Tag Archives: United Nations

Team activated to support global airline safety as Middle East tensions rise

Team activated to support global airline safety as Middle East tensions rise
By Allison Lampert

MONTREAL (Reuters) – An international aviation team has been activated to support “effective coordination and communication” between airlines and countries as tensions mount in the Middle East after a U.S. drone strike killed an Iranian military commander, global airlines body IATA said on Tuesday.

Airlines and the United Nations’ aviation agency have started to monitor strategic airspace over Iran and Iraq. With some commercial carriers still serving those countries and others flying over their airspace, the International Air Transport Association also issued a statement reminding countries of their obligation to communicate potential risks to civil aviation.

“It is critical that states live up to this obligation as tensions in the Middle East rise,” the group said, days after the killing of General Qassem Soleimani on Friday plunged the region into a new crisis.

On Monday, Germany published a new warning for Iraq, indicating areas of concern for overflying traffic, according to a report published by the site OPSGROUP.

The coordination team operated by IATA and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) was activated as a “standard precautionary measure,” in the event that contingency measures are required by airlines, IATA said in a statement to Reuters.

The team brings together airlines, regulators and air navigation service providers to ensure any potential risks to aviation are shared quickly, an industry source familiar with the group said.

“Everyone’s urging restraint,” said the source who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Carriers are increasingly taking steps to uncover threats to their planes after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down in 2014 by a missile over Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.

Airspace controlled by Iran and Iraq are seen as strategic for commercial aviation in the Middle East. If there were the need to shut down the airspace, carriers would have to be rerouted which would lead to greater congestion and fuel costs, said the source.

(Reporting By Allison Lampert in Montreal; Editing by David Gregorio)

Scapegoats to supply chains: Five aims for the anti-slavery fight in 2020

By Molly Millar

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – With a decade for the world to meet a United Nations target of ending modern slavery, experts say anti-slavery efforts must be guided by survivors, supported by law enforcement and kept at the top of the global activism agenda.

About 40 million people globally are estimated to be enslaved – in forced labour and forced marriages – in a trade worth an estimated $150 billion a year to human traffickers, according to the U.N. International Labour Organization (ILO).

Here are five priorities for the global anti-slavery movement in 2020 as told to the Thomson Reuters Foundation by campaigners, civil servants, and migration and trade experts.

1. LET SURVIVORS LEAD

Survivors of modern slavery are increasingly being championed to inform and lead anti-trafficking efforts – from raising awareness to supporting victims and shaping policy.

“We must double our efforts to strengthen worker solidarity and survivor-led initiatives, and to open more platforms for meaningful worker participation in policy and practice,” said Lucila Granada, head of the charity Focus on Labour Exploitation.

More than 220 survivors have signed up to the Survivor Alliance since its launch in 2018 as an online network that provides a forum, expert contacts and consulting opportunities.

“In 2020, the anti-slavery movement needs to put their investment behind survivor leadership, create scholarships for education, and create liveable wage employment opportunities,” said Minh Dang, co-director of the Survivor Alliance.

2. SECURE JUSTICE

From India to Britain and the United States, authorities and activists alike have voiced concerns about a lack of justice for trafficking victims despite fast-growing awareness of the issue.

Governments worldwide carried out 11,096 trafficking prosecutions in 2018 and won 7,481 convictions, according to the U.S. State Department’s Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report.

Trafficking prosecutions have risen since 2012 – but hit a peak of 19,127 in 2015 – according to the compiled estimates.

Obstacles to securing convictions include persuading victims to speak out, tracking traffickers online and tracing their gains, and the complexity and length of cases, experts say.

“Slavery thrives when traffickers and slave-owners can brutally enslave people with little fear of any consequence,” said David Westlake, head of International Justice Mission UK.

3. PROTECT MIGRANTS

Undocumented migrants are particularly vulnerable to slavery but are too often either demonised or overlooked, activists say.

“Migrant workers being scapegoated is just going to increase their level of vulnerability to human trafficking,” said Neha Misra, anti-slavery specialist at U.S.-based Solidarity Center.

More than 70 million people were uprooted last year by persecution and conflict in a record high, U.N. data shows, yet this figure does not include migrants seeking a better life.

Without the legal right to work or resettle, many migrants end up trapped in slavery and afraid to speak out or seek help.

The discovery of 39 dead Vietnamese in a truck near London in October spotlighted the illicit trade that sends the poor of Asia, Africa and the Middle East on risky journeys to the West.

“We need to create laws and policies – globally and in Britain – that would allow people to migrate for work safely,” said Jakub Sobik, media manager at Anti-Slavery International.

4. ADJUST ATTITUDES

From opinion polls showing limited public awareness to sensationalised images including handcuffs, chains and scars, modern-day slavery is widely misrepresented and misunderstood.

Traffickers rely far more psychological methods of coercion and the use of debts than on physical violence to trap their victims, found a recent study by Britain’s Nottingham University, which researches the global ill.

Modern slavery is too often seen mainly as a criminal issue, according to experts who say this diverts focus from cultural factors such as caste, globalisation and the rise of informal work, and attitudes towards and policies around migration.

“The idea that modern slavery is somewhere ‘out there’ perpetuated by evil criminals is only true for a very small percentage of people subject to egregious exploitation and abuse,” said Cindy Berman of the Ethical Trading Initiative.

“It’s in our midst,” said the head of modern slavery strategy at the organisation, which is a coalition of trade unions, companies and charities promoting workers’ rights.

5. MAINTAIN MOMENTUM

With a host of political and environmental issues demanding the world’s attention, some advocates fear that slavery might fall down the agenda as a crime that mostly occurs out of sight.

While teenage activist Greta Thunberg – Time Magazine’s Person of the Year – has inspired public action on climate change, people must also be engaged and inspired to consider the human cost of services and products they buy, campaigners say.

“We must continue to mobilise government action, business engagement and public concern about the exploitation taking place in our local communities and global supply chains,” said Sara Thornton, Britain’s independent anti-slavery commissioner.

(Reporting by Molly Millar, Editing by Kieran Guilbert and Belinda Goldsmith)

Somalia hit by worst desert locust invasion in 25 years

By Giulia Paravicini

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Desert locusts are destroying tens of thousands of hectares of crops and grazing land in Somalia in the worst invasion in 25 years, the United Nations food agency said on Wednesday, and the infestation is likely to spread further.

The locusts have damaged about 70,000 hectares of land in Somalia and neighboring Ethiopia, threatening food supplies in both countries and the livelihoods of farming communities, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said.

An average swarm will destroy crops that could feed 2,500 people for a year, the FAO said.

Conflict and chaos in much of Somalia make spraying pesticide by airplane – which the FAO called the “ideal control measure” – impossible, the agency said in a statement. “The impact of our actions in the short term is going to be very limited.”

Ashagre Molla, 66, a father of seven from Woldia in the Amhara region 700 km (435 miles) north-east of the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, said he had so far received no help from the government.

“I was supposed to get up to 3,000 kg of teff (a cereal grass) and maize this year, but because of desert locusts and untimely rains I only got 400 kg of maize and expect only 200 kg of teff.

“This is not even enough to feed my family,” he said.

The locust plague is far more serious than the FAO earlier projected and has been made worse by unseasonably heavy rainfall and floods across East Africa that have killed hundreds of people in the past several months.

Experts say climate shocks are largely responsible for rapidly changing weather patterns in the region.

(Reporting by Giulia Paravicini and Dawit Endeshaw; Editing by Maggie Fick and Giles Elgood)

Famine stalks millions in South Sudan after droughts, floods: U.N.

Famine stalks millions in South Sudan after droughts, floods: U.N.
By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – Famine threatens the lives of up to 5.5 million people in South Sudan, where droughts and flooding have destroyed crops and livestock, compounding “intense political instability”, the United Nations warned on Thursday.

The U.N.’s World Food Programme (WFP) said it needed $270 million urgently to provide food to hungry South Sudanese in the first half of 2020 and avert mass starvation in the world’s youngest country.

“Every factor is in place for there to be famine in 2020 unless we take immediate action to expand our deliveries in areas affected by floods and other areas affected by food loss,” Matthew Hollingworth, WFP country director, told Reuters.

“We need to pre-position food around the country in the next two to three months,” he said, noting that road access to many remote communities would be impossible after the rainy season sets in.

The government declared a state of emergency in late October in Bahr El Ghazal, Greater Upper Nile and Greater Equatoria after months of flooding, WFP said in a statement.

Nearly 1 million people are directly affected by the floods and the waters have not receded in many places, it said.

“The scale of the loss from the harvest is enormous,” Hollingworth said, speaking by telephone from Juba.

Fields with 73,000 tonnes of sorghum, millet and corn have been lost as well as tens of thousands of cattle, chickens and goats on which families depended for survival, he said.

Acute malnutrition rates in children under the age of five have risen from 13% in 2018 to 16% this year, Hollingworth said, adding: “They have gone above the global emergency threshold of 15%.”

Water-borne diseases are spreading, although no cholera has been detected, he said.

“It can only get worse because of the situation and environment people are living in,” he said.

Civil war broke out in oil-producing South Sudan in 2013, less than two years after the country gained independence from Sudan following decades of war. The conflict that has killed an estimated 400,000 people and forced millions from their homes.

Inter-communal fighting still occurs in pockets hit by the flooding, Hollingworth said.

“Hunger and desperation bring instability when resources are stretched to the extent that makes an already unstable situation much worse. It is a wake-up call for us all,” he said.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

U.S. ready to be flexible with North Korea, warns against provocations: Trump’s U.N. envoy

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The United States is “prepared to be flexible” in negotiations aimed at getting North Korea to give up its nuclear and missile programs but Pyongyang must engage and avoid provocations, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft said on Wednesday.

“We have not asked North Korea to do everything before we do anything,” Craft told reporters before a U.N. Security Council meeting on North Korea.

“We are prepared to be flexible, but we cannot solve this problem alone. The DPRK must do its part and it must avoid provocations. It must engage in this process,” she said.

The United States requested the meeting of the 15-member council as concerns grow internationally that North Korea could resume nuclear or long-range missile testing – suspended since 2017 – because denuclearization talks between Pyongyang and Washington have stalled.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has given U.S. President Donald Trump until the end of 2019 to show flexibility. North Korea’s U.N. ambassador, Kim Song, declared on Saturday, however, that denuclearization was off the table.

Trump then warned that Kim risked losing “everything” if he resumes hostility and that North Korea must denuclearize. Trump and Kim have met three times since June 2018, but no progress toward a deal has been made.

U.S. top nuclear negotiator Stephen Biegun met privately with U.N. Security Council ambassadors on Wednesday ahead of the public meeting.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Peter Cooney)

Rape map and murdered women – welcome to South Africa’s Republic of Sexual Abuse

By Kim Harrisberg

JOHANNESBURG (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – It has its own currency, passports and a blood-stained map, but this is no ordinary country. Welcome to the Republic of Sexual Abuse, the creation of a group of campaigners in South Africa, where a woman is murdered every three hours.

The fictional country is the centrepiece of an exhibition held in a Johannesburg mall that seeks to raise awareness of South Africa’s high levels of violence against women – and inspire action against it.

It was thought up by Roanna Williams, executive creative director of the advertising agency Black River FC, after she saw women protesting against the violence from her office window.

“Most women in South Africa have a story of sexual abuse,” said Williams at the exhibition, which opened on Nov. 26 to coincide with the United Nations’ 16 days of activism campaign against gender-based violence.

“We are not just trying to shock, we are showing that this is everyone’s problem and we all need to act, not just during 16 Days of Activism, but 365 days of the year.”

Recent murders, rapes and kidnappings of South African women sparked mass protests in September where women called for justice for rape survivors.

Soon after, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a five-point plan to tackle violence against women, including media campaigns, strengthening the criminal justice system, and providing training for healthcare workers and counsellors.

The exhibition, run together with women’s rights group People Opposing Women Abuse (POWA), includes a huge red map painted in fake blood with all the excuses men use to rape women – including “I was drunk”.

At the back of the exhibition, a warning sign marks the entrance to a bedroom where blood stained sheets hide behind a curtain. Recordings of cries and slaps fill the room.

“This room is where reality kicks in for people in the exhibition,” said Patricia Naha, a volunteer and counsellor with POWA, adding it showed women were not safe anywhere.

About 3,000 women in South Africa were murdered in 2018 – one every three hours and more than five times higher than the global average, according to the World Health Organization.

The number of recorded murders of women went up 11% between 2017 and 2018.

A video advertising South Africa as a tourist destination is played on repeat, with images of the country overlaid with jarring narration about sexual violence.

“Retreat to the spectacular bushveld,” a voice is heard saying over a video of zebra running through a national park. “Where women are dumped after being murdered,” the sentence continues.

Some men visiting the exhibition get defensive, said Clayton Swartz, Black River FC’s art director, but many leave taking pamphlets and asking how they can help.

“I am proud to be South African, but not with these rape stats,” said Swartz. “We want to encourage everyone to speak out.”

The exhibition, which has so far attracted thousands of visitors, is open until Dec. 10 at Rosebank Mall and the organisers are seeking corporate sponsors to help them take it across the country.

(Reporting by Kim Harrisberg @kimharrisberg; Editing by Claire Cozens. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s and LGBT+ rights, human trafficking, property rights, and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org)

Explainer: Why have North Korea-U.S. denuclearization talks stalled?

By Hyonhee Shin

SEOUL (Reuters) – Negotiations aimed at dismantling North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs have been at a standstill after a working-level meeting with the United States in October in Stockholm collapsed.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has set a year-end deadline for Washington to change its stance in the negotiations, a deadline U.S. officials have downplayed as artificial.

North Korea’s ambassador to the United Nations, meanwhile, says denuclearization is now off the table.

Here are the competing demands that lead to the deadlock:

HOSTILE POLICY

A North Korean envoy accused U.S. officials of sticking to their “old viewpoint and attitude” when he broke off the Stockholm talks.

Little was known about what North Korea and the United States specifically sought and offered during that meeting.

But Pyongyang has been demanding U.S. corresponding action to its proposed dismantling of a nuclear testing venue, including the lifting of crippling sanctions.

North Korea offered to abolish its Yongbyon nuclear complex in return for the revocation of key five U.N. resolutions during a failed summit between Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump in February in Vietnam.

But the Americans argued decommissioning Yongbyon did not suffice, calling for Pyongyang to transfer nuclear weapons and bomb fuel to the United States.

North Korea had also said it dismantled its Sohae missile launch site as an initial step toward denuclearization, but the facility was used on Sunday for what Pyongyang said was a “very significant test”.

North Korea has stepped up calls for the United States to an end to joint military drills with South Korea, as well as retracting its “hostile policy” including criticizing Pyongyang’s human rights record.

‘COMPLETE, VERIFIABLE, IRREVERSIBLE’

U.S. officials came to Stockholm seeking a “complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization” of North Korea, and pushed for a moratorium on weapons tests as a first step, a diplomatic source in Seoul told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Although some media reports said the United States had planned to propose temporarily lifting sanctions on coal and textile exports, the source said the Stockholm talks did not get into details.

Washington and Seoul have contemplated possible areas where sanctions be eased on the conditions they can be immediately put back if needed, such as a resumption of South Korean tours to the North.

North Korea, in contrast, has sought a “systematic guarantee” for the lifting of sanctions, singling out five U.N. resolutions at the Hanoi summit, the source said.

The five U.N. resolutions, adopted in 2016 and 2017, chiefly limited North Korea’s mineral exports and banned financial transactions, which were expected to prevent Pyongyang from earning at least $1 billion a year.

“But the Americans can’t take the risk of easing sanctions first, having already given a lot of gifts to Kim without substantial progress on denuclearization, including summits,” the source said.

“Sanctions are basically all they have to press North Korea.”

U.S. negotiators tried to fix a date for the next round of talks when the Stockholm meeting fell apart, but North Korean officials were uncooperative, the source said.

DEADLINE

As the year-end deadline approaches, North Korea has ratcheted up tensions, firing dozens of missiles and warning Kim might take a different path if diplomacy with the United States fails.

Kim was “displeased” at Trump’s remarks Tuesday he could use military force against North Korea “if we have to”, a top North Korean commander said on Wednesday, warning of “prompt corresponding actions”.

Trump’s re-election battle and the impeachment inquiry against him may have emboldened Kim to overestimate North Korea’s leverage, the diplomatic source said.

Recent weapons tests raised concerns North Korea could resume nuclear and long-range missile testing suspended since 2017. Analysts described last month’s launch of shorter range weapons as a Thanksgiving reminder for Trump.

“North Korea is pushing the envelope little by little with the tests, and the Americans are saying if those tests were not a big deal, but they’re not OK,” the source said.

“If there’s no progress until year-end, North Korea would have to do something, maybe an intercontinental ballistic missile test. Then the United States has no option but to respond even more sternly, and in a worst-case scenario, the negotiations could break down for good.”

(Reporting by Hyonhee Shin. Editing by Lincoln Feast.)

U.N. human rights chief denounces Iran security forces for using ‘severe violence’ against protesters

GENEVA (Reuters) – Iranian security forces have shot at protesters from helicopters and a rooftop and have aimed at peoples’ heads in using “severe violence” to quell anti-government unrest last month, U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said on Friday.

They have also fired at protesters as they were running away, Bachelet said in a statement, citing verified video footage.

The U.N. Human Rights Office has received information indicating that at least 208 people have been killed, including 13 women and 12 children, during the demonstrations and at least 7,000 people arrested, the statement said.

More than twice that number may have been killed, according to unconfirmed reports, according to the statement.

Iranian authorities confirmed for the first time this week that security forces killed demonstrators during what rights groups have said was the deadliest anti-government unrest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

“All in all, the picture now emerging from Iran is extremely disturbing,” Bachelet said.

One of the worst incidents took place in the city of Mahshahr in southwest Iran on Nov. 18 when security forces fired at protesters with machineguns, killing at least 23 and possibly many more, the United Nations statement said.

Security forces have used water cannon, tear gas, batons, and live fire against unarmed demonstrators who posed no imminent threat of death or serious injury, it said.

“Verified video footage indicates severe violence was used against protesters, including armed members of security forces shooting from the roof of a justice department building in one city, and from helicopters in another,” Bachelet said.

“We have also received footage which appears to show security forces shooting unarmed demonstrators from behind while they were running away, and shooting others directly in the face and vital organs – in other words shooting to kill.”

These were serious violations of human rights, Bachelet said. Iranian authorities must act with greater transparency and carry out independent investigations, including into the killing of protesters and deaths and ill-treatment in custody, she said.

“And those responsible must be held accountable,” she said.

The senior U.S. diplomat for Iran said on Thursday that Iranian security forces may have killed more than 1,000 people,

The unrest began on Nov. 15 after the government abruptly raised fuel prices and rapidly spread to over 100 cities and towns and turned political with young and working-class protesters demanding clerical leaders step down.

(Reporting By Babak Dehghanpisheh; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

World has not done enough over Khashoggi killing: U.N. investigator

By Jonas Ekblom and Jorrit Donner-Wittkopf

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The world has not done enough to ensure justice is done over the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a special U.N. investigator said on Tuesday.

Agnes Callamard, the United Nations rapporteur for extrajudicial executions, called for more action from the European Union and the United States over Khashoggi’s murder by Saudi operatives at Riyadh’s consulate in Istanbul in 2018.

“I think it is important to recognize that the international community so far has failed in its duty to ensure that there cannot be immunity or impunity for the killing of Jamal Khashoggi,” Callamard told reporters in Brussels.

Callamard is seeking an international criminal investigation instead of a Saudi trial, but Riyadh has rejected her request.

Hatice Cengiz, who had been due to marry Khashoggi, accompanied Callamard on a trip to Brussels which she said was intended to remind people they were still seeking justice.

Khashoggi was a U.S. resident and a critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Eleven Saudi suspects have been put on trial over his death in secretive proceedings. A report by Callamard has called for the crown prince and other senior Saudi officials to be investigated.

The death caused a global uproar, tarnishing the crown prince’s image. The CIA and some Western governments have said they believe Prince Mohammed ordered the killing, but Saudi officials say he had no role.

The EU called on the first anniversary of Khashoggi’s killing for “full accountability for all those responsible” and said there must be a “credible and transparent” investigation.

The United States has called for Saudi Arabia to show tangible progress toward holding those behind the killing to account.

(Editing by Timothy Heritage)

Iran breaches another nuclear deal cap, on heavy water stock: IAEA report

Iran breaches another nuclear deal cap, on heavy water stock: IAEA report
VIENNA (Reuters) – Iran has breached another limit of its nuclear deal with major powers by accumulating slightly more than 130 tonnes of heavy water, a substance used in a type of reactor it is developing, a U.N. nuclear watchdog report showed on Monday.

The limit is the latest in a series imposed by the deal that Iran has exceeded in protest at Washington’s withdrawal from the deal last year and its imposition of punishing economic sanctions against Tehran.

Heavy water is not as sensitive as uranium, which Iran is enriching in a quantity and to a level of purity beyond limits in the deal. However, the 2015 deal says Iran should not have more heavy water than it needs, specifying this is estimated to be 130 metric tonnes.

“On 16 November 2019, Iran informed the Agency that its stock of heavy water had exceeded 130 metric tonnes,” the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report to member states obtained by Reuters.

“On 17 November 2019, the Agency verified that the Heavy Water Production Plant (HWPP) was in operation and that Iran’s stock of heavy water was 131.5 metric tonnes.”

Heavy water is, among other things, used as a moderator to slow down reactions in the core of nuclear reactors like one Iran has been developing at Arak.

Since that reactor could eventually have produced plutonium, which can also be used in atom bombs, the deal required Iran to remove its core and fill it with concrete. The reactor is now being redesigned with a view to reducing any weapons proliferation risk.

It is not the first time Iran has breached the heavy-water cap. Iran first went over that limit in 2016 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-nuclear/iran-once-again-exceeds-a-nuclear-deal-limit-iaea-report-idUSKBN1342T1, soon after the deal went into force and well before the U.S. withdrawal in 2018. Major powers then agreed Iran could store its excess heavy water outside the country while it sought a buyer for it.

(Reporting by Francois Murphy; Editing by Catherine Evans)