China, Cuba, Russia and Saudi Arabia on Tuesday won three-year seats on the Geneva-based Human Rights Council, the UN’s top rights body, despite concerns about abuses and restrictions on freedoms in all four nations.
Also winning seats on the 47-nation council were Algeria, Britain, France, Mexico, the Maldives, Morocco, Namibia, South Africa, Vietnam and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
The annual election for one-third of the council’s membership was held in the 193-nation UN General Assembly.
South Sudan and Uruguay failed to win election to the council in competitive slates for their respective regional groups. The other regions had uncontested ballots.
The newly elected countries will be on the council from next year through 2016.
US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power said the newly elected members of the council include “some that commit significant violations of the rights the council is designed to advance and protect” and that the election itself was a reminder that the council’s work remains unfinished.
Power did not specify which countries she was referring to.
Peggy Hicks of Human Rights Watch was more specific.
“With the return of China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Cuba, human rights defenders will have their work cut out for them at the Human Rights Council next year,” said Hicks, an expert at the New York-based advocacy group. “Fortunately, no states have a veto in Geneva so a hard-working majority can still achieve concrete results.”
Hicks said members of council that are committed to human rights will need to redouble their efforts on a number of problems. These include the civil war in Syria, accountability for crimes committed during the final months of Sri Lanka’s civil war and the conflict in the Central African Republic.
According to UN Watch, a Geneva-based advocacy group that monitors the UN, only four of the 16 candidates for the 14 open seats were qualified to be members of the council on the basis of their human rights records. They were Britain, France, Macedonia and Mexico.
Iran and Syria had been planning to run for the Human Rights Council, but pulled out amid criticism of their rights records.
Jordan withdrew from the election after Saudi Arabia abandoned its seat on the UN Security Council to protest against the 15-nation body’s inaction on Syria, the Middle East peace process and Iran.
Western diplomats said Jordan stepped aside to allow the Saudis an almost certain victory on the uncontested Human Rights Council voting slate. Despite its withdrawal from the election, Jordan received 16 votes.
Jordan is set to take Saudi Arabia’s Security Council seat, diplomats say, although that would require the General Assembly to hold a special election.
MONEY GRAB: People were rushing to collect bills scattered on the ground after the plane transporting money crashed, which an official said hindered rescue efforts A cargo plane carrying money on Friday crashed near Bolivia’s capital, damaging about a dozen vehicles on highway, scattering bills on the ground and leaving at least 15 people dead and others injured, an official said. Bolivian Minister of Defense Marcelo Salinas said the Hercules C-130 plane was transporting newly printed Bolivian currency when it “landed and veered off the runway” at an airport in El Alto, a city adjacent to La Paz, before ending up in a nearby field. Firefighters managed to put out the flames that engulfed the aircraft. Fire chief Pavel Tovar said at least 15 people died, but
LIKE FATHER, LIKE DAUGHTER: By showing Ju-ae’s ability to handle a weapon, the photos ‘suggest she is indeed receiving training as a successor,’ an academic said North Korea on Saturday released a rare image of leader Kim Jong-un’s teenage daughter firing a rifle at a shooting range, adding to speculation that she is being groomed as his successor. Kim’s daughter, Ju-ae, has long been seen as the next in line to rule the secretive, nuclear-armed state, and took part in a string of recent high-profile outings, including last week’s military parade marking the closing stages of North Korea’s key party congress. Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) released a photo of Ju-ae shooting a rifle at an outdoor shooting range, peering through a rifle scope
South Korea would soon no longer be one of the few countries where Google Maps does not work properly, after its security-conscious government reversed a two-decade stance to approve the export of high-precision map data to overseas servers. The approval was made “on the condition that strict security requirements are met,” the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. Those conditions include blurring military and other sensitive security-related facilities, as well as restricting longitude and latitude coordinates for South Korean territory on products such as Google Maps and Google Earth, it said. The decision is expected to hurt Naver and Kakao
India and Canada yesterday reached a string of agreements, including on critical mineral cooperation and a “landmark” uranium supply deal for nuclear power, the countries’ leaders said in New Delhi. The pacts, which also covered technology and promoting the use of renewable energy, were announced after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney hailed a fresh start in the relationship between their nations. “Our ties have seen a new energy, mutual trust and positivity,” Modi said. Carney’s visit is a key step forward in ties that effectively collapsed in 2023 after Ottawa accused New Delhi
RSS