By Laura MacInnis

GENEVA (Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad prompted a rare walk-out at the United Nations on Monday when he called Israel a "cruel and repressive racist regime" in his remarks to a conference on race.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon deplored the address which prompted dozens of delegates to leave their seats, further undermining the summit which some Western powers including the United States are boycotting.

"It was a very troubling experience for me as secretary-general," he told a news conference at the day's end. "I have not seen, experienced, this kind of disruptive proceedings of the assembly, the conference, by any one member state. It was a totally unacceptable situation."

Washington announced on Saturday it would sit out the Geneva forum on fears it would be dominated by unfair criticism against Israel. Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Germany, Poland and the Netherlands then followed suit.

Their boycott left Ahmadinejad, who has in the past cast doubt on the Nazi Holocaust, in the spotlight as the only head of state at the conference.

His speech produced exactly the kind of language that they feared, which had also caused Canada and Israel to announce months ago they would stay away.

"Following World War Two they resorted to military aggressions to make an entire nation homeless under the pretext of Jewish suffering," Ahmadinejad told the conference, on the day that Jewish communities commemorate the Holocaust.

"And they sent migrants from Europe, the United States and other parts of the world in order to establish a totally racist government in the occupied Palestine," he said, according to the official translation.

"And in fact, in compensation for the dire consequences of racism in Europe, they helped bring to power the most cruel and repressive racist regime in Palestine."

U.S. CALLS SPEECH "VILE"

Washington decried Ahmadinejad's speech as "vile and hateful," while the Vatican called it "extremist and unacceptable." Navi Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, called the address both "unsavory" and "obnoxious."

"I was shocked and deeply saddened by everything he said," she told journalists. "I don't think, though, that his behavior provided any justification for any other member state to walk out from this conference."

Dozens of diplomats in the audience promptly got up and left the hall for the duration of the speech. While most returned when Ahmadinejad finished speaking, the Czech Republic said its delegation would no longer take part in the conference.

"Such outrageous anti-Semitic remarks should have no place in a U.N. anti-racism forum," said British ambassador Peter Gooderham, whose country chose not to send a minister to Geneva.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store told the plenary after Ahmadinejad's speech that Iran had isolated itself. "Norway will not accept that the odd man out hijacks the collective efforts of the many," he said.

However, a number of the delegations that remained behind applauded Ahmadinejad.

Ban, who had held a meeting with Ahmadinejad before the address, said it was "deeply regrettable" that the Iranian leader had ignored his plea to avoid causing upset.

"I deplore the use of this platform by the Iranian President to accuse, divide and even incite," he said. "We must all turn away from such a message in both form and substance."

Earlier on Monday, Israel recalled its ambassador to Switzerland in protest about the conference and Israeli officials also voiced anger at a meeting that Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz held on Sunday with Ahmadinejad.

Arab and Muslim attempts to single out the Jewish state for criticism had prompted the United States to walk out of the first U.N. summit on racism, in South Africa in 2001.

Although a declaration prepared for the follow-up conference does not refer explicitly to Israel or the Middle East, its first paragraph "reaffirms" a text adopted at the 2001 meeting which includes six paragraphs on those sensitive issues.

Source: www.reuters.com/article/worldNews

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United Nations officials will begin work with a task force, launched today in London, charged with developing a set of practical projects and policy proposals to stimulate a new low-carbon global economy.

The initiative comes in response to an invitation made by United Kingdom Prime Minister Gordon Brown at the annual World Economic Forum Summit in Davos, Switzerland, in January to create an unprecedented low-carbon prosperity task force.

Some 52 businesses and 34 experts and organizations have joined the task force, which will work with governments and organizations such as the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the UN Foundation to identify how to create millions of urgently needed “green jobs” and to steer global economic growth onto a more sustainable, low-carbon direction.

“We believe 2009 is a crucial year for two reasons,” Richard Samans, Managing Director of the World Economic Forum, said in an open letter to Mr. Brown ahead of this week’s so-called Group of 20 (G-20) Summit in London, which will discuss solutions to the current global economic crisis.

Mr. Samans suggested that by placing low-carbon growth strategies at the heart of economic stimulus measures being injected into many ailing economies, tackling the global recession and achieving a new international treaty on reducing greenhouse gas emissions – to be concluded at the UN-led climate change conference in Copenhagen in December – can be mutually reinforcing.

“The G-20 governments can, politically and practically, signal their determination to transform the current economic crisis into an opportunity by committing a serious part of the multi-trillion dollar stimulus packages to low-carbon investments,” said Achim Steiner, UNEP Executive Director.

“In doing so, they will be setting the stage for sealing the deal in Copenhagen, and setting the stage for a resource efficient, innovation-led 21st century green economy. That is what business needs to know and that is what the low-carbon prosperity initiative is calling for,” he added.

Source: www.un.org

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by Andrew Willis

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - World leaders from the Group of 20 industrial nations will gather in London on Thursday (2 April) to discuss ways to deal with the financial crisis but failure to reach a meaningful agreement and massive protests planned to coincide with the event threaten to destabilise the situation further.

The meeting represents the latest attempt to deal with the current imbroglio that has kept bureaucrats working hard since a G20 leaders' meeting in Washington last November, with stimulus spending and improved financial regulation set to top the agenda.

Recent calls by the US administration for a co-ordinated global stimulus plan met with a cold reception in European capitals where politicians are increasingly wary of negative market reactions to their burgeoning budget deficits.

Last Wednesday, the Czech Republic's ex-prime minister Mirek Topolanek whose country holds the rotating presidency of the EU said US spending plans amounted to "the road to hell." The following day he was forced to resign due to unrelated domestic squabbling.

Since then the commission president Jose Manuel Barroso has moved to sooth the situation.

"The Americans accept that there has to be a reform of the financial sector. So I really think that we are thinking along the same lines – and this is new," said Mr Barroso on Thursday.

The EU debate on reforming financial regulation has been largely shaped by a report commissioned by Mr Barroso from a group of financial experts headed by former governor of the Bank of France, Jacques de Larosiere.

The report calls for a new European body to gather information on systemic risks to the EU economy as a whole, coupled with greater oversight and co-ordination between national regulators that monitor individual banks and insurance companies.

The US has an equivalent plan but how these will marry at the global level remains unclear.

"Markets are global and high standards at home need to be complemented by strong international standards enforced more evenly and fairly," US treasury secretary Tim Geithner said last week, signalling that purely domestic solutions would not be enough.

A greater role for the International Monetary Fund is one proposal with significant backing. G20 finance ministers and central bank governors agreed on 14 March on the need to reform the multilateral lender and bolster its funds but stopped short of producing a concrete figure.

Likewise leaders may call for reform of the 2004 Basel II accords, a set of general principles for national regulators whose central tenet that banks should hold a minimum of 8 percent capital relative to investments is now considered to be too low.

A decision on tax havens is also expected, despite recent capitulations by countries such as Switzerland to abide by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's rules on sharing banking information.

Extended agenda

Both EU commissioner for trade Catherine Ashton and World Trade Organisation director-general Pascal Lamy made calls last week for the G20 leaders to categorically reject protectionism and reassess the Doha round of trade talks that broke down last year.

UK prime minister Gordon Brown's recent whirlwind tour of the globe to garner support for a G20 deal included a visit to Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva, whose support is seen as crucial to restarting the talks. However the lack of staff in the US trade representative's office means such an announcement this week is unlikely.

Added to this, recent discussions on whether the US dollar should continue to be the world's reserve currency may see the topic creep onto the G20 agenda.

Last week China called for the dollar to be replaced by an IMF accounting unit known as "special drawing rights" and a UN advisory committee headed by US economist Joseph Stiglitz backed the call.

The difficulty in reaching a final decision with so many topics on the agenda is compounded by Europe's frequent inability to speak with one voice.

The EU member states attending the meeting are Germany, the UK, France and Italy, with the Netherlands and Spain also gaining an invitation to the event.

Mr Barroso will represent the European Commission at the meeting with Mirek Topolanek likely to represent the Czech EU presidency despite his resignation last week.

Germany's Angela Merkel said over the weekend that leaders were unlikely to reach a final deal on financial regulation.

"We will naturally not solve the economic crisis either, and we won't solve the issue of trade. We will definitely need to meet again," she added.

Protests

This more incremental nature to Thursday's meeting means huge protests planned for London could easily steal the limelight from world leaders.

Major environmental and anti-capitalist groups will be joined by a multitude of smaller organisations on Thursday with one anarchist group encouraging its supporters to "capture and burn a banker."

The policing bill for the event alone is expected to reach €7.5 million and failure by world leaders to reach a decision raises the prospect of a stock market fall on Friday.

Source: www.unobeserver.com

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The Asia-Pacific arm of the United Nations has launched an initiative aimed at cutting through the red tape that is adding as much as 15 per cent to the cost of goods traded in the region.

The scheme will pool expertise and experience of countries in the region to remove hidden trade barriers, such as delays at border crossings, harbours and docks caused by cumbersome procedures and excessive paperwork.

The UN Network of Experts for Paperless Trade in Asia and the Pacific (UN NExT) initiative was launched at a high-level meeting this week in Bangkok, which was organized by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and the UN Economic Commission for Europe (ECE).

Ravi Ratnayake, Director of the Trade and Investment Division of ESCAP, said hidden trade barriers have resulted in the “higher cost of exports and lost opportunities in trade, which the countries in the Asia-Pacific region cannot afford at a time of great economic turmoil.”

While commending the fiscal stimulus packages of the region in response to the on-going global economic turmoil and the emphasis they place on physical infrastructure, Mr. Ratnayake said, “we at ESCAP believe that the region should also take this opportunity to address its ‘soft infrastructure’ challenges – the many forms of institutional barriers to trade.”

Capacity building, training, sharing experience on successful trade facilitation measures, and sensitizing policy makers on the importance of trade facilitation were among the elements of a work programme presented by UN NeXT at the end of the meeting.

Source: www.un.org

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The United Nations-backed tribunal to try the perpetrators of a massive car bomb blast that killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri has appointed its main officials and adopted rules of procedures and evidence, the court announced today.

“The Special Tribunal for Lebanon now has the necessary tools to deal promptly and efficiently with the first files concerning the Hariri case, which the Lebanese authorities are expected to transfer in the next few weeks,” its President, Antonio Cassese of Italy, said in a statement.

In consultation with President Cassese, who was the first president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed François Roux of France as the head of the defence office.

The Tribunal, an independent body located in The Hague, is designed to try those accused of recent political murders in Lebanon, particularly the February 2005 assassination of Mr. Hariri and 22 others in downtown Beirut.

Daniel Bellemare, a Canadian prosecutor and former head of the International Independent Investigation Commission (IIIC) into the murders, assumed his office as Prosecutor of the Special Tribunal when it began operations earlier this month.

The judges and registrar of the court have already been sworn in as well, and rules governing detention and the directive on assignment of defence counsel have been adopted, the court said.

According to the Tribunal, President Cassese and Daniel Fransen of Belgium, the Pre-Trial Judge, will soon take up their duties on a full-time basis.

The other judges, for the Trial and Appeals Chambers, will take office on a date to be determined by the Secretary-General, in consultation with the President, and their names will be announced once all security measures are in place, the Tribunal said.

The investigation continues under the guidance of Prosecutor Bellemare, and a trial will take place when he has sufficient evidence is in place, according to the court.

Source: www.un.org

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The first round of United Nations-backed negotiations designed to culminate in an ambitious new international climate change treaty in Copenhagen in December got underway today.

More than 2,000 delegates from government, business and industry, environmental organizations and research institutions, have gathered in Bonn, Germany, for the first of a series of three sessions aimed at producing a draft document to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, whose first commitment period to reducing greenhouse gas emissions ends in 2012.

“This first negotiating session this year is critical for moving the world closer to a political solution to climate change,” said Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

“The clock is ticking down and countries still have much work to cover,” stressed Mr. de Boer at the start of the nine-day meeting.

Discussions on greenhouse gas emissions reductions to be achieved by industrialized countries after 2012 will centre on issues relating to the scale of the reductions, improvements to emissions trading and the Kyoto Protocol''s carbon offset mechanisms, as well as concerns relating to land-use change and forestry.

“Industrialized countries are committed to lead the way, and the world is looking to them to agree on ambitious targets, in line with what science is telling us, in Copenhagen in December,” said Harald Dovland, who chairs the working group leading the negotiations.

“We must lay the groundwork for this in Bonn at this session by shifting gears and moving into serious, in-depth negotiations,” he added.

Source: www.un.org

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The headquarters of the global coalition to tackle the world’s most serious cybersecurity threats, backed by the United Nations International Telecommunication Union (ITU), was inaugurated outside of the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur today.

The new state-of-the-art facilities of the International Multilateral Partnership Against Cyber-Threats (IMPACT) in Cyberjaya will host the ITU’s Global Cybersecurity Agenda (GCA), which promotes international cooperation to make cyberspace more secure in an increasingly networked information society.

The joint effort by the ITU and IMPACT – an initiative which brings together governments, industry leaders and cybersecurity experts to enhance the global community’s capacity to prevent, defend and respond to cyberthreats – aims to provide real-time analysis, aggregation and dissemination of global cyber threat information.

“Cybersecurity is one of the most critical issues of our time,” said Hamadoun Touré, ITU Secretary-General, noting that the problem demands “a truly global approach.”

Last September, the heads of ITU and IMPACT signed an agreement to operationalize the GCA at IMPACT’s Cyberjaya site.

Although the GCA will be housed at the IMPACT centre, ITU will have a “virtual showcase” at its headquarters in Geneva of the early warning system, crisis management and real-time analysis of global cyber threats.

Source: www.un.org

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Despite the launch of “one of the largest anti-piracy flotillas in modern history,” the clan-organized taking of vessels off the coast of Somalia will only cease when order is restored to the Horn of Africa nation, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says in a report released today.

“There is a critical need to tackle the problem of piracy with a multifaceted approach” to ensure that the political process, the peacekeeping efforts of the African Union (AU) and the strengthening of institutions work in tandem, Mr. Ban writes to the Security Council.

He encourages Member States to place increased emphasis on ending lawlessness in war-torn Somalia, which has not had a functioning government since 1991, through support to the Djibouti peace process and the AU Mission in the country, known as AMISOM.

He adds that it is necessary for the international community to use the existing international legal framework effectively to apprehend and prosecute suspected pirates and consider further strengthening it.

The 111 attacks in the critical sea corridor linking the Suez Canal and the Indian Ocean that occurred in 2008 represent an increase of nearly 200 per cent over the previous year, Mr. Ban states, adding that there have been seven reported incidents in 2009 to the end of February.

Of great concern to the UN, Mr. Ban says, is the safety of vessels carrying food and other aid on which some 2.4 million Somalis depend, 95 per cent of which arrives by sea and which was threatened by the 2007 attack on a ship contracted by the World Food Programme (WFP).

According to the report, the most prominent pirate fleets are based in the fishing communities of north-eastern and central Somalia and are organized in a way that reflects clan-based social structures.

As an example, the report describes the “Eyle Group” based in Puntland, which at the end of 2008 was holding six vessels hostage with their crews and was estimated to have earned $30 million in ransom up to that point.

“It is widely acknowledged that some of these groups now rival established Somali authorities in terms of their military capabilities and resource bases,” Mr. Ban says.

In the past few months, however, political leaders in Puntland and neighbouring States have vowed to defeat the pirates, and a raft of countries, in addition to groups such as NATO and the European Union have contributed to a policing fleet under the legal framework of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and various Security Council resolutions.

Measures include protective escorts for WFP-contracted vessels with the result that no further attacks have been made on such ships, the Secretary-General says, urging that long-term continuity for those escorts be assured.

The UN Secretariat, Mr. Ban affirms, will continue to perform a central role in information and coordination in combating piracy and he urged all Member States to keep it updated about their anti-piracy activities.

Source: www.un.org

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The President of the United Nations General Assembly today urged that children’s education be made central to the assistance given to communities devastated by violence and disaster, as he opened a dialogue on the topic in New York.

“Let us find ways to assure that we are feeding young minds, as well as bodies, creating safe havens for learners as well as their larger communities,” Miguel D’Escoto told the representatives of Member States, education experts and aid organizations gathered for the debate.

“Let us give these girls and boys, youth and women the opportunity to contribute in the recovery and the future of their societies. Let us give them hope by learning to overcome what, in the midst of chaos, must seem to be insurmountable challenges,” he continued.

Few development partners include education as part of their humanitarian policy, Mr. D’Escoto maintained, saying that as a result an estimated 75 million children worldwide were being denied what he called “this fundamental right.”

Speaking today on the issue were children, educators and policymakers, including a teacher working in Haiti amidst the destruction of recurring hurricanes, youths from Nepal who worked to create schools as ‘zones of peace’ during the insurgency and staff working on education in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, the Caribbean and Latin America.

Also speaking at the meeting’s opening, Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro said she shared Mr. D’Escoto’s sense of urgency on the issue, adding that far too many children cannot get an education because of “brutal attacks” on schools, staff and students.

She noted that in Afghanistan last year there were more than 275 such attacks, with 66 people killed and many more injured, most of them children.

There were diverse motivations for such violence, she pointed out, adding “But what every single attack on any school teacher or student shares is this: it can never be tolerated.”

Governments, she said, must deliver on their promise of basic education for all children, including in times of emergencies, and must ensure that schools, students and teachers are protected. If schools are not safe during a crisis, alternative safe spaces must be provided, she added.

The UN is keeping the issue in the spotlight, promoting quality education and keeping children studying during the worst conditions, she said, pointing to the example of the “school-in-a-box” kit distributed by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) during emergencies.

“But we need to do even more,” she urged, saying that countries and agencies must include education in their emergency plans, and increased funding must be provided despite the financial crisis.

“As you know, water, sanitation and food are considered emergency responses, but what we are pushing for is to ensure that education is an integral part of emergency programmatic planning and response,” Radhika Coomaraswamy, Special Representative of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for Children and Armed Conflict told correspondents at a press conference during the day.

“Education brings stability, normalcy and routine into a child’s life, which is absolutely essential, especially when they are displaced,” she said.

Source: www.un.org

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Five pilot countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America are set to receive $18 million in funding from a United Nations programme aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions from forests while boosting local livelihoods.

The UN Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (UN-REDD) was launched last September by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as a way of combating climate change through creating incentives to reverse the trend of deforestation.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that the cutting down of forests is now contributing close to 20 per cent of the overall greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere.

The programme’s Policy Board, at its recent inaugural meeting in Panama, approved $18 million in funding – roughly a third of the sum currently available – for the Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Tanzania and Viet Nam.

“This is a very significant first step for the UN-REDD Programme,” said Angela Cropper, Deputy Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), who chaired the meeting.

“I am heartened to see such a dedicated group of countries, indigenous peoples, civil society, donors and the United Nations come together to reach consensus on this important programme. I am confident that the programme will have a substantial input to the continuing REDD debate.”

Along with the countries currently engaged in the programme implementation, the Policy Board includes members of indigenous peoples groups and civil society, as well as donors and many other interested parties such as the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility secretariat.

In addition to the five countries that are set to receive the new funds, Bolivia, Panama, Paraguay and Zambia have also already expressed interest in receiving assistance through UN-REDD – a collaboration between UNEP, the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

Source: www.un.org

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The overall levels of humanitarian assistance allowed into Gaza remain below what is urgently required, the United Nations reports, adding that lengthy clearance procedures for aid workers are also hampering vital relief efforts.

A total of 671 truckloads of goods – including 121 from humanitarian agencies – were allowed entry into Gaza this past week, according to an update from the office of the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory.

This is less than the 1,080 trucks that were let in the week before, it notes, adding that items banned by the Israeli authorities over the past week included jam, biscuits and tomato paste.

In addition, no petrol or diesel was allowed entry into Gaza last week via Israel, and approximately 90 per cent of Gaza’s population suffers from intermittent power supply, with power cuts of between four and five hours daily.

The Humanitarian Coordinator’s office also notes that Israeli clearance procedures for access into Gaza by international staff from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) continue to be very lengthy, thereby hindering the work of aid groups.

While it has been about two months since the end of the Israeli military offensive in Gaza, the office reports that rocket fire by Palestinian militants into Israel and air strikes on Gaza by Israeli forces continues.

At least 1,300 Palestinians were killed and some 5,300 were injured in the three-week offensive launched by Israel in late 2008 with the stated aim of ending rocket attacks by Hamas and other groups. The heavy bombardment and fighting also reduced homes, schools, hospitals and marketplaces to rubble.

A UN Development Programme (UNDP) report on the aftermath of the Israeli military operations finds that 65 per cent of Gazans live below the income poverty line and 37 per cent live in extreme poverty.

The report adds that 60 per cent of the unemployed are extremely poor – compared to 56 per cent before the recent Gaza conflict.

“Most households in the Gaza Strip have suffered from limited access to basics such as food, water, electricity, sanitation and money, but their highest need now is personal security,” the agency notes.

Source: www.un.org

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The United Nations human rights chief today said she hopes the release of a shorter version of the draft outcome document for next month’s anti-racism conference will mark the necessary breakthrough to achieve consensus among States and lead to a successful summit.

The conference, to be held from 20 to 24 April in Geneva, will assess progress since the landmark 2001 World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, held in Durban, South Africa.

A working group made up of UN Member States has been negotiating a draft outcome document for next month’s meeting, which High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay has acknowledged has been the target of criticism by those who fear a repetition of the anti-Semitic outbursts witnessed in Durban.

In a news release issued today in Geneva, Ms. Pillay said she hoped the introduction of the much shorter, but still substantive, version of the text that has been under discussion since January would be a “major turning point” in preparations for the meeting.

“I really hope that this marks the necessary breakthrough needed to achieve consensus on a text that must offer concrete help to hundreds of groups and millions of individuals who are subjected to racism and other forms of intolerance all across the world,” Ms. Pillay said.

“No continent, indeed no individual country, is free of these dangerous phenomena, and it would be inexcusable if States failed to reach consensus on such important issues,” she added.

Russia’s Yuri Boychenko, who is chairing the negotiations, will continue to consult informally on this “rolling” document during the coming weeks, leading up to a Preparatory Committee meeting from 15 to 17 April, just before the actual Review Conference.

“Thanks to those who have been working, and contributing with good will, to produce this latest text – despite the sustained and sometimes distorted criticisms that have dogged this Conference process – I believe there should now be no major barrier to reaching a successful outcome,” Ms. Pillay said.

She urged all States to refrain from taking “narrow politicized or polemical stances on particular issues,” and to work together to ensure a successful outcome for the victims of racial discrimination and intolerance around the world.

Source: www.un.org

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13 March 2009 – The impact of the global financial crisis, problems concerning water and energy supplies and developments in Afghanistan were high on the agenda at a United Nations-organized seminar that brought Central Asian nations together to address current challenges.

The meeting was organized by the UN Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia (UNRCCA), established in 2007 to help the countries of the region – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan – respond more proactively to cross-border challenges and threats, such as terrorism, drug trafficking, organized crime and environmental degradation, before they become costlier and more difficult to control.

The two-day meeting, which began on 10 March, brought together government officials, experts and academics, among others, to the capital of Turkmenistan, Ashgabat, for what a senior UN official called a “necessary and timely” gathering amid important developments in the world and in the region.

“The participants acknowledged that an individual approach is not a viable solution, that it is important to find shared solutions,” Miroslav Jenca, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative and head of UNRCCA, told the UN News Centre.

The need to work together in facing challenges was especially underscored in the context of dealing with the ongoing economic and financial crisis. Mr. Jenca noted that some countries might be tempted to find solutions taking into account their national interests only, and not considering the interests of the whole region.

Participants at the meeting, which also included representatives from Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Germany, Iran, Turkey, Russia, France, Slovakia and the United States, recognized this as a “dangerous tendency,” he said, and they agreed that regional cooperation was vital in order to find viable solutions.

The impact of the global economic downturn has been felt in the region, especially in countries such as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan that are more integrated in the global economy, Mr. Jenca pointed out, while adding that “none of the countries in the region are immune against the crisis.”

The effects have included the devaluation of national currencies and a curtailing of projects due to lack of funding. The downturn has also affected labour migration, with migrants being unable to find enough jobs in other countries, or if they can find jobs, they are being paid less, all of which lead to a decrease in remittances, he said.

In addition, problems related to water management and energy supplies are a major challenge for the region, which as a whole has enough water and enough energy. “The problem is how to find agreement among the five countries in order to use these resources for the benefit of all countries in the region,” stated Mr. Jenca, who took up his post last June.

The Regional Centre is particularly active in the area of water and energy, which is one of its priority areas. At the same time, the Special Representative noted that the UN’s role is to assist countries, not replace governments.

“The role of the leadership of the countries is extremely important in order to ensure sustainable development, and they bear primary responsibility for socio-economic development and also for addressing the crisis,” he stated.

Source: www.un.org

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12 March 2009 – With nations set to conclude negotiations on an ambitious new greenhouse gas emissions agreement this December, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and United States President Barack Obama have stressed the need for 2009 to be the year of climate change.

Mr. Ban, who met with the “visionary” American leader earlier this week at the White House in Washington, told journalistin his monthly press conference at UN Headquarters today that they both agree that climate change poses an “existential threat.”

The two men share a commitment that “2009 must be the year of climate change,” he said, stressing the importance a comprehensive successor pact to the Kyoto Protocol – the legally binding emissions reduction regime whose first commitment period ends in 2012 – at December’s UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.

“With US leadership, in partnership of the United Nations, we can and will reach a climate change deal that all nations can embrace,” the Secretary-General noted.

Reports of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize co-laureate – have shown unequivocally that the world is warming, almost certainly due to human activity, with potentially disastrous effects including worsening drought in some regions and heavier rainfall in others.

Mr. Ban said today that he and Mr. Obama were of the same opinion that ‘green’ investments are an essential part of any stimulus package targeting the current global economic turmoil.

“If we are going to spend such tremendous sums of money, let us be smart about it,” he said.

He said that during his two-day visit to Washington, climate change also dominated his discussions with key American officials, including Senator John Kerry, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Congressman Howard Berman, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Last week, the top UN climate change official said that he sees “enthusiasm” in the current US Government to pass laws to reduce gas emissions and a willingness to work towards a new global climate change pact.

Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said he was “very much encouraged” following his recent meetings with officials in Mr. Obama’s administration and members of Congress.

“There is, I believe, a huge enthusiasm and energy in both the House and the Senate to put cap and trade climate change legislation in place in this country,” he added.

Mr. de Boer also underscored the willingness in the current US administration “to work towards an agreement in Copenhagen, to come with an ambitious domestic policy [and] to engage with international partners” to come to an accord.

Source: www.un.org

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11 March 2009 – The world’s population will hit 7 billion early in 2012 and top 9 billion in 2050, with the majority of the increase taking place in developing countries, according to revised United Nations estimates released today.

“There have been no big changes for the recent estimates and we have not changed the assumptions for the future,” Hania Zlotnik, Director of the Population Division at the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), told reporters in New York.

“We’re still projecting that by 2050 the population of the world will be around 9.1 billion,” she said, as she presented the 2008 Revision of the World Population Prospects.

The Revision also says that nine countries are expected to account for half of the world’s projected increase from 2010 to 2050: India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, United States, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Tanzania, China and Bangladesh.

Ms. Zlotnik noted that current projections are based on the assumption that fertility is going to decline from the current global level of 2.5 children per woman to 2.1 children per woman from now until 2050.

The population of the 49 least developed countries (LDCs) is still the fastest growing in the world, at 2.3 per cent per year, according to a news release issued by the Population Division.

While the population of developing countries as a whole is projected to rise from 5.6 billion in 2009 to 7.9 billion in 2050, the population of more developed regions is expected to change minimally, passing from 1.23 billion to 1.28 billion.

The latter would have declined to 1.15 billion were it not for the projected net migration from developing to developed countries, which is expected to average 2.4 million persons annually from 2009 to 2050.

The UN adds that projected trends are contingent on fertility declines in developing countries. Without further reductions of fertility, the world population could increase by nearly twice as much as currently expected.

“It is going to be extremely important to continue funding and increasing the funding that has gone down for family planning because, if not, our projections on declining fertility are unlikely to be met,” Ms. Zlotnik stated.

She added that the projected population trends also depend on achieving a major increase in the proportion of AIDS patients who get anti-retroviral therapy to treat the disease and on the success of efforts to control the further spread of HIV.

Among the other findings, she noted that most developing countries are unlikely to meet the goal of reducing under-five mortality by two-thirds by 2015, one of eight globally agreed targets set out in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Source: www.un.org

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10 March 2009 – Ten million new “green jobs” can be created by national investments in sustainable forest management, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) said today.

“As more jobs are lost due to the current economic downturn, sustainable forest management could become a means of creating millions of green jobs, thus helping to reduce poverty and improve the environment,” said Jan Heino, Assistant Director-General of FAO’s Forestry Department.

Since forests and trees are vital storehouses of carbon, such an investment would also make a major contribution to climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts, he said.

Jobs in forest management include agro-forestry and farm forestry, improved fire management, development and management of trails and recreation sites, expansion of urban green spaces, restoring degraded forests and planting new ones.

A number of countries, including the United States and the Republic of Korea, have included forestry in their economic stimulus plans, and it is an important component of India’s rural employment guarantee programme, FAO said.

Employment in sustainable forest management will be a major topic of World Forest Week, to be held in conjunction with FAO’s Committee on Forestry, 16 to 20 March in Rome.

Source: www.un.org

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