast.

They will begin their terms on Jan. 1, 2022.

The council deals with issues of international peace and security. It has the power to deploy peacekeepers to trouble spots and to sanction bad actors. New members bring different experiences, perspectives and national interests to the council and can subtly affect dynamics among its members.

The council currently has several Middle Eastern crises on its agenda, including the Israeli-Palestinian situation and conflicts in Libya, Syria and Yemen.

Richard Gowan, U.N. director for the International Crisis Group and a long-time U.N. watcher, says the United Arab Emirates may play a role in those areas and elsewhere.

“The UAE has a lot of influence not only in the Middle East but in the Horn of Africa, and other council members will hope the Emiratis will use their influence to help stabilize countries like Sudan and Ethiopia,” Gowan said.

Gowan notes that Albania is a country that has “seen the U.N. fail awfully in its region in the past.”

The U.N. failed to stop the Balkan war of the early 1990s, leading to NATO bombing in 1995. Then in 1999, Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians fought Serbs to gain independence.

“Albania’s main interest on the U.N. agenda is of course still Kosovo, but the Security Council only has very limited influence there now,” Gowan told VOA.

UAE Ambassador Lana Nusseibeh noted that the council’s work does not end when resolutions are adopted.

“The UAE will be part of the coalition that speaks to strengthen the results-oriented nature of the council as much as possible,” she said, adding that the council is most effective when it is united.

But in recent years, diverging views, particularly among its permanent members — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — have stymied action on urgent issues.

“The Security Council’s record on recent crises has been pathetic,” Louis Charbonneau, U.N. director at Human Rights Watch, told VOA.

“Whether it involves war crimes in Gaza, massive human rights abuses in Myanmar, or atrocities in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, the most you can usually expect is the occasional statement of concern — and that’s if you’re lucky,” he said.

The countries elected Friday will replace exiting members Estonia, Niger, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Tunisia and Vietnam on Jan. 1.

They will join the five other current non-permanent members: India, Ireland, Kenya, Mexico and Norway, and the five veto-wielding permanent members: Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.

Source: Voice of America

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Food Aid Not Reaching Tigray, People Dying, UN Says

GENEVA – The World Food Program warns the food situation in northern Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region has reached catastrophic proportions and people are beginning to die.

The United Nations warns more than 350,000 people in Tigray are facing near famine-like conditions, and many will not survive without immediate humanitarian assistance.

UNICEF says 30,000 severely malnourished children are among those at risk of death.

Aid agencies are calling for unimpeded access to the region so they can prevent a man-made disaster from happening.

In March, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced humanitarian workers would have unfettered access to northern Ethiopia. However, World Food Program Emergency Coordinator Tommy Thompson says that has not taken place.

Speaking on a video link from Addis Ababa, he says he has come to the Ethiopian capital to persuade authorities to grant agencies the access and protection they need to help the Tigrayan people.

“It is an incredibly dangerous environment for us to all be working in and nine humanitarians have been killed thus far…So, we find ourselves faced often with enormous protection issues of providing assistance to beneficiaries, only to have those beneficiaries robbed violently in the night of the things that had been given to them,” Thompson said. “So, it is a crisis that is going to continue unless there is an absolute sea change in attitude on the part of the government.”

Thompson says the WFP is scaling up its food operation in the region and aims to reach 2.6 million people in the next weeks—provided it can access the area. He says that depends on the Ethiopian government and on the Eritrean government as well.

“The Eritreans are the most egregious perpetrators of denial of access as well as other atrocities committed towards civilians,” Thompson said. “So, that is a huge, huge problem for us. And having the withdrawal of the Eritrean forces would be a major bonus. But we still have acts committed by the Ethiopian Defense Forces as well as the Amhara militia, which are blocking us access to certain areas as well. So, there is plenty of blame to go around in this.”

Beyond the terrible realities on the ground, Thompson says funding also remains a big problem. He says the WFP needs $203 million to implement its humanitarian operations in Tigray this year. Of that amount, he says the WFP has an immediate shortfall of $70 million to expand its response in providing lifesaving food assistance to people in desperate need.

Source: Voice of America

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Mystery Over Claim World’s 1st ‘Decuplets’ Born in S. Africa

JOHANNESBURG – South Africa has been gripped by the mystery of whether a woman has, as has been claimed, actually given birth to 10 babies, in what would then be the world’s first recorded case of decuplets.

Gosiame Thamara Sithole from the Tembisa township near Johannesburg gave birth to the babies on Monday, according to the Pretoria News newspaper which quoted the parents. The babies — seven boys and three girls — have not made a public appearance or been captured on camera, although they were born prematurely, the newspaper reported.

The South African government said it is still trying to verify the claim.

That’s led to South Africans obsessing on social media over whether the story of the “Tembisa 10” is indeed true.

The father, Teboho Tsotetsi, told the paper his wife had given birth in a hospital in the capital Pretoria. He said it was a big surprise for the parents after doctors only detected eight babies in prenatal scans.

“It’s seven boys and three girls. She was seven months and seven days pregnant. I am happy. I am emotional,” the newspaper quoted Tsotetsi as saying.

The couple already have 6-year-old twins, which would make the total an even dozen kids, if the claim is true.

South Africans are eagerly waiting for proof of what would be a world record. Relatives and neighbors of the couple have insisted the news is true.

“For her to receive 10 blessings at one given time, we thank God for that,” Wilson Machaya, a neighbor of the family in Tembisa, told The Associated Press. “And because we are neighbors we will have to assist in any way possible.”

A Malian woman gave birth to nine babies only last month in Morocco, in what was hailed as the world’s first case of nonuplets.

The Department of Social Development in South Africa’s Gauteng province confirmed tracing Sithole and spokesperson Feziwe Ndwayana said they would make an announcement after meeting with the family. Another local government department said earlier this week that it had no record of the babies’ births in any of the province’s hospitals.

The Pretoria News initially broke the story with an interview with Sithole and her husband, Tsotetsi, at their home, which was conducted nearly a month ago and when they thought they were having eight babies. They requested that the story only be published after the babies were born for safety and cultural reasons, the newspaper said.

According to the report, Sithole went on leave earlier than expected from her job as a retail store manager because she could no longer cope. Tsotetsi is unemployed.

One organization has given $70,000 to the couple to help and other South Africans are being encouraged to donate.

Alongside #Tembisa10, the term #NationalBabyShower has been trending on Twitter.

Source: Voice of America