The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has appealed for $1.7 million to feed 30,000 of the poorest Iraqi refugees who have fled to Syria.
"Those leaving Iraq are doing so in greater haste and either have had no time to sell their belongings, or cannot find buyers," WFP Country Representative in Syria Pippa Bradford said. "As a result, people arrive in Syria with far less cash, only to find there are fewer opportunities to cope than for those who came before them."There are 1.8 million Iraqi refugees estimated to be scattered around the Middle East. More
Issuing a challenge to the United States, China and India to match European ambitions in the battle against global warming, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany called on the world to follow the European Union's commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent from 1990 levels by the year 2020. She said the bloc's 27 members would commit to a 30 percent reduction if other nations followed suit. The plan goes beyond the 35-nation Kyoto Protocol, which requires industrial nations to reduce the emission of global-warming gases by an average of 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. Major European Union economies had already committed to do better than that, promising to decrease greenhouse gases by 8 percent in that time.More
Among the many difficult issues the UN is managing, the situation in Kosovo has been one of the most intractable. The Security Council has slated the much anticipated March session on Kosovo for the 19th, at which time it is expected that Secretary-General Ban’s Special Envoy for Kosovo's Future Status, Martti Ahtisaari, will deliver the final draft of his proposal on the status of Kosovo. On March 2, Mr. Ahtisaari issued a statement saying that the two parties, Serbia and the ethnic Albanian government of Kosovo, remain “diametrically opposed” on the UN’s February proposal for the province, which would grant Kosovo the right to govern itself and conclude international agreements, including membership in international bodies, but would stop short of full independence. Mr. Ahtisaari continues to meet with the parties and has invited them, along with the so-called "Contact Group" of the US, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, and Russia, to a high-level meeting on March 10.
Iran is party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the International Covenant on Economic, Civil and Cultural Rights, and the International Convention on the Rights of the Child. Iran must adhere to the legal obligations undertaken under those treaties to respect all human rights without discrimination, Ms. Arbour was quoted as saying by a spokesperson at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).Iran has not ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Amnesty International released a statement yesterday about the arrests, noting that they believed the arrests were intended to deter women from organizing events to mark International Women's Day on March 8. More Picture from Krpasevananda at Flickr.