Angelina Jolie +

GENEVA, October 4 (UNHCR) – UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie on Tuesday urged the international community to scale up its efforts to deal with the crisis in the Horn of Africa, saying the lives of hundreds of thousands of refugees depended on it.

In a speech in Geneva to the annual meeting of UNHCR’s governing Executive Committee, or ExCom, the celebrated Hollywood actress described the situation in Somalia and surrounding countries as “the humanitarian crisis of a generation” and said further help was urgently needed.

“Today, three-quarters of a million people are at risk of death in the next four months in the Horn of Africa,” she said. “The work we are doing needs to scale up to meet the needs of these individuals. How we continue to respond to this period of malnutrition and famine is going to define the work of those NGOs, governments, and international organizations working in the Horn of Africa. It will, quite starkly, determine whether a huge number of people live or die.”

Her remarks came as news reports from the Somali capital, Mogadishu, said dozens of people had been killed in a suicide bomb blast near a government ministry.

Jolie also urged the Executive Committee’s member states to remain committed to helping the world’s refugees despite the global environment of increasing economic and financial pressures.

“The challenges that UNHCR confronts to provide for refugees are immense and growing. The rich countries of the world are increasingly feeling budgetary constraints at home. They face pressures to reduce rather than maintain their current and promised levels of aid funding,” she said during her first address to ExCom, which reviews and approves UNHCR’s programmes and budget, advises on protection issues and discusses a wide range of other topics.

“Nevertheless, we hope that these governments will remain committed to the cause of the world’s most vulnerable people, while we recognize and are grateful to them for their generosity,” added Jolie, who also expressed gratitude on Tuesday to countries hosting refugees.

The Goodwill Ambassador also had praise for UNHCR’s committed and dedicated staff and other humanitarian partners. “They operate in some of the world’s most dangerous places, from Somalia to Libya to Afghanistan, in order to reach and help those in need. We thank them for all that they do and the personal risks they take to do it,” she said, while noting the increasing dangers that aid workers face. “We must demand greater respect for the concepts of independence, impartiality, and neutrality in order to ensure the safety and lives of humanitarian workers.”

Jolie was appointed as UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador in August 2001 and has since conducted more than 40 field visits, including to some of the most remote refugee-hosting regions. On Tuesday, High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres recognized her 10 years of service with the refugee agency by asking her to take on an expanded role for UNHCR as a Special Envoy in some of the world’s most difficult refugee situations.

“It is indeed my intention, with your agreement, that you will become our Special Envoy mainly in regard to the most dramatic refugee situations that require a lot of advocacy, but also to put them more strongly on the map to mobilize stronger international support,” Guterres told ExCom members in his remarks introducing Jolie.

“We will be asking you to do more and more in this regard and we will all be counting not only with your commitment but also your diplomatic [skills] and your vision and insights on how to help solve some of the most complex problems that we face together with the international community,” he added.

Jolie said her personal experiences with UNHCR “have been moving, sometimes heartbreaking, but always rewarding and unforgettable.” And she had discovered that refugees “are among the most vulnerable and yet the most resilient people on earth.”

UNHCR ceremony honours Yemeni aid group and Angelina Jolie
UNHCR
GENEVA, October 3 (UNHCR) – The UN refugee agency paid lavish tribute on Monday night to award-winning American actress Angelina Jolie and Yemeni humanitarian aid group Society for Humanitarian Solidarity (SHS) for their outstanding work for refugees over many years.

Before an audience of 800 government officials, diplomats, donors and aid workers, Jolie was recognized for completing 10 years as UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, while the founder and 290 staff of SHS received the prestigious Nansen Refugee Award for their live-saving work helping tens of thousands of desperate boat people arriving on the coast of Yemen from the Horn of Africa.

“This award motivates us to increase our effort to helping those who are in need,” said SHS founder Nasser Salim Ali Al-Hamairy, while Jolie told the audience, “It is an honour to work on behalf of refugees and I look forward to the next 10 years.”

Lauding Jolie, UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres said, “She is the very best of the goodwill ambassadors that exist in the humanitarian world.”

It is an honour to work on behalf of refugees and I look forward to the next 10 years.

– UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie

In a slick ceremony presided over by former British politician and broadcast journalist Sir Martin Bell, Norwegian musician Sivert Hoyem warmed up the audience with two songs before a tribute to Angelina Jolie and her work for UNHCR was screened in Geneva’s distinctive 19th Century Bâtiment des Forces Motrices, a former water pumping station on the River Rhone.

“I’m so grateful to the many refugee families that I have had the honour and privilege to spend the last years with. From them I’ve learned so much. I’ve learned to become a better person, a better mother,” Jolie said. “They’ve inspired me by showing me every day the unbreakable strength of the human spirit.”

The actress, who was presented with a gold pin, has visited almost 30 countries worldwide as UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador over the past decade, including Afghanistan, Tunisia, Turkey, Malta and Italy this year alone.

In the highlight of the evening, Jolie and Guterres presented the Nansen Refugee Medal to SHS founder Al-Hamairy, whose non-governmental humanitarian organization has since 1995 been helping people fleeing by smugglers’ boats across the Gulf of Aden. SHS also helps needy local communities.

SHS has been particularly busy this year. So far in 2011, more than 60,000 people have made sea crossings to Yemen – as many as the combined number of arrivals in the last three years. It is estimated that at least 120 people drowned trying to make the journey this year.

SHS staff work around the clock to monitor about a third of Yemen’s 2,000 kilometre-long coastline, pick up survivors, provide emergency care and, all too often, bury those who die en route.

“I do think they deserve the recognition of the international community,” said Guterres, while Jolie also paid tribute to the Yemeni aid workers. “The staff of SHS often risk their own lives to save others,” she said, describing their life-saving assistance as “extraordinary.”

Colombian humanitarian and musician Juanes also took part in the tribute, performing two of the songs that have made him a superstar in South America. The Grammy winner has helped spread awareness about the suffering of hundreds of thousands of forcibly displaced people in his country, including indigenous people. Somali sister band Sweet Rush also performed.

The Nansen Refugee Award was created in 1954 in honour of Fridtjof Nansen, a Norwegian explorer, scientist, diplomat and politician who in the 1920s became the first international High Commissioner for Refugees.

It is given annually to an individual or organization for outstanding work on behalf of refugees and consists of a commemorative medal and a US$100,000 monetary prize donated by the governments of Switzerland and Norway. The winner can donate spend the funds on a project approved by the Nansen committee.

Past winners include Eleanor Roosevelt, Tanzania’s late President Julius Nyerere, King Juan Carlos I of Spain, Graça Machel, late Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti and last year’s winner, photographer Alixandra Fazzina. A number of humanitarian organizations, and partners of UNHCR, have also won the award, including the League of Red Cross Societies. Médecins Sans Frontières, Handicap International and the UN Volunteers. In 1986, the Nansen went to the people of Canada.

Monday’s event was supported by the Swiss and Norwegian governments, the Canton of Geneva, the City of Geneva, the IKEA Foundation and the Norwegian Refugee Council, which also helped to organize the presentation ceremony.

Congo warlord guilty beyond doubt – ICC prosecutors

AMSTERDAM Aug 25 (Reuters) – A Congolese warlord accused of conscripting, training and arming hundreds of child soldiers is guilty beyond “any possible doubt” of war crimes, prosecutors told the International Criminal Court on Thursday.

In the debut trial of the ICC, prosecutors this week began summing up evidence against warlord Thomas Lubanga and a verdict is expected early next year.

The permanent war crimes court in The Hague is where Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi and his son Saif al-Islam could eventually go on trial if captured, and where there is mounting pressure to bring to trial those responsible for crimes against humanity in Syria.

But the ICC faces numerous hurdles. Its budget is under pressure and it has no international police force to arrest war crimes suspects, so some of its prize targets remain at large.

Lubanga’s trial has been bogged down in procedural and other issues, leading to criticism about the length of trials, and lack of results.

Lubanga’s alleged crimes took place during the Democratic Republic of Congo’s 1998-2003 conflict. He was handed over to the court in 2006 and went on trial in 2009.

Actress Angelina Jolie, a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations’ refugee agency UNHCR, watched Thursday’s proceedings from the public gallery, as a team of prosecutors rattled off evidence from witnesses including former child soldiers identified by number rather than name for their own protection.

“I am attending it just as a concerned citizen of the world who cares about children,” Jolie said. “This is such an extraordinary moment for international justice, but more than that, for all the children around the world. I think the results of this case may hopefully make a difference in the lives of so many boys and girls.”

The court was shown video footage of Lubanga dressed in military uniform and flanked by his top commanders addressing children at a training camp. Urging the recruits to fight, he told them he had come to encourage them and that they were “blessed” to be enlisted and trained.

“This video is a taped confession by Thomas Lubanga,” said Fatou Bensouda, deputy prosecutor, adding that Lubanga systematically recruited children under the age of 15 as soldiers.

“They were used to fight in conflicts, they were used to kill, rape, and pillage,” she said.

Other witnesses whose evidence was cited described how child recruits were taught combat tactics, given uniforms and weapons, and sent off to fight.

One described an entire unit of children under the age of 15 who served as bodyguards, another said he saw children as young as nine or 10 at Lubanga’s residence, armed with Kalashnikovs, while another described how young girls were raped by fellow soldiers or handed over to commanders to be their sex slaves.

Lubanga, an ethnic Hema, has denied charges he enlisted and conscripted children under 15 to his Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) movement to kill members of the rival Lendu tribe in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

He says he was a politician rather than a warlord, and had never played an active role in the UPC’S militia. (Reporting by Sara Webb, Svebor Kranjc, and Aaron Gray-Block, editing by Rosalind Russell)

(CNN) — Actress Angelina Jolie, a longtime goodwill ambassador for the U.N. refugee agency, arrived in southern Turkey on Friday to visit Syrian refugees, a high-profile trip focusing attention on misery faced by ordinary citizens who have escaped violence in turbulent Syria.

Jolie, who is scheduled to visit the Altinozu refugee camp, arrived at the airport in Hatay and was greeted by officials, according to the state-run Anatolian Agency.

Hatay provincial officials had vans for the trip to Altinozu, and “toys unloaded from the plane were loaded to one of the vans in her convoy,” the agency reported.

More than 9,600 Syrian men, women, and children have fled their country for Turkey to escape violence, including a military offensive in the Jisr al-Shugur area.

Refugees at Altinozu are housed in warehouses at an old tobacco factory, and they staged a demonstration at the camp in solidarity with the many anti-government demonstrations occurring across the border in Syria.

They held up signs that said “Our military is killing its own people, please make it stop,” “U.N., help us please” and people chanted “stop killing children” and other anti-regime slogans.

Jolie was named a goodwill ambassador for the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in early 2001 and has visited more than 20 countries “to highlight the plight of millions of uprooted people and to advocate for their protection.”

The U.N. office said her interest in “humanitarian affairs was piqued in 2000 when she went to Cambodia to film the adventure film ‘Tomb Raider.’”

Jolie has won numerous acting awards, including a best supporting actress Academy Award for her performance in 1999’s “Girl, Interrupted.”
CNN.com

June 20 is World Refugee Day .

The PSA seeks to show the power of one. The actress-turned-philanthropist says, “One family forced to flee is too many. … One child growing up in a camp is too many. One refugee without hope is too many. … Do one thing. Visit UNHCR.org, and learn how you can make a difference.”

Angelina serves as a Goodwill Ambassador for the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), and has been a huge voice for these displaced people.

pls,visit UNHCR DO 1 thing campaign.

Angelina Jolie visits wounded soldiers on Friday (May 13) at Ramstein Air Base near Kaiserslautern, Germany.

In a non-publicized visit, Angelina Jolie made a visit to some wounded troops at the Ramstein Air Base, Germany, on May 13, 2011 before they head back to the United States.

Jolie took time to meet with military members as a part of her USO tour in an effort to boost their morale.