organization:security council

Aujourd’hui, on débat au Conseil de sécurité des Nations Unies de la situation au Moyen-Orient y compris la question palestinienne

UN Live United Nations Webcast - Live Now - Security Council : The situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question
►http://webtv.un.org/live-now/watch/security-council:-the-situation-in-the-middle-east-including-the-palestinian-question/1686152121001

L’ONU s’inquiète de la direction « à éviter à tout prix » que prend le conflit israélo-palestinien

►http://www.un.org/apps/newsFr/storyF.asp?NewsID=29196&Cr=palestine&Cr1=

PO : le dialogue palestino-israélien irremplaçable (Moscou)
►http://fr.rian.ru/world/20121015/196323202.html

Sudan and South Sudan: a Civilised Divorce

►http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/190-issues/51976-sudan-and-south-sudan-a-civilised-divorce.html

By Ahmed Badawi
African Arguments
October 3, 2012

Sudan and South Sudan: a Civilised Divorce
( Security Council Issues )

A landmark cooperation agreement has been signed between the governments of Sudan and South Sudan last week. After years of civil war and the shutdown of South Sudan’s oil production in January, the agreement includes the restart of oil exports and a demilitarized border zone. Despite these achievements, Washington has pointed out that both countries still need to decide on an agreement on the border areas of the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile state. However, the US economic sanctions on Sudan and its inclusion of Sudan on the US terrorism list clearly mark the US’ own national and economic interests in the region.

Divorce with kids involved is often a painful affair. But once the recriminations have been cast and the tears have dried, the two protagonists, it’s hoped, will work together for a common good: providing their children – and themselves – with a stable environment to move on and thrive. And that’s exactly what the slew of landmark cooperation agreements (see them here) just signed between the governments of the ‘Two Sudans’ represents for their respective populations, a year or so on from the birth of South Sudan.

#soudan #sud-soudan #frontières

The Forgotten Palestinians
►http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/189-israel-palestine/51844-the-forgotten-palestinians.html

The Forgotten Palestinians
( Security Council and Israel/Palestine )
2-15-6eca7palestine
Picture Credit: ramallahonline.com

On May 15, the New York Times published an article by Aaron David Miller entitled “Preserving Israel’s Uncertain Status Quo.” Miller’s picture of Israel as a struggling democratic state facing external threats presents the usual bland confection. Miller fails to address the genuine threats that are affecting hopes for peace and promoting extremist ideas within the country: Israeli police attacks on J14 demonstrators in Tel Aviv; trends towards greater economic inequality, the expansion of the separation wall, the continued siege of the Gaza Strip; and Israel’s categorical backing of violent West Bank settlers.

By Patrick O. Strickland
Counterpunch
August 20, 2012

On May 15, the New York Times ran an editorial authored by Aaron David Miller under the title of “Preserving Israel’s Uncertain Status Quo.” Miller argues that the Israeli government’s attempts to achieve a “more peaceful and prosperous future” must “count for something.”

In his discursive analysis of the contemporary political climate, Miller unfolds an unabridged list of threats to Israel: the Israeli social justice movement, the Syrian uprising, the Egyptian ousting of Hosni Mubarak, Iran, the security vacuum in the Sinai, ultra-Orthodox Jewish Israelis, and ‘Arab Israelis’ (which is, of course, a crass euphemism intended to disavow the collective identity of Palestinian citizens of Israel).

Cataloging this exhaustive account of dangers, he resorts to a number of boorish clichés and Western media assumptions. Indeed, despite Israel’s malicious enemies, he argues, “the Israelis will prosper and keep their state, but the Arabs and the Iranians will never let them fully enjoy it.”

#palestine #israel

Russie défense Arctique Base navale Transport

Russia to Set Up Naval Infrastructure in Arctic on Northern Sea Route – Patrushev | RIA Novosti

►http://en.ria.ru/mlitary_news/20120806/175015455.html

Russia will create several infrastructure hubs along the Northern Sea Route in the Arctic to be used as temporary stations for Russian warships and border guard vessels, Security Council chief Nikolai Patrushev said on Monday.

The authorities have drafted a list of “key double-purpose sites in remote areas of the Arctic seas along the Northern Sea Route” to enable “temporary stationing of Russian Navy warships and vessels operated by the Federal Security Service’s Border Guard Department,” Patrushev said during a meeting with officials in Siberia.

carlbildt
There is a dangerous escalation of violence in Syria. The Security Council must consider further steps and do it soon. ►http://t.co/m6w1bF9f

Syria: Stop Grave Abuses of Children
Secretary General’s Report Should Prompt Security Council Sanctions

(New York) – The United Nations Security Council should impose an arms embargo and other targeted sanctions, including asset freezes and travel bans, on the Syrian leadership in response to widespread killings and other grave violations against children. A report from the secretary-general to the Security Council on June 11, 2012, on children and armed conflict highlights violations against children by Syrian Armed Forces, intelligence forces, and pro-government militias. The violations, in a climate of total impunity, include targeted killings, torture of children in detention, the use of children as human shields, and attacks on schools and their use for military operations.

to read more:
►http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/06/11/syria-stop-grave-abuses-children

Heavy weapons, armor-piercing bullets and surveillance drones have been used against UN observers in Syria to hamper their efforts to monitor the worsening conflict, UN leader Ban Ki-moon told a Security Council meeting on Thursday.

Diplomats inside a closed council briefing on Syria quoted Ban as saying the tactics had been used to try to force the unarmed monitors to withdraw from areas where government forces have been accused of staging attacks.

To read more: ►http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=406754

UKUN_NewYork
Closed Security Council consultations on #Syria with #UN Sec-Gen Ban Ki-moon & Joint Special Envoy Kofi Annan have begun

Sky News: Syria Massacre In Hama: Assad Blamed For New Massacre As Kofi Annan Briefs Security Council | World News | S ►http://t.co/bnK7kwUx

LeShaque
#Syria News TV: This massacre took place the night before the Security Council meeting and the perpetrators planned it to increase pressure.

Security Council Press Statement on Attacks in Syria
►http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2012/sc10658.doc.htm

The members of the Security Council condemned in the strongest possible terms the killings, confirmed by United Nations observers, of dozens of men, women and children and the wounding of hundreds more in the village of El-Houleh, near Homs, in attacks that involved a series of Government artillery and tank shellings on a residential neighbourhood. The members of the Security Council also condemned the killing of civilians by shooting at close range and by severe physical abuse. The members of the Security Council extended their profound sympathies and sincere condolences to the families of the victims, and underscored their grave concern about the situation of civilians in Syria.

Such outrageous use of force against civilian population constitutes a violation of applicable international law and of the commitments of the Syrian Government under United Nations Security Council resolutions 2042 (2012) and 2043 (2012) to cease violence in all its forms, including the cessation of use of heavy weapons in population centres. The members of the Security Council reiterated that all violence in all its forms by all parties must cease. Those responsible for acts of violence must be held accountable. The members of the Security Council requested the Secretary-General, with the involvement of UNSMIS [United Nations Supervision Mission in Syria], to continue to investigate these attacks and report the findings to the Security Council.

U.N. leaders consider world tax to fund social protection, services | Deseret News
►http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705398584/UN-leaders-consider-world-tax-to-fund-social-protection-services.html?s

Outside the United Nations headquarters, hundreds of people were shouting and waving banners Tuesday that read “China and Russia – No Veto.” These people wanted support from the Security Council of the U.N. to oust the President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad.

Inside the U.N., another group of civil society leaders demanded a basic level of social security as they promoted a “social protection floor” at a preparatory forum for the Commission on Social Development, which began Feb. 1.

The focus of the forum was “universal access to basic social protection and social services.”

“No one should live below a certain income level,” stated Milos Koterec, President of the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. “Everyone should be able to access at least basic health services, primary education, housing, water, sanitation and other essential services.”

These services were presented at the forum as basic human rights equal to the rights of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

The money to fund these services may come from a new world tax.

Syria and the Arab League II: The Motives | As‘ad AbuKhalil
►http://english.al-akhbar.com/blogs/angry-corner/arab-league-and-syria-motives

The Arab League acted only because the US failed to obtain a vote in the Security Council. The League is now a useful tool for US foreign policies and wars. The irony is that the League (under the former clownish direction of Amr Mousa) gave legitimacy to NATO bombing of a member state and has now gotten in the business of surrendering the “joint defense” of the Arabs to an outside force. Arab countries in the League are all committed to the “Joint Defense Pact” which has been ignored in numerous inter-Arab wars and in foreign invasions against one Arab state, with the support of some Arab states.

Let us remember that the Syrian regime has no credibility in this matter at all, as it joined the US coalition in 1990-91 to attack Iraq and its army. The same game that the Syrian government is complaining about, was perfected by the Saudi, Egyptian, and Syrian regimes in 1990.

The Arab League’s motives are not related to the plight of the Arab uprisings. They are part of US regional orders. They are also part of the rising ambition of the emirate of Qatar (more on this factor in the next article): it now wants to prove to the US that it can be as subservient and loyal to US imperial interests as Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Qatar, in other words, is proving its usefulness to the US (and Israel). The Arab League has proven that it can only be allowed to be relevant to the extent to which it can strictly follows US dictates. That is why it is preferable that the Arab League remain irrelevant.

Maan News Agency: Bosnia presidents ’cannot agree’ on UN bid
►http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=433150

In a statement after meeting Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman in Sarajevo, the triumvirate said it had so far been unable to reach a joint position on the Palestinian application, reflecting the country’s own ethnic divisions.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki is expected to arrive in Sarajevo on Friday to ask for Bosnia’s vote as a temporary member of the Security Council and the admissions committee currently discussing the issue.

[...]

Lieberman openly lobbied Serbs in Bosnia’s autonomous Serb republic last summer, when he spent a week of his holiday in the main town Banja Luka, promising investment and financial support to the impoverished region.

The Real Story of How Israel Was Created by Alison Weir — Antiwar.com
►http://original.antiwar.com/alison-weir/2011/10/10/the-real-story-of-how-israel-was-created

The common representation of Israel’s birth is that the U.N. created Israel, that the world was in favor of this move, and that the U.S. governmental establishment supported it. All these assumptions are demonstrably incorrect.

In reality, while the U.N. General Assembly recommended the creation of a Jewish state in part of Palestine, that recommendation was non-binding and never implemented by the Security Council.

Second, the General Assembly passed that recommendation only after Israel proponents threatened and bribed numerous countries in order to gain a required two-thirds of votes.

Third, the U.S. administration supported the recommendation out of domestic electoral considerations and took this position over the strenuous objections of the State Department, the CIA, and the Pentagon.

The passage of the General Assembly recommendation sparked increased violence in the region. Over the following months the armed wing of the pro-Israel movement, which had long been preparing for war, perpetrated a series of massacres and expulsions throughout Palestine, implementing a plan to clear the way for a majority-Jewish state.

It was this armed aggression, and the ethnic cleansing of at least three-quarters of a million indigenous Palestinians, that created the Jewish state on land that had been 95 percent non-Jewish prior to Zionist immigration and that even after years of immigration remained 70 percent non-Jewish. And despite the shallow patina of legality its partisans extracted from the General Assembly, Israel was born over the opposition of American experts and of governments around the world, who opposed it on both pragmatic and moral grounds.

Let us look at the specifics.

Ici, Obama compare la « menace de massacre » en Libye et les massacres du XXe siècle. Il se vante donc devant l’Assemblée générale des Nations unies d’avoir outrepassé une résolution du Conseil de sécurité des Nations unies.

Full transcript of Obama’s speech at UN General Assembly - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News
►http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/full-transcript-of-obama-s-speech-at-un-general-assembly-1.385820

And when they were threatened by the kind of mass atrocity that often went unchallenged in the last century, the United Nations lived up to its charter. The Security Council authorized all necessary measures to prevent a massacre.

UN ’plan for post-Gaddafi Libya’ leaked - Al Jazeera
►http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2011/08/20118291127750603.html
#Libye : d’après Inner City Press, les Nations unies ont un plan pour l’après-Kadhafi, et un argument particulièrement spécieux pour justifier le maintien de l’#OTAN :

“The Security Council’s ’protection of civilians’ mandate implemented by NATO forces does not end with the fall of the Gaddafi government, and there, NATO would continue to have some responsibilities.”

UN Says Mass Rape in DR Congo Could Be Crimes against Humanity

►http://www.globalpolicy.org/security-council/index-of-countries-on-the-security-council-agenda/democratic-republic-of-congo/50548-un-says-mass-rape-in-dr-congo-could-be-crimes-against-humanity.h

UN Says Mass Rape in DR Congo Could Be Crimes against Humanity
( Security Council and Congo )

Hundreds of civilians, mostly women, have been raped in the DRC within the last year. The use of rape by armed groups has been labeled by the UN as a weapon of war and terror. A UN report has stressed that targeted and systematic sexual violence could be considered as crimes against humanity and war crimes. The UN is now asking the Congolese government to take legal actions against the perpetrators and offer more protection to the victims.

#droitshumains #viols #congo #rdc

ZCommunications | Libyan Developments by Gilbert Achcar | ZNet Article
►http://www.zcommunications.org/libyan-developments-by-gilbert-achcar

Now there are not enough safeguards in the wording of the resolution to bar its use for imperialist purposes. Although the purpose of any action is supposed to be the protection of civilians, and not “regime change,” the determination of whether an action meets this purpose or not is left up to the intervening powers and not to the uprising, or even the Security Council. The resolution is amazingly confused. But given the urgency of preventing the massacre that would have inevitably resulted from an assault on Benghazi by Gaddafi’s forces, and the absence of any alternative means of achieving the protection goal, no one can reasonably oppose it. One can understand the abstentions; some of the five states who abstained in the UNSC vote wanted to express their defiance and/or unhappiness with the lack of adequate oversight, but without taking the responsibility for an impending massacre.

Pas d’accord avec Gilbert Achkar, mais l’entretien est intéressant.

#Libye

BBC News - US vetoes UN resolution condemning Israeli settlements
►http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12512732

The US has vetoed an Arab resolution at the UN Security Council condemning Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories as an obstacle to peace.

All 14 other members of the Security Council backed the resolution, which had been endorsed by the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

It was the first veto exercised by the Obama administration which had promised better relations with the Muslim world.

L’équipe du prix Nobel de la paix œuvre, à nouveau, pour la paix.

Clinton : “Washington Opposes Security Council Move Against Israeli Settlement Activities” - International Middle East Media Center
►http://www.imemc.org/article/60475

U.S Secretary Of State, Hilary Clinton stated Thursday that the White House rejects the proposal that was submitted by the Palestinian Authority to the United Nations in an attempt to condemn Israel’s settlement activities in the occupied territories.

#Israël #Palestine #Hilary_Clinton #États-Unis #ONU