Urgent need for ‘Global Green New Deal’: UN

NAIROBI: The United Nations called Monday on rich nations to forge a “Global Green New Deal” that puts the environment, climate change and poverty reduction at the heart of efforts to reboot the world economy.

Leaders from the Group of 20 nations, meeting in April, should commit at least one percent of gross domestic product over the next two years to slashing carbon emissions, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said in a report released at the opening of its world forum in Nairobi.

“Reviving the world economy is essential, but measures that focus solely on this objective will not achieve lasting success,” the UNEP cautioned, invoking the US New Deal launched by Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s. “Unless new policy initiatives also address other global challenges — reducing carbon dependency, protecting ecosystems and water resources, alleviating poverty — their impact on averting future crises will be short-lived.”

UN chief to set up panel to probe Israel's bombing in Gaza

UNITED NATIONS: Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has informed the Security Council of his intention to establish a commission to look into Israel's bombing of UN facilities in Gaza, the Council's president said Monday.

The UN chief made the announcement in a closed-door briefing to the Security Council about his recent overseas visit to Africa, Europe, the Middle East and South Asia, Council president for February, Japan's UN Ambassador Yukio Takasu, told reporters in New York.

Ban said that he will inform the Council of the panel's composition in the next few days and that a report will be presented to the Council on the its findings, Takasu said.

Palestine's UN observer Riyad Mansour told reporters that the commission will be composed of four individuals and a member of the Secretariat and will be headed by Ian Martin, a former president of Amnesty International and the current special representative of the secretary-general in Nepal for the UN Mission there.

"The fact that the secretary-general will report back to the Council is another indication that the Council will remain engaged on this phase of investigation of the crimes committed by Israel against the Palestinian people and the properties of the United Nations, and the crimes against humanity," Mansour said, adding that Ban's move is "a step in the right direction of investigating crimes committed by Israel."

When the commission submits its report to the Security Council, it will be the responsibility of the Council to decide what to do with it, he said. Mansour also said that the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), which had also decided to establish a commission, "may be in the final stages of putting that commission together to go and have a larger scope investigation."