No image available
/ 19 December 2007
The United Nations General Assembly passed a non-binding resolution on Tuesday calling for a moratorium on the death penalty, overcoming protests from a bloc of states that said it undermined their sovereignty. The resolution, which calls for ”a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty,” was passed by a 104 to 54 vote, with 29 abstentions.
No image available
/ 18 December 2007
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, on a visit overshadowed by a Turkish incursion into northern Iraq, called on Iraqi leaders on Tuesday to urgently implement a national reconciliation roadmap. Turkish troops crossed overnight into the Iraqi Kurdish province of Dahuk, about 200km from the city of Kirkuk, where Rice’s plane first touched down.
No image available
/ 18 December 2007
Human Rights Watch (HRW) Tuesday accused Zambia’s government of failing to stop escalating violence against women and prevention of access to antiretroviral treatment for people living with HIV/Aids. HRW said 17% of Zambia’s adult population is living with HIV and 57% of them are women.
No image available
/ 18 December 2007
More than 1 400 would-be migrants, mostly Somalis and Ethiopians, have drowned off Yemen this year trying to cross the Gulf of Aden on rickety boats run by brutal smugglers. About 28 300 people leaving northern Somalia, mainly Somalis and Ethiopians, have made it to Yemen’s shores on 300 boats this year.
No image available
/ 17 December 2007
Russia warned on Monday that Kosovo could slip into ”uncontrollable crisis,” ahead of a United Nations Security Council showdown over the Serbian province’s push for independence. The Russian Foreign Ministry warned that the ”indulgence” of some countries in allowing Kosovo to move towards independence could have ”serious negative consequences” for stability.
No image available
/ 17 December 2007
Iran will not halt uranium enrichment even with delivery of fuel from Russia for its first nuclear power plant, a senior Iranian official said on Monday, adding he could not yet confirm Iran had received the fuel. The Russian state agency building the station said in a statement on Monday it had delivered the first fuel shipment for the Bushehr plant.
No image available
/ 17 December 2007
His middle-of-the-road rock and schmaltzy balladry may have opened him up to much mockery over the years. But not in Tehran. Chris de Burgh is to capitalise on his inoffensive image and not inconsiderable following in the Islamic republic by becoming the first major Western artist to perform live since the 1979 revolution.
No image available
/ 16 December 2007
The military wing of Somalia’s Islamist movement plans to intensify its offensive against government troops and their Ethiopian allies, a senior commander said on Sunday. Muktar Ali Robow said al-Shabab had killed nearly 500 Ethiopian soldiers and would fight until foreign troops left the Horn of Africa country.
No image available
/ 16 December 2007
A ”historic” Bali deal. A ”Berlin Wall” dividing rich and poor nations on global warming policy falls. And now comes the hard part. After the praise for the agreement hammered out at the Bali meeting to work out a climate treaty involving all nations by late 2009, governments will have to work out the details.
No image available
/ 15 December 2007
A roadside bomb wounded at least 12 Somali soldiers in Baidoa and two people were killed in violence in Mogadishu on Saturday. The attacks in the capital and the south-central town hosting Somalia’s Parliament came after two days of fighting in Mogadishu between allied Somali-Ethiopian forces and Islamist insurgents.
No image available
/ 15 December 2007
Nearly 200 nations agreed at United Nations-led talks in Bali on Saturday to launch negotiations on a new pact to fight global warming after a reversal by the United States allowed a breakthrough. Washington said the agreement marked a new chapter in climate diplomacy after six years of disputes with major allies since President George Bush pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol
No image available
/ 15 December 2007
India and China objected on Saturday to a draft deal at United Nations talks meant to launch negotiations to fight climate change, saying rich nations should do more to lead the way. ”The need of the hour is for enhanced commitments and instead we see a huge watering down,” said Indian delegate Chandrasekhar Dasgupta.
No image available
/ 14 December 2007
Two convicted terrorists who had been freed in an amnesty carried out this week’s suicide bombings at United Nations and government buildings that killed 37 people, an Algerian security official said. One of the bombers was a 64-year-old man in the advanced stages of cancer, while the other was a 32-year-old from a poor suburb.
No image available
/ 14 December 2007
![]()
The battle to lead the African National Congress (ANC) pits an Aids dissident against a rival who took a shower as a form of safe sex, in a country that has the world’s highest rate of HIV infections. The ANC is electing its new leaders at a conference in Polokwane, Limpopo, that starts on Sunday.
No image available
/ 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.
No image available
/ 14 December 2007
Negotiators at climate talks in Bali on Friday struggled to break a deadlock over United States objections to goals for cutting emissions by dropping a reference to a non-binding 2020 target in draft text. But the European Union insisted the two-week talks, due to end on Friday, should set stiff 2020 guidelines for rich nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
No image available
/ 8 December 2007
United Nations peacekeepers expressed fears on Friday for tens of thousands of displaced people under threat in the latest conflict zone in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Goma, capital of the eastern province of Nord-Kivu, has been rocked by clashes between rebels led by renegade General Laurent Nkunda and army troops.
No image available
/ 8 December 2007
Developing countries led by China squabbled with the West over mandatory emission cuts at the Bali climate-change conference, as activists accused Canada on Saturday of undermining the negotiations by insisting on targets for poor nations. Delegates from nearly 190 nations are attending the December 3 to 14 meeting.
No image available
/ 8 December 2007
A series of six black-and-white prints on display in an unassuming corner of the New York Public Library have sparked controversy on the airwaves and blogosphere quite out of keeping with the dark, marble-lined corridor in which they are hung. The prints show the mugshots of main members of the Bush administration.
No image available
/ 8 December 2007
Senior Israeli officials warned on Friday that they were still considering a military strike against Iran, despite a fresh United States intelligence report that concluded Tehran was no longer developing nuclear weapons. Although Israel says it wants strong diplomatic pressure put on Iran, it is reluctant to rule out the threat of a unilateral attack.
No image available
/ 7 December 2007
The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) representative for Somalia on Friday voiced his concern at the increasing number of rape cases in the country’s war-torn capital, Mogadishu. "Sexual violence and rape are part of the game now," Christian Balslev-Olesen said at a press briefing on the deteriorating access to health in Mogadishu.
No image available
/ 7 December 2007
Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf said on Friday he was in good health after recovering from a bout of pneumonia, and laughed off a flurry of reports he was near death. ”I’m fine, I am OK,” Yusuf said in an exclusive interview from his hospital bed in Nairobi. ”I had pneumonia, but the doctors have taken it out [treated it] and I am well now,” he said.
No image available
/ 7 December 2007
In the interests of the planet, delegates at a climate summit in balmy Bali have cast aside their collars and ties and donned airy clothing, prompting an explosion of batik shirts. Indonesia’s traditional wax-and-dye attire can be spied on every corner at the key United Nations meeting in Bali, a sultry holiday island near the equator.
No image available
/ 7 December 2007
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned that the new 26 000-strong peacekeeping force for Darfur ”is at risk” unless it gets 24 critically needed helicopters and he appealed again to all countries for help. ”While helicopters alone cannot ensure the success of the mission, their absence may well doom it to failure,” Ban said in a letter.
No image available
/ 6 December 2007
Charred bodies and burnt-out trucks still lie on the blackened grass in a valley in eastern Chad two days after the fighting moved further north. Columns of smoke rise up and drift across the smouldering plains beneath Tourka Mountain, a rocky outcrop near the border with Sudan’s Darfur region.
No image available
/ 6 December 2007
Medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières said this week that Angolan soldiers have raped, beaten and tortured illegal Congolese migrant workers before deporting them across the border. The French humanitarian group said the rights abuses were occurring in the diamond-rich northern Angolan province of Luanda Norte.
No image available
/ 6 December 2007
The cost of adopting responsible policies on climate change for global economies could be balanced by the creation of millions of "green jobs," the United Nations said on Thursday. In a statement, UN Environment Programme chief Achim Steiner called for a major boost to so-called clean industries.
No image available
/ 6 December 2007
Somalia’s President Abdullahi Yusuf is recovering from bronchitis in a Nairobi hospital and will fly to Britain for a check-up on his liver transplant, the Somali ambassador to Kenya said on Thursday. Suggestions by some diplomatic sources that Yusuf was in a very serious condition were ”lies”, said envoy Mohamed Ali Nur.
No image available
/ 6 December 2007
Robert Mugabe, a largely unwelcome guest of the European Union at a summit this weekend, is a hero in the eyes of many Africans for daring to stand up to the West and seize land from white farmers. Many in Europe have been left scratching their heads over how Zimbabwe’s president since independence still commands respect.
No image available
/ 6 December 2007
Climate scientists from around the world urged delegates at United Nations-led talks in Bali on Thursday to make deeper and swifter cuts to greenhouse emissions to prevent dangerous global warming. In a declaration, more than 200 scientists said governments had a window of only 10 to 15 years for global emissions to peak and decline.
No image available
/ 5 December 2007
The United States and Africa’s Great Lakes states agreed on Wednesday to rapidly strengthen Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) security forces in their drive against rebel and foreign forces. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave no details when she announced the agreement in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
No image available
/ 5 December 2007
Jubilant Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Wednesday said the United States report confirming his country had abandoned its nuclear weapons programme was a ”declaration of victory”. ”This was a final shot to those who, in the past several years, spread a sense of threat and concern in the world through lies of nuclear weapons.” Ahmadinejad said.