Latest news on the Asia-Pacific region from the United Nations
- A senior United Nations expert is calling on the Government of Cambodia to pay its national staff and help end a strike at the UN-backed tribunal trying Khmer Rouge leaders accused of mass killings and other crimes in the south-east Asian country.
- Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called on the people of the Maldives to ensure that the presidential elections, set for Saturday, are conducted peacefully.
- The head of the United Nations agency tasked with defending press freedom today deplored the killing of reporter Rakesh Sharma in the state of Uttar Pradesh, in northern India, and fallced for a full investigation into his assassination.
- Although the fighting is over, the suffering is not, the United Nations human rights chief today said wrapping up a week-long visit to Sri Lanka where she warned that the country is sowing the seeds of future discord by limiting personal freedoms and human rights.
- The United Nations mission in Afghanistan today condemned the abduction and killing of six civilians in the western province of Herat.
- Preparations for Afghanistan’s 2014 presidential and provincial council polls are further along than previous elections, the top United Nations official in the country today said after meeting with the independent Afghan body organizing the vote.
- The United Nations panel set up to investigate human rights violations in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) will travel to Japan next week to meet with people who fled the country and those knowledgeable about the abductions of Japanese nationals decades ago.
- The United Nations mission in Afghanistan has strongly condemned the killing by a roadside bomb of at least 18 civilians – including eight women, eight children and two men – in the Obeh district of the western province of Herat.
- Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today told a group of Myanmar's international partners that continued support will be vital for the country, which has taken some important steps in the past year, but faces a number of challenges, including national reconciliation and communal violence.
- The international community must keep Eritrea under “close scrutiny”, an independent United Nations expert said today, stressing the need to fundamentally transform the East African nation’s “current culture of rights denial.”
- A United Nations independent expert today welcomed the reforms that have been taking place in Myanmar while stressing that key human rights issues remain unaddressed, particularly in the states of Kachin and Rakhine where violence has displaced thousands of people.
- The number of Afghan civilians killed or injured in 2012 decreased for the first time since the United Nations began keeping track of such figures, according to a report released today, but attacks on women and children, and threats on perceived Government supporters, are on the rise.
- The Government of Eritrea must cooperate with an international mandate to provide “an objective, fair and impartial picture” of the human rights situation in the Horn of Africa country, a United Nations independent expert urged today.