UN Declares 2014 Year Of Solidarity With The Palestinians

Source : http://www.qassam.ps/news-7754-UN_Declares_2014_Year_Of_Solidarity_With_The_Palestinians.html

28-11-2013,08:22 Gaza - The United Nations has declared the year 2014 as a “Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People”, after the resolution passed by 110 votes, with seven countries opposing and 54 abstaining.The UN said it will be working with various governments, organizations and civil society institutions, in 2014, to ensure the urgently needed support to the Palestinian people.In a message read on his behalf, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon called on world countries to translate their solidarity with the Palestinian people by working together for justice and peace.The message of Ki-Moon stated that Israel’s occupation of the rest of historic Palestine in 1967 must end, and stressed on the importance of establishing a sovereign, independent and viable Palestinian State based on the 1967 borders.In November of 2012, the United Nations General Assembly voted in favor of granting Palestine an observer status, a move which indirectly resembled a UN recognition of Palestine as a state. The resolution passed by 138 votes, with nine including the US vote against, and 41 countries absenting.Israeli occupation and the United States were angered by the move, considering it “counterproductive”. Israeli occupation then stopped the transfer of tax money it collects on behalf of the Palestinians at border terminals, and the US froze its financial support.Israeli occupation and its allies are attempting to prevent the Palestinians from joining the International Criminal Court (ICC), as joining the ICC gives the Palestinian Authority the chance to sue Israeli occupation for war crimes against the Palestinian People

UN ready to help talks between Syrian government, opposition

Source :   Voice of Russia

The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the Special Envoy of the UN to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi say that the UN is ready to help the Syrian government and the opposition to start a dialogue.

They said this during their recent meeting in a place called Mont Pelerin in Switzerland.

Mr. Ban and Mr. Brahimi are concerned with the fact that the world community is still unable to make the conflict in Syria end. Besides, both the Syrian government and the opposition undertake many actions that are unlikely to end the conflict, they say.

The conflict in Syria started 2 years ago and has already taken the lives of more than 70,000 people.

Voice of Russia, TASS

UN Chief Blasts Israeli Settlement Activity

Source : RIA Novosti

UNITED NATIONS, February 6 (RIA Novosti) - Israel’s settlement activity on Palestinian territories remains the key obstacle to the resolution of the Middle East conflict, the UN secretary general said.

“Settlement activity is a major obstacle to the two-State solution and must cease immediately,” Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday at the opening of the 2013 session of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.

“I repeat that all settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are illegal under international law and cannot prejudge the outcome of final status negotiations,” he said.

“Negotiations must result in an agreement ending the conflict and the occupation that began in 1967 and leading to two States - Israel and Palestine - living side-by-side in peace, security and mutual recognition of each other’s legitimate rights, including self- determination,” Ban said.

In November 2012, the General Assembly recognized Palestine as a non-member observer state.

The Palestinians are seeking to create an independent state on the territories of West Bank, East Jerusalem, partially occupied by Israel, and the Hamas- controlled Gaza Strip and want Israel to pull from the Palestinian territories occupied after the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.

Israel, however, has refused to return to the 1967 borders and is unwilling to raise the issue of Jerusalem, which it says is the indivisible capital of the Jewish state.