Connect with us
The UN General Assembly on Wednesday elected India, Ireland, Mexico and Norway as non-permanent members of the Security Council for a two-year term.
One non-permanent seat remains to be filled. Kenya and Djibouti, neither of which won the required two-third majority on Wednesday, will enter a run-off on Thursday, said Tijjani Muhammad-Bande, the current General Assembly president, who announced the voting results.
The newly elected members of the Security Council will have a two-year term that begins on Jan. 1, 2021.
The Security Council has 15 members, five of which are permanent ones: Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States. The 10 non-permanent seats of the Security Council are allocated by geographic region, with five replaced each year.
India will replace Indonesia; Ireland and Norway will replace Belgium and Germany; Mexico will replace the Dominican Republic. South Africa will be replaced by the winner in the African group.
Canada, which was running in the Western Europe and Others Group against Ireland and Norway, failed to get a seat. Ireland in this group had the best luck as it won just enough votes to get elected. One vote less would have led to a run-off with Canada.
India and Mexico were running unopposed in their respective regional groups.
A candidate must obtain the support of two-thirds of the member states present and voting at the General Assembly session in order to secure a seat on the Security Council, regardless of whether the candidate is contested or not. This means that a minimum of 129 positive votes are required to win a seat if all 193 UN member states are present and voting.
In Wednesday's voting, India won 184 out of 192 votes; Mexico won 187 out of 187 votes; Norway won 130 out of 191 votes; Ireland won 128 out of 191 votes. Canada won 108 out of 191 votes.
In the African group, Kenya obtained 113 of 192 votes; Djibouti got 78 votes. Neither won the required two-third majority of 128 votes.
The Security Council is considered the most powerful body of the United Nations. The council, which is tasked to maintain international peace and security, can make legally binding decisions and has the power to impose sanctions and authorize the use of force.
(XINHUA)
The United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday in New York, elected four new nonpermanent members into the Security Council for a two-year term beginning on Jan. 1, 2021.
India and Mexico clinched the Asia-Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean seats in the powerful council.
Ireland and Norway each won a seat to represent the “Western European and others” group, beating Canada, the third contestant.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the election into the vacant African seat on the council was inconclusive.
This was because neither of the two contestants, Kenya and Djibouti, secured the required two-third majority votes of 128 to clinch the coveted seat.
While Kenya secured 113 out of the total 192 valid votes cast, Djibouti polled 78 votes.
President of the General Assembly, Amb. Tijani Muhammad-Bande, who announced the results, said another round of election would be held for both countries on Thursday.
NAN reports that the security council is the most powerful organ of the UN as it is the only body that passes legally binding resolutions.
Its powers include imposition of sanctions and authorisation of peacekeeping operations, besides giving members a strong voice on international peace and security issues.
Also elected on Wednesday is Turkish ambassador to the UN, Volkan Bozkir, as President of the 75th session of the General Assembly beginning in September.
Bozkir, who was the sole candidate for the position, secured 178 out of 189 valid votes case. There were 11 abstentions.
His name was initially sent for unanimous approval, but several countries requested a vote, NAN reports.
Wednesday also saw the election of 18 new members of the Economic and Social Council (ECOC), which addresses economic, environmental and human rights issues.
They are Argentina, Austria, Bolivia, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Guatemala, Indonesia, Japan, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Mexico, Nigeria, Portugal, Solomon Islands, United Kingdom and Zimbabwe.
NAN reports that the exercise, held under strict social distancing rules, was the first major election at the UN headquarters since its shutdown in March, to prevent spread of the coronavirus.
The election normally holds during plenary in the General Assembly hall chamber, but on Wednesday members were given time slots to cast their secret ballots.
Edited By: Chinyere Bassey/Maharazu Ahmed (NAN)
The UN General Assembly on Wednesday elected India, Ireland, Mexico and Norway as non-permanent members of the Security Council for a two-year term.
One non-permanent seat remains to be filled. Kenya and Djibouti, neither of which won the required two-third majority on Wednesday, will enter a run-off on Thursday, said Tijjani Muhammad-Bande, the current General Assembly president, who announced the voting results.
Canada, which was running in the Western Europe and Others Group against Ireland and Norway, failed to get a seat.
The newly elected members of the Security Council will have a two-year term that begins on Jan. 1, 2021.
(XINHUA)
India, Ireland, Mexico and Norway were elected non-permanent members of the Security Council on Wednesday.
They will have a two-year term that begins on Jan. 1, 2021.
(XINHUA)
Ireland's home prices continued to grow in April despite the COVID-19 pandemic, showed the figures released by the country's Central Statistics Office (CSO) on Wednesday.
In April, the average home prices in the country inched up by 0.5 percent when compared with the same month of last year while home prices in the country's capital Dublin dipped by 0.1 percent over a year ago.
Nevertheless, the growth rates of home prices in the country had showed a descending tendency in the past three months, indicating a gradual impact of the pandemic on the country's residential property market.
In February, Ireland's home prices went up by 1 percent over a year ago; by March, the year-on-year growth rate dropped to 0.9 percent; in April, the growth rate further fell to 0.5 percent.
The average home prices in Ireland and Dublin had increased by 82.6 percent and 91.7 percent respectively from their lowest levels recorded in early 2013 and early 2012, said the CSO.
Nevertheless, they are still 18.1 percent and 22.6 percent lower than their highest levels in 2007 respectively, it said.
Ireland reported its first confirmed case of COVID-19 at the very end of February. Nearly one month later, the country announced nationwide lockdown measures, which were not eased until mid-May.
Ireland intends to scrap all the restrictive measures in four phases with each lasting three weeks.
(XINHUA)
Ireland's trade surplus with China more than doubled in the first four months of this year compared with the same period last year, showed the latest figures released by the country's Central Statistics Office (CSO).
In the January-April period of this year, Ireland's trade surplus with China stood at 1.808 billion euros (about 2 billion United States dollars), up by 970 million euros or 115.75 percent when compared with the corresponding period of last year.
In the first fourth months of this year, Ireland exported a total of 3.455 billion euros worth of goods to China, up 35.86 percent when compared with a year ago, while its total value of goods imports from China amounted to 1.647 billion euros, slightly down by 3.4 percent year-on-year.
The CSO figures also showed that China was the fifth largest market for both the Irish exported and imported goods in the first four months of this year.
The United States was the largest export market of Ireland in the first four months of this year, with the total value of the Irish goods exported to the country reaching 17.1 billion euros in the period. It's followed by Belgium (5.67 billion euros), Germany (5.64 billion euros) and Britain (4.81 billion euros).
Britain was Ireland's largest market for imported goods. In the first four months of this year, Ireland imported a total of 6.7 billion euros worth of goods from Britain, followed by the United States (4.06 billion euros), France (2.36 billion euros) and Germany (2.17 billion euros). (1 euro = 1.12 United States dollars)
(XINHUA)
European Commissioner for Transport Adina Valean on Tuesday called on Romania to improve the road infrastructure, so as to change the current status of being placed last in the road safety rankings of the European Union (EU).
"Romania is the worst at the moment, but it is not the first year... it has been the worst in terms of road accidents with fatalities, 96 versus 51, the European average of deaths per 1 million inhabitants," the official, an Romanian, said in an interview with TVR, the Romanian state television station.
According to the preliminary figures published last week by the European Commission, Romania, Bulgaria (89 deaths/million inhabitants) and Poland (77/million) reported the highest fatality rates in 2019, while on the other side, Sweden (22/million) and Ireland (29/million) were the EU member states with the best road safety scores.
In the case of Romania, most accidents are in urban areas, with pedestrians and cyclists being the vulnerable population, said the commissioner, underlining that all urban infrastructure must be adapted and local authorities must take measures to increase the safety of pedestrians and cyclists.
According to Valean, the EU has set a new target of road safety for the coming decade -- a 50-percent reduction for deaths and serious injuries by 2030.
(XINHUA)
Malta will lift the public health emergency on June 30, local media reported Tuesday.
Through a Legal Notice issued on Monday evening, Malta's Health Minister and Superintendent of Public Health announced the repealing of a set of measures imposed to curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Malta issued the public health emergency on April 1 without making any announcements and the government had applied it retroactively to March 7, when the Mediterranean island registered its first three cases of the novel coronavirus while COVID-19 was spreading fast across Europe.
The latest Legal Notice comes two days after Prime Minister Robert Abela said on Sunday that Malta will be returning to normality on July 1, when its sole airport and ports will reopen to flights, ferries and cruise ships.
The order is to lift the remaining measures including the closure of schools, the ban on mass public events, the suspension of legal timeframes since all law courts and tribunals had been shut as well as the limit on the maximum number of people allowed to be seen together in public spaces.
The government also published on Monday another Legal Notice permitting travel to and from 22 destinations from July 1. These countries are: Austria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, Italy (with the exception of Emilia Romagna, Lombardy and Piemonte), France (with the exception of Ile-de-France), Slovakia, Switzerland, Greece, Croatia, Spain (with the exception of Madrid, Catalonia, Castilla-La Mancha, Castile and Leon), and Poland.
Restrictions to all other destinations will be lifted by July 15.
(XINHUA)
Learning losses are much greater than previously thought in Britain as about a fifth of Britain's 10 million school children had done no work at home or less than an hour a day during the COVID-19 lockdown, a study by University College London (UCL) has revealed.
According to the study, children locked down at home in Britain spend an average of 2.5 hours each day doing schoolwork.
"The closure of schools, and their only-partial re-opening, constitute a potential threat to the educational development of a generation of children. This new evidence from the Understanding Society COVID survey paints a gloomy picture of lost schooling and low amounts of schoolwork at home," said study lead professor Francis Green.
"Everyone is losing out in this generation, some much more than others. Better home schoolwork provision, and better still an early safe return to school for as many as possible, should now become a top priority for government," said Green.
In addition to the amount of time spent on schoolwork, each type of schoolwork also varies across Britain.
The report showed that pupils in London, the south and east of England and Northern Ireland are receiving more offline schoolwork, such as assignments, worksheets and watching videos, than elsewhere in the country.
Offline schoolwork is lowest in the northeast of England, where the proportion receiving four or more daily pieces is just 9 percent.
Online teaching is most common in London, with 12.5 percent of children receiving four or more online lessons or meetings daily, compared with the countrywide average of 7 percent. The top rate of online provision is especially scarce in Wales, where the proportion is just 2 percent, said the report.
However, the report also found that 20 percent of children on free school meals have no access to a computer at home, comparing with 7 percent for other children.
Over 90 percent of all schoolchildren attending private schools had access to a computer at home and were provided with more offline work: 31 percent of private schools provided four or more pieces compared with 22 percent of state schools.
In addition, in half of private schools, pupils spend four or more hours per day on schoolwork, as opposed to just 18 percent of state schools.
Schools in Britian closed when the lockdown began in March and most pupils will not go back until September at the earliest.
The study used data collected in the last two weeks of April from a special online survey of respondents in the Understanding Society panel, a UK Household Longitudinal Study covering 4,559 children from households throughout Britain.
(XINHUA)
People are seen inside the reopened St. Stephens Green shopping center in Dublin, Ireland, June 15, 2020. (Xinhua)
(XINHUA)
