Over 100 million Europeans lack access to safe drinking water, UN says

from UN News Centre

More than 100 million Europeans still lack access to safe drinking water, resulting in the deaths from diarrhoea of nearly 40 children every day, the United Nations reported today, noting that many people across the region do not enjoy the basic human right to healthy water.

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Cypriot leaders agree to direct talks under UN auspices later this month

from UN News Centre

The Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot leaders have agreed to hold direct talks under United Nations auspices in Nicosia on 21 March, the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) announced today.

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Cuban dissident, Kosovo expert nominated for Nobel

from AlertNet

Cuban dissident Oswaldo Paya and former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, who drafted a plan for supervised independence for Kosovo, are among a near-record 197 nominees for the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize.

"Of the total, 164 are individuals and 33 are organisations," Geir Lundestad, head of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, told Reuters. "This is the second highest number -- the most was in 2005 with 199." The secretive five-member committee met on Tuesday to begin narrowing down the field after nominations closed at the start of February. The 10 million Swedish crowns ($1.62 million) award, which can be split up to three ways, will be announced on Oct. 10.

Lundestad declined to give any names of nominees.

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The Brutal Consequences of Unchecked Power

from Human Rights First

For brazen disregard of minimal standards of human decency few things match the Russian government’s vindictive treatment of Vasily Alexanyan, a former vice-president of the Yukos energy conglomerate, currently in prison awaiting trial for alleged money laundering, dying from AIDS. The authorities have been refusing to provide him with the essential life saving medication he needs to treat his illness in an apparent effort to force him to testify against his former Yukos colleagues.

Alexanyan contracted tuberculosis while in prison and has lost his sight. The European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly called on the Russian authorities to allow him to receive the treatment he needs in a properly equipped medical clinic.

At the end of January, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the jailed former Yukos head, declared a hunger strike to protest the denial of treatment to Alexanyan. Khodorkovsky began his hunger strike after being told of Alexanyan's testimony before the Supreme Court, in which he stated that his interrogators said that he would not receive medical attention unless he agreed to provide evidence against Khodorkovsky and others of his Yukos colleagues.

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Kosovo declares independence, Serbia says: Never

from AlertNet

Kosovo Albanians declared independence on Sunday, confidently awaiting Western recognition for their state despite the anger its secession provoked in Serbia and Russia's warnings of fresh Balkan unrest.

Serbia vowed undying but peaceful resistance to the loss of its cherished southern province. Mass protests were being organised for the coming days.

Protesters called "hooligans" by Serb media attacked the U.S. embassy in Belgrade, where riot police drove them back. Three hand-grenades were tossed in the Serb-dominated north of Kosovo, one of them exploding in a U.N. car park.

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As Kosovo Rebuilds, U.N. Hurries to Return Property

from The New York Times

The 9-year-old ethnic Albanian boy screamed until he was red in the face, pounding his fists on the door of a small concrete house that only minutes before he had called home.

“This is my house! Let me in!” he cried, before collapsing outside the front door, freshly sealed with yellow police tape.

The swift eviction of the boy’s family was the work of Toncho Zourlev, a k a the Enforcer, a no-nonsense Bulgarian who leads an eviction squad set up by the United Nations in Kosovo in 2006 to restore properties to their legal owners. To him, the family was simply squatting illegally in a Serbian house.

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