UN to examine UK and US drone strikes

Strikes will be studied to assess extent of any civilian casualties, identity of militants targeted and legality of actions.

A United Nations investigation into targeted killings will examine drone strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, according to the British lawyer heading the inquiry.
Ben Emmerson QC, a UN special rapporteur, will reveal the full scope of his review which will include checks on military use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in UK operations in Afghanistan, US strikes in Pakistan, as well as in the Sahel region of Africa where the conflict in Mali has erupted. It will also take evidence on Israeli drone attacks in Palestinian territories.
About 20 or 30 strikes – selected as representative of different types of attacks – will be studied to assess the extent of any civilian casualties, the identity of militants targeted and the legality of strikes in countries where the UN has not formally recognised there is a conflict.
The inquiry will report to the UN general assembly in New York this autumn. Depending on its findings, it may recommend further action. Emmerson has previously suggested some drone attacks – particularly those known as "double tap" strikes where rescuers going to the aid of a first blast have become victims of a follow-up strike – could possibly constitute a "war crime".
The inquiry will be co-ordinated through Emmerson's UN office in Geneva. Among the team of experts working with him will be the former director of public prosecutions, Lord Macdonald QC, a former prosecutor at the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, and Dr Nat Cary, one of the UK's most experienced pathologists who specialises in the interpretation of injuries caused by explosions.

U.N. Says Taliban Raised $400 Million Last Year

The Taliban raised about $400 million last year from sources that included donations, taxing local economies and extorting money from such targets as drug dealers, cellphone operators and aid projects, a U.N. report on the militant Islamist group said.

UN Launches International Small Arms Control Standards

More than a decade after Member States agreed on a comprehensive programme of action aimed at eradicating the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons, the United Nations this week launched international standards to provide further impetus to that work.

The International Small Arms Control Standards (ISACS) were launched during a global meeting in New York that is examining how well States are implementing the action programme they agreed in 2001, formally known as the Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects.

About 526,000 people lose their lives every year due to armed violence, which is commonly fuelled by illicit weapons. That is the equivalent of one person dying violently every minute.

Russia to Back Pakistani Draft on Syria Monitor Mission

Russia will support a draft resolution on a technical extension of the UN observer mission in Syria for 45 days, Russia’s UN envoy Vitaly Churkin said.
The draft was submitted on Thursday by Pakistan after the UN Security Council came to a deadlock over ways to resolve the current political crisis in Syria.
“The Pakistani text [of the draft resolution] is definitely good and we will support it,” Churkin said.
Britain has also drafted a new resolution to extend the UN mission in Syria "for a final period of 30 days."
The UN Security Council is expected to vote on both drafts on Friday.
Russia on Thursday withdrew its draft resolution on Syria, which backed UN special envoy Kofi Annan’ six-point peace plan and, together with China, vetoed a Western-backed draft over fears that it could lead to foreign military intervention in the violence-wracked Middle East country.
Latest global media reports of spiraling violence in Syria say that the opposition forces have torched and looted the main police headquarters in the heart of old Damascus. The rebels have also captured a number of crossings on the country's borders with Turkey and Iraq.
According to UN data, based on reports by Syrian rights activists, some 16,000 people have died in Syria since the start of the revolt against President Bashar Al-Assad’s regime 17 months ago.

Spain to withdraw half its troops from UNIFIL in Lebanon

Spain has had about 1,100 troops in Lebanon since 2006 as part of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

Spain will withdraw up to half of its military contingent in Lebanon by the end of the year, Defense Minister Pedro Morenes said Tuesday, justifying the decision partly on budget cuts demanded by the country's economic crisis.

Spain has had about 1,100 troops in Lebanon since 2006 as part of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). That outfit was originally created in 1978 to restore peace and security after Israel's withdrawal from the country.

A large part of the mission's goals had been achieved, Morenes said. He also justified the withdrawal on Spain's economic constraints, which forced the government to "rationalize" defense costs.

The initial plan had been to pull out half of the troops in 2013.

UN drops Saudi dissident from al Qaeda blacklist

UNITED NATIONS: A UN Security Council committee is removing Saudi dissident Saad al-Faqih from the United Nations’ al Qaeda sanctions list, despite strong objections from Saudi Arabia, a UN diplomat said on Sunday.
The London-based Faqih was added to the list in December 2004, days after the US Treasury Department hit him with sanctions for suspected links to the late Osama bin Laden’s militant network, which was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States in 2001.
The decision to de-list Faqih came after the 15-nation Security Council’s sanctions committee failed to reach a consensus to override the UN’s al Qaeda-sanctions-list ombudsman, who had recommended removing Faqih from the UN blacklist, the diplomat told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Reuters reported on Saturday that the removal of Faqih from the UN blacklist appeared imminent. One envoy said Faqih’s de-listing was expected to take effect at midnight New York time (0400 GMT).
Faqih told Reuters in London it had been “a laborious battle” to get him off the list.
“All that has happened in the last eight years is that an innocent, peaceful activist, acting within the law, has been a victim of a conspiracy by tyrants in the Gulf supported by superpowers,” he said.
Formerly a professor of medicine at a Saudi university, the exiled dissident heads the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia and has insisted that he and his group are committed to peace.
Faqih is an outspoken critic of the Saudi leadership.
Prior to Faqih’s de-listing, there were 252 individuals and 69 entities or groups on the UN’s al Qaeda sanctions list, including Faqih. All individuals on the list are subject to asset freezes and an international travel ban.
Saudi Pressure
Britain, Faqih’s current host, was one of only four council members that supported the recommendation of the al Qaeda sanctions committee ombudsman, Kimberly Prost of Canada, that Faqih be taken off the blacklist, despite strong objections from Riyadh, diplomats said on condition of anonymity.
Council diplomats said The United States was among the 11 council members that supported the Saudis and opposed taking Faqih off the blacklist. A spokesman for Saudi Arabia’s UN mission did not respond to a request for comment.
The other three countries supporting Prost’s recommendation, the envoys said, were Germany, South Africa and Guatemala.
“The Saudis were pushing really hard against the idea of de-listing al-Faqih,” a diplomat told Reuters. “I don’t think the decision in London (to support de-listing) was an easy one.”
A spokesman for the British mission to the United Nations declined to comment because he said the committee’s proceedings are confidential.
The al Qaeda sanctions list has been criticized by human rights advocates, who say it has proven virtually impossible to be removed from it.
Last year, the Security Council expanded the powers of the ombudsman, giving the office the authority to recommend removal of people from the blacklist. Council members must agree unanimously to override the recommendation or call for the council to take up the issue.
When the US Treasury Department blacklisted Faqih in 2004, it said he had “maintained associations with the al Qaeda network since the mid-1990s, including an individual associated with the 1998 East Africa embassy bombings.”
Earlier this year, Faqih criticized Saudi Arabia’s rulers in an editorial in Britain’s Guardian newspaper and predicted that the Arab Spring uprising, which began last year in the Middle East and North Africa, would reach Saudi Arabia.

July UN Meeting to Discuss Global Arms Trade Treaty

Delegates from more than 150 countries are to meet next month (July 2-27) at the United Nations in New York to draft a global arms trade treaty.

The proposed legally-binding treaty would set international standards to regulate the import, export and transfer of conventional weapons - from aircraft carriers to machine guns and small arms. Major arms exporters, such as the United States, and major importers, such as India, will participate.

Daryl Kimball, head of the Arms Control Association, a private research firm, said “there is more regulation today of agricultural items like bananas than we have for the sale of conventional weapons that kill people every day through armed violence in various parts of the world.”

ARMS AND AMMO TREATY

In addition to conventional weapons, experts such as Scott Stedjan, senior policy adviser with Oxfam America, said the treaty must also include ammunition.

"Every year, there are about 12 billion bullets produced throughout the world. And the value of that trade globally is around four billion dollars - in excess of $4 billion,” he said.

Stedjan said it is essential to have an international treaty regulating the arms and ammunition trade.

“The current international system on arms imports and exports is a patchwork system where there are some governments that have extensive controls on the arms trade. And there are some governments who have almost nothing - or there are some governments who have absolutely nothing," Stedjan said.

"Right now, less than half of the world’s governments have even basic controls on the export of small arms - only about 50 or so governments have any sort of controls on arms brokers within their borders," he added.

WHAT THE TREATY SHOULD INCLUDE

Analysts said the treaty must include a commonly-understood set of export licensing rules that all states must follow.

Daryl Kimball of the Arms Control Association said the U.N. pact must also address another issue. “What are the criteria that are listed in the treaty that states must consider before approving an arms transfer," he asked.

"There is wide support for criteria that require states to look at the impact of the transfer on humanitarian law, human rights law and also to make sure that the arms transfer doesn’t violate directly or indirectly any international arms embargo,” Kimball said.

Experts agreed that the conflict in Syria will be on the minds of many delegates as they discuss a global arms treaty.

THE RUSSIAN DIMENSION

Russia - a major international arms dealer and Syria’s main weapons provider - will have a delegation at the conference.

Kimball said Moscow continues to abide by the weapons sale contracts it signed with Damascus before the conflict began.

"This arms trade treaty, even an ideal arms trade treaty, will not necessarily prevent Russia from selling weapons to a government like the Assad regime," he said.

"But it will make it far more difficult for Russia to do this behind closed doors, in the dark. And it will make it more difficult for Russia to justify its actions, if it has signed up to a treaty whose intent is to force governments to consider human rights when authorizing arms transfers,” Kimball added.

Recently, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice said while “reprehensible,” Russia’s arms sales to Syria are legal. And Russian officials, including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, have consistently said the weapons provided to Syria do not contribute to the armed violence in that country. But many western military analysts said the weapons provided by Russia to Syria could be used against civilians.

UN Says Civilian Death Rate in Afghanistan is Unacceptable

by Larry Freund May 31, 2012
NEW YORK - The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) says civilian casualties from the Afghan conflict remain at "unacceptably high levels" despite a 21-percent drop in conflict-related deaths during the first four months of this year.
In a report released Thursday, UNAMA said 2011 marked the fifth year in a row in which civilian casualties increased in Afghanistan. The group said it documented more than 3,000 civilian deaths last year, three-quarters linked to violence by anti-government forces.
The continued violence has raised concerns about the ability of Afghan forces to handle security beyond 2014, when most NATO forces are planning to conclude their combat role.
Brookings Institution Foreign Policy Senior Fellow Michael O'Hanlon says he does not expect a significant decrease in the conflict-related deaths in the near future.
"I am just not persuaded that there is any realistic hope that the numbers are going to go down that much in the next two or three years," said O'Hanlon. "I think that unless the Taliban decides to be serious about peace talks, we are probably going to have to hope the numbers just don't get much worse as we carry out a transition to primary Afghan responsibility for security throughout the country."
UNAMA said improvised explosive devices (IED's), used by anti-government forces, were the single largest killer of civilians, accounting for one-third of the deaths.
On Wednesday, the group said it had documented 579 civilian deaths for the first four months of 2012, a one-fifth decrease compared to the same time last year. However, it said the region's harsh winter may have contributed to the decrease.
Meanwhile, Afghan officials say explosions killed at least seven police officers on Thursday.
A spokesman for the provincial governor in Kandahar province says a car bombing at a police checkpoint in Argistan killed at least five officers.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Kandahar is the birthplace of the Taliban, which earlier this month announced the start of a spring offensive.
Afghan officials say a second explosion at a checkpoint in Jalalabad killed two police officers.

Chinese WZ551/Type 92 IFV in Southern Sudan

WZ551/Type92 IFV seems to be a common sign in Southern Sudan. In addition to serving with the PLA UN Engineering Battalion as part the UNAMID, it is also serving with the Zambians peacekeepers in the same region.