Conflicts

"Jan Egeland, the UN's Emergency Relief Coordinator, is in Lebanon pushing for a safe humanitarian corridor for aid workers to deliver urgently needed supplies.... UN relief agencies say Lebanon faces a humanitarian crisis of catastrophic proportions." [Full story] Photo Copyright Haitham Moussawi/IRIN

CNN: U.N. chief Kofi Annan called on Thursday for an immediate end to the fighting between Israeli and Hezbollah forces. The secretary-general blamed Hezbollah for triggering the crisis and accused it of holding Lebanon hostage with its campaign against Israel. "While Hezbollah's actions are deplorable and, as I've said, Israel has a right to defend itself, the excessive use of force is to be condemned," Annan told the U.N. Security Council."

"United Nations officials said they had based their figures on tallies provided by two Iraqi agencies: the Ministry of Health, which tracks violent deaths recorded at hospitals around the country; and Baghdad's central morgue, where unidentified bodies are delivered, a vast majority of which met violent deaths. Each agency issues death warrants for the bodies it receives, government officials say, and there is no overlap between the two populations of victims." [Full story]

"U.N. diplomat Terje Roed-Larson says a U.N. delegation has presented Israel with "concrete ideas" on ways to end the violence between Israel and Hezbollah. Roed-Larson met with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni in Jerusalem, Tuesday. Roed-Larson said a political framework is necessary to end hostilities." [More]

AP: "In an emotional televised speech, Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora called on the United Nations to broker an immediate cease-fire to end Israel's land, sea and air offensive against Lebanon. He also pledged to reassert government authority all over Lebanese territory - suggesting the possibility of deploying the Lebanese army in the south, which Hezbollah effectively controls. That would meet a repeated U.N. and U.S. demand."

Reuters: "U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is sending a three-person team to the Middle East to urge all parties to exercise restraint and help defuse the major crisis in the region, a spokesman said on Thursday.... Vijay Nambiar, Annan's political adviser, is to head the team. The other members are U.N. Middle East envoys Terje Roed Larsen and Alvaro de Soto."

Alertnet: "Nepal's Maoists are unhappy with the government's invitation to the United Nations to monitor weapons held by the guerrillas and the army ahead of elections, a rebel leader said on Thursday. The comments came three days after Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala wrote to ask Secretary-General Kofi Annan for U.N. monitoring in the run-up the polls for an assembly to map the nation's political future."

"There are too many times when we still do not come to the defence of civilian populations in need," Jan Egeland, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, said at the outset of the [Security] Council's open debate. "When our response is weak, we appear to wash our hands of our humanitarian responsibilities to protect lives. The world is a safer place for most of us, but it is still a death trap for too many defenceless civilians, men, women and children."

"With tens of thousands of illiterate and unskilled former child soldiers in Afghanistan providing a tempting target for recruitment by one of the war-torn country's numerous armed groups, United Nations agencies need additional funds to continue training projects to reintegrate them as members of a peaceful society." [More]