UNITED NATIONS: Britain has blocked the UN webcast of an informal Security Council meeting on Wednesday after Russia signaled its commissioner for children’s rights — who the International Criminal Court wants to arrest on war crimes charges — would speak, diplomats said.
Russia has told council members in a note, seen by Reuters on Tuesday, that the discussion about Ukraine will focus on “evacuating children from conflict zone” and signaled that the commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, will address the meeting.
Such meetings are held at UN headquarters, but not in the Security Council chamber, and briefings can be done virtually. All 15 council members have to agree to allow it to be webcast by the United Nations.
Britain blocked the webcast because Russia would not confirm who would brief, diplomats said on Tuesday. Russia’s Deputy UN Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy confirmed Britain’s move on Twitter.
“Russia will from now on block UN webcasts of all similar meetings citing ‘UK censorship clause’,” Polyanskiy wrote.
Russia has not yet confirmed who will speak at the briefing.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) last month issued an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Lvova-Belova, accusing them of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine and the unlawful transfer of people to Russia from Ukraine since Moscow invaded on Feb. 24, 2022.
Moscow has not concealed a program under which it has brought thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia but presents it as a humanitarian campaign to protect orphans and children abandoned in the war zone.
Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told reporters last month that the informal meeting of Security Council members to be held on Wednesday had been planned long before the ICC announcement and it was not intended to be a rebuttal of the charges against Putin and Lvova-Belova.
Diplomats have said it is rare for a UN webcast to be blocked. However, last month China blocked the UN webcast of a US-convened informal Security Council meeting on human rights abuses in North Korea.
Britain blocks UN webcast of Russian meeting on Ukraine
https://arab.news/9qjpe
Britain blocks UN webcast of Russian meeting on Ukraine
- Russia has told council members in a note that the discussion about Ukraine will focus on "evacuating children from conflict zone"
- Britain blocked the webcast because Russia would not confirm who would brief, diplomats said on Tuesday
Bangladesh summons Myanmar envoy after border clashes
- A dozen villages in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district have been affected by the violence
DHAKA: Bangladesh on Tuesday summoned the ambassador of Myanmar after civil war gun battles in the neighboring country spilled over the border, wounding a Bangladeshi girl.
Heavy fighting in Myanmar’s Rakhine state this month has involved junta soldiers, Arakan Army fighters and Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army militia guerrillas.
Authorities said around a dozen villages in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district have been affected by the violence.
Twelve-year-old Huzaifa Afnan was struck by a bullet, while a Bangladeshi fisherman had his leg ripped off after stepping on a landmine near the frontier.
“Bangladesh reminded that the unprovoked firing towards Bangladesh is a blatant violation of international law and a hindrance to good neighborly relations,” a Foreign Ministry press statement said.
Myanmar’s ambassador to Bangladesh, U Kyaw Soe Moe, was summoned to the Foreign Ministry on Tuesday, where he expressed sincere sympathy to the injured victims and their families.
“My daughter was supposed to go to school, but she is on a ventilator,” Afnan’s father Jasim Uddin said. “My heart is bleeding for my baby girl.”
More than a million Rohingya have fled their homes in Myanmar, many after a 2017 military crackdown, and now eke out a living in sprawling refugee camps just across the border in Bangladesh.
ARSA, a Rohingya armed group formed to defend the persecuted Muslim minority, has been fighting the Myanmar military, as well as rival Arakan Army guerrillas.
On Monday, Bangladeshi border forces detained 53 ARSA fighters who had crossed the frontier.
Bangladeshi police officer Saiful Islam, commander of the local Teknaf station, said all detainees were being held in jail, except one fighter who was receiving hospital treatment for bullet wounds.
“These individuals have a history of living in the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar and crossing into Myanmar,” Islam told AFP.
