Today’s vote at UNESCO’s General Conference on full membership for Palestine gives an idea of how a United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) vote could go if the membership bid gets that far. More worrying for me is the complete split among European Union member states showing the failure of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). The application for membership was accepted by 107 Yes votes to 14 No votes with 52 Abstentions. The EU was split as follows; Countries...
An interesting possibility has arisen from ALDE MEP’s. They want to move a meeting of the EU-African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Joint Parliamentary Assembly to Brussels according to Euractiv (original in French and English) thereby boycotting Hunagary. This is seen as a democratic protest against the recent media law in Hungary. This law has met with opposition from within and without Hungary. The idea of this boycott came after Belgian MEP Louis Michel, co-chair of the EU-ACP assembly, called...
The Anna Lindh Foundation have issued the following declaration in response to the terror attack a Christian Church in Alexandria, Egypt. The Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the Dialogue between Cultures, which has its international headquarters in Alexandria (Egypt), expresses its deep sadness and pain about the terror attack which affected this city on the night of 31st December. The President of the Foundation, André Azoulay, and all of his team, wish to express their solidarity with the victims,...
Image via Wikipedia After my posts on the UN Security Council Elections I received an interesting email on a “Campaign for a more accountable and democratic UN”. They are campaigning for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly (UNPA). The appeal is quite interesting. A United Nations Parliamentary Assembly (UNPA) for the first time would give citizen representatives, not only states, a direct and influential role in global policy. The assembly would not replace existing UN bodies but...
Image via Wikipedia As promised here are the results from today’s elections at the UN General Assembly to fill 5 non-permanent seats at the UN Security Council. The quota in all elections was 127 based on the fact that 182 members were present and voting. African Group: South Africa 182 Asian Group India 187 Latin America Columbia 186 Western Europe and Other States Round 1 Result: Germany 128 Portugal 122 Canada 114 Round 2 Result: Portugal 113 Canada 78...
Image by Getty Images via @daylife A follow on from this mornings post on the Elections to the five non-permament seats on the UN Security Council. The following countries have been elected: African Group: South Africa Asian Group: India Latin America: Columbia Western European and Other States: Germany and Portugal While the African, Asian and Latin American seats were uncontested, the candidates still needed a two-third majority to be elected.Canada, Germany and Portugal were contesting the Western European and...
Image via Wikipedia Today 5 new members of the of United Nations Security Council will be elected. They will replace Uganda, Japan, Mexico, Turkey and Austria. They will be elected for two years. The African seat is not being contested as South Africa as been endorsed by the African Union and is therefore unopposed. For the Asian seat, India is running unopposed and it is the same in Latin America where Columbia is running unopposed. The only election will...
This time last year the buzz was beginning to build around COP15 that took place in Copenhagen last year. This was going to be when Europe stood up to the rest of the world and set out its plan and hoped to get everyone else on board. Did it work? Nope. Will COP 16 be any different is the big question. We have witnessed 15 Conference’s of the Parties since the signing of the United Nations Framework Convention on...
The European Journalism Centre is back with the next Th!nk About It Competition. This time it will be focusing again on the Climate Change issue in the run up to COP16 in Cancun, Mexico. Here are the details, The EJC’s long-running TH!NK ABOUT IT blogging competition series gears up for its next evolution. As TH!NK3: Developing World’s final reporting trip prepares to take place in Kenya, a new phase of TH!NK is about to unfold. TH!NK team invites YOU...
I received information today about a programme being run by the British Council. It is called “Challenge Europe 2010“. Challenge Europe aspires to make a definite and lasting impact on the climate change debate and is ambitious in its aim to accelerate change to a low carbon future. The philosophy of the campaign is simple: to create momentum through collaboration, innovations, energy, drive passion, understanding and knowledge-sharing They are looking for 15 young people from both sides of the...
Recent Comments