South Africa’s UN ambassador on Tuesday described progress towards the long-delayed appointment of a UN peace envoy to Libya and the potential deployment of ceasefire monitors to the war-torn country.
Speaking with reporters in New York, Jerry Matjila urged the UN to break a months-long impasse and appoint Nikolay Mladenov as the new Libya peace envoy to replace Ghassan Salame, who quit in March due to stress.
African countries had slowed down the appointment of Mr Mladenov, a Bulgarian diplomat and the favoured candidate of the United States, arguing that an African was best suited to resolving conflict in one of the continent’s top oil exporters.
“The Secretary-General [Antonio Guterres] can go ahead and appoint who he appoints, and the Africans will oblige,” Mr Matjila said at a briefing to mark South Africa holding the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council for the month of December.
The South African envoy expressed frustration that two African candidates had been rebuffed but noted that the UN’s new envoy to Libya would have an African deputy and consult extensively with the African Union.
Speaking separately, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters that “everyone would like to see the slot filled in Libya” and that Mr Guterres, the UN chief, was “working very hard to close that process”.
Mr Matjila also discussed a possible UN deployment of European troops to monitor a fragile truce and foreign weapons flows to Libya, even though the proposal has been met with “suspicion” from some Libyan military chiefs, he said.
“We hope that, during our presidency, there will be a solution found on a robust monitoring of the ceasefire that was agreed in Libya, including the verification that foreign fighters have left Libya,” said Mr Matjila.
Libya descended into chaos after the Nato-backed overthrow of leader Muammar Qaddafi in 2011. A ceasefire agreed in October and the prospect of national elections next year have raised hopes of lasting peace between the two rival administrations in the east and west of the country.
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'My Son'
Director: Christian Carion
Starring: James McAvoy, Claire Foy, Tom Cullen, Gary Lewis
Rating: 2/5
more from Janine di Giovanni
Champions parade (UAE timings)
7pm Gates open
8pm Deansgate stage showing starts
9pm Parade starts at Manchester Cathedral
9.45pm Parade ends at Peter Street
10pm City players on stage
11pm event ends
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Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989
Director: Goran Hugo Olsson
Rating: 5/5
Greatest of All Time
Starring: Vijay, Sneha, Prashanth, Prabhu Deva, Mohan
Name: Peter Dicce
Title: Assistant dean of students and director of athletics
Favourite sport: soccer
Favourite team: Bayern Munich
Favourite player: Franz Beckenbauer
Favourite activity in Abu Dhabi: scuba diving in the Northern Emirates
What is graphene?
Graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms arranged like honeycomb.
It was discovered in 2004, when Russian-born Manchester scientists Andrei Geim and Kostya Novoselov were "playing about" with sticky tape and graphite - the material used as "lead" in pencils.
Placing the tape on the graphite and peeling it, they managed to rip off thin flakes of carbon. In the beginning they got flakes consisting of many layers of graphene. But as they repeated the process many times, the flakes got thinner.
By separating the graphite fragments repeatedly, they managed to create flakes that were just one atom thick. Their experiment had led to graphene being isolated for the very first time.
At the time, many believed it was impossible for such thin crystalline materials to be stable. But examined under a microscope, the material remained stable, and when tested was found to have incredible properties.
It is many times times stronger than steel, yet incredibly lightweight and flexible. It is electrically and thermally conductive but also transparent. The world's first 2D material, it is one million times thinner than the diameter of a single human hair.
But the 'sticky tape' method would not work on an industrial scale. Since then, scientists have been working on manufacturing graphene, to make use of its incredible properties.
In 2010, Geim and Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. Their discovery meant physicists could study a new class of two-dimensional materials with unique properties.
Blackpink World Tour [Born Pink] In Cinemas
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Directors: Min Geun, Oh Yoon-Dong
Rating: 3/5
Landfill in numbers
• Landfill gas is composed of 50 per cent methane
• Methane is 28 times more harmful than Co2 in terms of global warming
• 11 million total tonnes of waste are being generated annually in Abu Dhabi
• 18,000 tonnes per year of hazardous and medical waste is produced in Abu Dhabi emirate per year
• 20,000 litres of cooking oil produced in Abu Dhabi’s cafeterias and restaurants every day is thrown away
• 50 per cent of Abu Dhabi’s waste is from construction and demolition