Burma’s ruling military junta took diplomats on a tour of the storm-ravaged Irrawaddy delta on Saturday as its toll of dead and missing soared above 133 000 people, making Cyclone Nargis one of the most devastating ever to hit Asia. An estimated 2,5-million people are clinging to survival in the delta.
The international community pleaded with Burma’s military rulers on Wednesday to let foreign aid workers and desperately needed relief supplies into the cyclone-crushed country. The United Nations, the United States and France stepped up pressure on the junta to open their doors to foreign aid.
France’s United Nations ambassador called on Zimbabwe authorities on Tuesday to publish and accept the results of elections there as the Security Council met for its first session on the Zimbabwe crisis. Diplomats have said South Africa, which currently holds the Security Council presidency, was reluctant to have it take up the issue of Zimbabwe.
The international community must overcome its reluctance to get involved in Somalia and help put an end to abuses there, a special United Nations envoy said on Thursday. ”While more people are talking about Somalia, there is still little action to stop the violence,” Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah told the Security Council during a debate on whether to send UN peacekeepers to the East African country.
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/ 15 November 2007
A planned United Nations-African Union peace force for Darfur could fail unless disputes with Sudan over its make-up are resolved and key specialised units found. The 26 000-member force aims to bring security to the western Sudanese region after four-and-a-half years of conflict.
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/ 30 October 2007
The United Nations Security Council renewed arms and diamond sanctions against Côte d’Ivoire on Monday in a bid to make the West African country stick to the terms of a peace process. A resolution passed by the council extended the sanctions for a further year but promised to review them during that period.
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/ 20 September 2007
France on Wednesday called for a joint force of United Nations and European Union peacekeepers to protect civilians in parts of Chad and the Central African Republic (CAR) bordering Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region. It tabled a resolution at the UN Security Council for a mixed force in eastern Chad and the north-east of the CAR.
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/ 9 September 2007
Al-Qaeda’s north Africa wing said it was behind two suicide attacks that killed at least 57 people in Algeria in the past two days, according to a statement posted on the internet on Saturday. It said the al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb was behind Saturday’s suicide truck bombing at a coast guard barracks east of Algiers and an attack in the town of Batna less than 48 hours earlier.