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As UN sanctions bite, North Korean workers leave Chinese border hub

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North Korean workers have begun to leave the Chinese border city of Dandong, after the latest round of sanctions seeking to restrict Pyongyang’s ability to earn foreign currency income, local businesses and traders say. Almost 100,000 overseas workers, based mostly in China and Russia, funnel some 500 million dollar in wages a year to help finance the North Korean regime, the US government says. Dandong, a city of 800,000 along the Yalu River, which defines the border with North Korea. Thousands of workers, most of them women, are also employed by Chinese-owned garment and electronics factories in Dandong, with a significant share of their wages going straight to the North Korean state. In a statement on Thursday, China’s Ministry of Commerce ordered the implementation of the new sanctions across the country within 120 days. The sanctions allow workers to serve out existing contracts. Businesspeople in Dandong, through which most of trade between the two countries flows, said contracts could not be renewed and new visas were not being approved. The sanctions have come as a rude jolt to Dandong businesses and traders who had long rolled with North Korea’s unpredictability but believed their neighbour’s economic reliance on China would keep its belligerence in check.

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China completes registration of 8,000-strong UN peacekeeping force, defence ministry says

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China is set to play a bigger role in United Nations peacekeeping missions while also providing its military with real-life training opportunities after completing the registration of 8,000 troops last week, analysts said. China’s defence ministry spokesman Wu Qian said on Thursday, as required, the standby peacekeeping force would “conduct task-specific and adaptive training in accordance with the UN training standards”. China’s President Xi Jinping promised to make 8,000 troops available to the UN in 2015, at which time he also offered to help train 2,000 peacekeepers from other countries, provide 100 million dollar in military aid to the African Union, and deploy more engineering, transport and medical personnel. The increased numbers of military troops is indicative of Beijing’s desire to play a bigger role in global policing. Miwa Hirono, a professor of Chinese international relations at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan, said the composition of the new peacekeeping force represented a “comprehensive contribution that reflects the current challenges peacekeepers have”. “Maintaining peace and security in conflict areas has become a really important challenge for China, because it has a lot of assets and people in those places”, Hirono said. The government has frequently cited the peacekeeping force as an example of how “China is bearing the international responsibilities of a great power”.

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Iran’s Foreign Minister, UN Chief Meet in New York

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Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres held a meeting at the UN headquarters in New York to discuss various issues. Working to a busy schedule on the sidelines of the 72nd regular session of the UN General Assembly, Foreign Minister Zarif had a meeting with Guterres on Wednesday evening. In the gathering, the two sides discussed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a nuclear agreement between Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany), and the latest regional and international developments.

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Condemnation not enough for Israeli violations against Palestinians

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Saudi Arabia on Monday called on countries around the world to not just denounce Israel’s crimes and violations it commits in the occupied Palestinian territories but to exert more pressure to obligate it to end the occupation. The Kingdom stressed Israel’s accountability for its crimes against the Palestinian people and its violation of the principles of international legitimacy. Abdul Aziz Al-Wasil, Saudi Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, said his country considers the Israeli occupation “the longest occupation witnessed in modern history,” saying it caused the suffering of the Palestinian people who experience the consequences of this occupation and brutal aggression, and continuous violations of their human rights.

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“Terrorism affecting Afghanistan is product of Pakistan’s policy” says Afghan foreign minister

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Afghanistan today didn’t mince words in declaring at the UN that terror in Afghanistan is the “product of (a) long-standing policy” of Pakistan. Afghanistan also said that that terror’s “roots are located in terrorist sanctuaries and safe havens outside” its borders. With its unequivocal declarations, Afghanistan today joined US President Donald Trump, the BRICS countries, Japan and India in naming and shaming Pakistan, a country many have come to call a “terrorist state”. Afghan foreign minister Salahuddin Rabbani  said – at the UNSC’s open debate on Afghanistan – that while Afghanistan has tried to resolve issues with Pakistan, the latter hasn’t responded positively. Rabbani’s comments came a little over a month after Trump outlined his administration’s strategy for Afghanistan where the US has been involved in a long drawn out conflict, since 9/11/2001.

 

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Kosovo can’t join UN, unless we strike some deal – Vucic

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Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Monday that Kosovo’s possible bid to join the UN would “come to nothing”. “I am almost certain that their attempt to join the UN would come to nothing, unless we reach some agreement – and that cannot be done if somebody thinks Serbia should lose everything, while Albanians gain everything”, Vucic told reporters in Krepoljin, near Zagubica, eastern Serbia. According to him, representatives of Pristina had obtained temporary passes in order to be able to enter the UN building in New York City during the recent UN General Assembly. “Five hundred times so far they have made Kosovo a member of the UN”, he said ironically, and added: “And yet they continue to loiter in corridors and pace around. We will continue to do our job, and I would still not bet on them”. According to Beta’s report, Vucic repeated several times that Kosovo’s membership in the UN would not materialize.

 

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Afghanistan strongly reacts at Pakistan PM’s speech at UN General Assembly

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The Afghan government’s mission in the United Nations strongly reacted at the allegations of the Pakistani Prime Minister regarding the terror sanctuaries in Afghanistan by raising questions regarding the safe havens and places where the Al-Qaeda and Taliban founds were killed or died as well as the killing of the former Taliban supreme leader Mullah Akhtar Mansoor. “My delegation is exercising its right of reply because of an erroneous claim by one member-state regarding the presence of safe-havens and sanctuaries in Afghanistan”, the Afghan mission in UN said in a statement. The statement further added “Such reference is a deliberate attempt by the government of Pakistan to divert international attention over Pakistan’s longstanding failure to take effective action against various terrorist groups and sanctuaries on its territory. It remains evidently clear to the global community that the propagation of terrorist activities by State and non-State actors in neighboring Pakistan constitutes the main source of insecurity in our country Afghanistan and the wider region”.

 

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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe tells UN that the time for talk is over on North Korea

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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Wednesday that countries need to unite to enforce sanctions and apply pressure on North Korea to abandon its nuclear and missile programmes. Japanese Prime Minister said:  “Now is not the time for dialogue. Now is the time to apply pressure”, and said: “We can’t be satisfied that the UN has approved new sanctions against North Korea”. “What’s crucial now is to put sanctions into effect without lapses and that requires close cooperation with China and Russia.” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said: “Whether or not we can put an end to the provocations by North Korea is dependent upon the solidarity of the international community”. In contrast, Japan’s Asian rival China and Russia, have called repeatedly for a return to international diplomacy and talks with North Korea to resolve the crisis over Pyongyang’s weapons programmes.

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ISIS must be stopped, says Buhari UNGA

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Delivering Nigeria’s national statement during the General Debate of the 72nd  Session of United Nations General Assembly, UNGA 72, in New York, yesterday, President Buhari assured the international community of Nigeria’s firm and commitment to democracy in the country and Africa. Buhari has said that inequalities within societies and the gap between the rich and the poor nations were the root causes of instability. The President also lamented that the pressing threat to international peace was due to the accelerated nuclear weapons development. This is even as the President called for collaboration from the international community in the efforts to combat corruption and recovery of looted funds. On the need for the sustenance of international collaborative efforts in fighting international terrorism we must collectively devise strategies and mobilise the required responses to stop fleeing ISIS fighters. This will require strong UN cooperation with regional organisations, such as the African Union, The UN should continue to take primary leadership of the maintenance of international peace and security by providing to regional initiatives and peacekeeping operations authorized by the Security Council.

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UN envoy to Libya crafts “action plan” to break political impasse

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The United Nations’ envoy to Libya and Head of its support mission in the country, Ghassan Salame has announced an action plan to end the Libyan political impasse. Salame revealed his crafted action plan on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meetings, where a high-profile meeting on Libya took place Wednesday. According to Salame, the first stage of the plan is to amend the Libyan Political Agreement (LPA). Salame added that the drafting of the plan would begin next week before the convening of a national conference under the UN auspices for all key Libyan actors to join the political process. “The conference brings together all the reluctant players, including House of Representatives and High Council of State as well as many Libyan parties”, he indicated. He explained that in the conference, all participants shall agree on the new members of the reconfigured executive institutions in Libya, adding that post-conference results will see the HoR and the Constituting Drafting Assembly (CDA) working together at the same time.

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