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	The Reponsibility to Protect by Coalition for the Reponsibility to Protect   The Reponsibility to Protect ("RtoP" or "R2P") is a new international security and human rights norm to address the international community’s failure to prevent and stop genocides, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.   The International Coalition for the Reponsibility to Protect (ICRtoP) brings together NGOs from all regions of the world to strengthen normative consensus for RtoP, further the understanding of the norm, push for strengthened capacities to prevent and halt genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity and mobilize NGOs to push for action to save lives in RtoP country-specific situations.   July 2010   New Report of the SG on Early Warning, Assessment and the Responsibility to Protect.   On 14 July 2010, the UN Secretary-General released a report on “Early Warning, assessment and the responsibility to protect”.   The report outlines the current state of early warning and assessment capabilities within the UN system as it relates to the prevention of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing. It includes an overview of current gaps in early warning and assessment, namely   1) There is an insufficient sharing of information and analysis among the actors listed above and throughout the United Nations – including its Member States – as a whole.   2) The existing mechanisms for gathering and assessing information for the purpose of early warning do not analyze that information through an RtoP lens, but rather view conflicts in broader terms.   3) The United Nations requires “assessment tools and capacity to ensure both efficiency and system-wide coherence” in developing responses to RtoP situations under the UN Charter.   The report concludes with a section on next steps, and includes plans for a joint office between the Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide and the Special Advisor on the Responsibility to Protect and details for a new internal procedure that would allow for the Special Advisers to convene key Under-Secretaries-General in emergency situations for the purpose of developing multilateral policy options.   * Visit the link below to access our summary of the report. Visit the related web page
	Alarmed by inter-ethnic violence in Kyrgyzstan, UN rushes aid to victims by IWPR / UN News & agencies   Dec 2010   UN agency aids Kyrgyzstan’s most vulnerable.   The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP)is assisting 240,000 conflict-affected people in the south and 380,000 other vulnerable people in six out of seven of the country’s provinces.   The funds were spent on activities such as buying food and leasing transport, which were required to respond to the needs of those affected by the crisis in April and the impact it had on livelihoods.   “Supporting local markets as much as possible is a fundamental component of our humanitarian response policy,” said Rasmus Egendal, WFP Representative and Country Director. “This helps to stabilise markets and create employment.”   The violent uprising in April that ousted former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev as well as the ethnic clashes that erupted in southern Kyrgyzstan in June uprooted thousands of people and left them in need of humanitarian assistance.   The agency, which began its operation in Kyrgyzstan in 2008, hopes to extend its support to local companies and food producers in the coming year as it continues to reach out to people who are chronically food insecure.   June 2010   United Nations agencies have reported that the situation in Kyrgyzstan is relatively calm but still tense and that large numbers of those uprooted by the recent violence are returning to their homes.   The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the situation in the southern city of Osh, which was the focus of much of the violence between Kyrgyz and ethnic Uzbeks that began on 10 June, has improved.   At the height of the crisis there were between 300-400,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Kyrgyzstan as a result of the clashes, which also sent thousands fleeing into neighbouring Uzbekistan, where aid agencies have been assisting the Government in handing out relief items.   According to the Kyrgyz authorities, 70,000 refugees have returned so far, and IDPs are also travelling back to their places of origin.   Amid the mass returns from Uzbekistan to Kyrgyzstan, UNHCR staff have been visiting groups of returning refugees and displaced people near Osh and Jalalabad.   “Both refugees and IDPs have expressed to us mixed feelings about going home,” UNHCR spokesperson Adrian Edwards told reporters in Geneva. “Although they want to be reunited with their families, many are worried for their safety and about going back to destroyed, damaged or looted homes.”   The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) continues to be concerned in particular about women and children who are on the move, many of whom are trying to return home, even to areas where homes have been destroyed. While most intended to stay with relatives or neighbours until their homes are rebuilt, there is now a significant need for temporary shelter.   June 2010   Tens of thousands of Uzbek refugees have fled serious outbreaks of violence in southern Kyrgyzstan in the worst ethnic clashes since the end of the Soviet Union.   Gun battles between rival groups turned cities into war zones and mobs torched whole villages in the Central Asian nation, leaving over 2000 people dead and more than 1,800 injured.   Neighbouring Uzbekistan said over 100,000 ethnic Uzbeks, mostly women and children, had fled the fighting and were being housed in hastily-set up camps along the border as agencies warned of a looming humanitarian crisis.   interim President Roza Otunbayeva feared as many as 2,000 people may have lost their lives. United Nations officials say 400,000 have fled their homes and up to a million may be in need of aid.   Roza Otunbayeva"s provisional government has ordered security forces to protect all civilians and to end the violent clashes. The Government has tightened a state of emergency in the Osh region, where the violence first erupted and has extended the emergency rule across the country"s entire southern Jalalabad region.   UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has expressed alarm at the scale of the clashes, the inter-ethnic nature of the violence, and the tragic loss of life and the large number of displaced people. Visit the related web page
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