The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- U.N.'s Ban Ki-moon wants Ireland's Robinson for key Africa post - sources
- Japan PM keeps pledge to mark 1952 return of sovereignty
- Sudan, South Sudan agree to oil flow restart within two weeks - mediator
| U.N.'s Ban Ki-moon wants Ireland's Robinson for key Africa post - sources Posted: 11 Mar 2013 09:04 PM PDT UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The former President of Ireland Mary Robinson is the top candidate for the post of U.N. special envoy to Africa's Great Lakes region, where she would help implement a peace deal to end the conflict in eastern Congo, U.N. sources said on Monday. "She is the front-runner and is very likely to get the job, but it's not a done deal yet," a U.N. official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
A U.N. Security Council diplomat also told Reuters about Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's desire to name Robinson to the post. In addition to having been Ireland's president from 1990-97, Robinson, 68, was the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997-2002. The sources said that Ban hoped to make an announcement soon, though they said there was a slight possibility that Robinson would decide for some reason not to take the post. U.N. peacekeepers in Congo have been stretched thin by the "M23" rebellion in the resource-rich east. A U.N. expert panel has said that M23 was supported by Rwanda and Uganda, though the two countries have vehemently denied it. The U.N. Security Council is considering creating a special intervention force, which one senior council diplomat has said would be able to "search and destroy" the M23 rebels and other armed groups in the country. M23 began taking parts of eastern Congo early last year, accusing the government of failing to honour a 2009 peace deal. That deal ended a previous rebellion and led to the rebels' integration into the army, but they have since deserted. African leaders signed a U.N.-mediated regional accord late last month aimed at ending two decades of conflict in eastern Congo and paving the way for the intervention force. The Congolese government said on Monday it hoped to sign a peace deal with the M23 rebels on March 15, but a rebel leader said more talks were needed. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols and Louis Charbonneau; Editing by Lisa Shumaker) Copyright © 2013 Reuters | ||
| Japan PM keeps pledge to mark 1952 return of sovereignty Posted: 11 Mar 2013 08:09 PM PDT TOKYO (Reuters) - Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government decided on Tuesday to hold a ceremony to mark the restoration of Japan's sovereignty seven years after defeat in World War Two, a sign of his drive to repair what conservatives consider dented national pride. The popular 58-year-old Abe, who returned to office when his party swept back to power in a December poll, wants to revise the post-war, U.S.-drafted pacifist constitution and rewrite Japan's wartime history with a less apologetic tone.
His Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) had pledged in the campaign to make April 28 "Restoration of Sovereignty Day", to mark the day in 1952 when the San Francisco Peace Treaty took effect, formally ending World War Two and the Allied Occupation. "There are an increasing number of young people who do not know that there existed a seven-year occupation period under which Japan lost its sovereignty," Abe told a parliamentary panel on Thursday to explain the plan, Kyodo news agency said. Some Japanese business executives worry that Abe, who has been focusing on policies to revive Japan's stagnant economy, may shift gears to his hawkish security and historical revisionist agenda after a July upper house election that his ruling bloc needs to win to cement its grip on power. Abe enjoys support rates of around 70 percent, largely on hopes for his "Abenomics" mix of big spending and hyper-easy monetary policies, but some political experts question how much backing there was for his parallel non-economic agenda. "I think that for the right, the meaning of Sovereignty Day is to celebrate the end of a foreign occupation that imposed alien ideas and institutions on Japan," said Columbia University political science professor Gerry Curtis. "Abe wants 'regime change' but most Japanese appear happy to have the regime the occupation made possible - democracy, peace, freedom, prosperity - rather than what they had before." The plan has upset some residents of Japan's southern island of Okinawa, which remained under U.S. control for another two decades after 1952. Okinawa is still reluctant host to the bulk of U.S. military forces in Japan. "We should not forget the history of hardships of Okinawa and should continue working on easing Okinawa's burden in hosting the (U.S. military) bases," Kyodo quoted Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga as telling a cabinet meeting in a nod to Okinawan sensitivities. (Reporting by Linda Sieg and Kaori Kaneko; Editing by Michael Perry) Copyright © 2013 Reuters | ||
| Sudan, South Sudan agree to oil flow restart within two weeks - mediator Posted: 11 Mar 2013 07:58 PM PDT ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Sudan and South Sudan have agreed to order the resumption of the flow of southern oil exports through pipelines in Sudan within two weeks, more than a year after Juba shut down its entire output, a mediator said on Tuesday. Landlocked South Sudan, which seceded from Sudan in July 2011, shut down its 350,000 barrel-per-day output in January last year in a dispute with Khartoum over fees.
Both countries depended heavily on oil for revenue and the foreign currency they use to import food and fuel, but disputes over the border and other issues prevented the two from resuming exports. Sudan's chief negotiator Idris Mohammed Abdel Gadir signed a deal with his South Sudanese counterpart Pagan Amum setting out a timeline for resumption of oil after four days of African Union-brokered talks in Addis Ababa. Asked when the orders would be given to resume oil flows, former South African President Thabo Mbeki, who is mediating between the two sides, told reporters: "The instruction to the companies is D-day (March 10) plus 14." The two former civil war enemies agreed at the talks in the Ethiopian capital on Friday to order the withdrawal of their troops from a demilitarized border zone within a week to ease tensions and open the way to resuming the oil exports. South Sudan's president has given those orders, the country's armed spokesman said on Monday. After teetering on the brink of full-scale conflict in April during the worst border clashes since their split, the two countries had agreed in September to set up the buffer zone. However, they did not implement it. Some 2 million people died in Sudan's decades-long north-south civil war, which ended with a 2005 peace deal that paved the way for the South's secession. (Reporting by Aaron Maasho; Writing by Alexander Dziadosz; Editing by Eric Walsh; Editing by Eric Walsh) Copyright © 2013 Reuters |
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