South Sudanese officials accused the government on Tuesday of reinforcing troops in the disputed oil town of Abyei, raising tensions as United Nations Security Council envoys flew in to shore up a peace deal. Clashes in Abyei last month increased fears of a return to war between the northern government and the south.
Western powers kept up the pressure on Burma’s generals on Thursday to allow a massive aid effort as relief workers struggled to help an estimated 2,5-million people left destitute by Cyclone Nargis. The European Union’s top aid official has warned that the military government’s restrictions on foreign aid workers were increasing the risk of starvation.
Burma will accept foreign aid but distribute relief itself, an official newspaper said on Friday, after a disaster rescue team from Qatar that arrived in Rangoon on an aid flight was turned back. Outside frustration is mounting at delays by the generals in giving visas to aid workers and landing rights for flights.
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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/ 14 December 2007
The European Union’s biggest four countries are pushing to impose and oversee independence in Kosovo without a fresh United Nations mandate, risking a showdown with a resurgent Russia and fierce resistance from Serbia, which vows no surrender of Kosovo.