UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations has decided to confer its top human rights award posthumously on former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who fought to promote democracy and fundamental freedoms in Pakistan, informed sources at U.N. Headquarters said Tuesday. The award will be announced on December 10, the UN Human Rights Day. The occasion also marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The sources said the President of the U.N. General Assembly, Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, would officially communicate the decision to President President Asif Ali Zardari in the next few days. The United Nations human rights awards are intended to “honour and commend people and organizations which have made an outstanding contribution to the promotion and protection of the human rights embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in other United Nations human rights instruments”. UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon will present the award—a metal plaque bearing the UN seal and an artistic design, and engraved with an appropriate citation - at a headquarter ceremony in New York on December 10. The recipients are selected by a special committee comprising the presidents of the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council and the chairs of the Commission on Human Rights, the Commission on the Status of Women, and the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights. Unlike the Nobel prizes - and the list of awardees shares much common ground with the Nobel Peace Prize in particular - the UN’s awards are non-monetary in nature.
Friday, August 14, 2009 MUMBAI: A 26-year-old woman died Thursday of H1N1 swine flu in the southern city of Bangalore, raising India's death toll from the virus to 20, authorities said.The death was the first reported in India's information technology capital, the Press Trust of India reported.Meanwhile in Pune, the worst-affected in India, two more victims of the virus died Thursday, raising the death toll in that western city near Mumbai to 12, the report said. The victims were an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old old woman.US media reported movie halls, schools and colleges were ordered closed Thursday for three days to a week in Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of the country, as fear of the pandemic spread.Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said similar orders were issued in Pune, which is also located in the state.The woman who died in Bangalore was identified only as Roopa, a teacher in...
Comments