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Morocco Elected as 2024 Human Rights Council President

FILE PHOTO: The flag alley at the United Nations European headquarters is seen during the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, September 11, 2023. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: The flag alley at the United Nations European headquarters is seen during the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, September 11, 2023. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo
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Morocco Elected as 2024 Human Rights Council President

FILE PHOTO: The flag alley at the United Nations European headquarters is seen during the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, September 11, 2023. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: The flag alley at the United Nations European headquarters is seen during the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, September 11, 2023. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo

Morocco won a vote on Wednesday to lead the United Nations Human Rights Council in a secret ballot in Geneva.

The Moroccan candidate, Ambassador Omar Zniber, received 30 votes, and his South African opponent, Ambassador Mxolisi Nkosi, secured 17.

It was Africa's turn to take the presidency of the UN's top rights body but African nations could not agree on a single candidate.

Zniber told the Council after being elected that he now had a duty to work to “meet the requirements of our common work" which are "so important and so fundamental: the promotion of, respect toward and guarantee of human rights as universally recognized.”

The foreign ministry in Rabat said Zniber's successful candidacy came "despite the mobilization of Algeria and South Africa to counter it".

The North African Kingdom said it "sees a strong signal sent by the international community in favor of its constructive approach, and its unifying leadership on key subjects such as inter-religious dialogue, tolerance and the fight against racial hatred, the right to a healthy and sustainable environment, migrants' rights and the impact of new technologies".

“Morocco’s election, for the first time in its history, to the presidency of this prestigious UN body, constitutes an acknowledgment by the international community of the far-sighted vision of His Majesty King Mohammed VI in protecting and promoting human rights,” added the ministry.

This choice, enshrined in the 2011 Constitution, results in a continuous momentum of reforms aimed, in particular, at consolidating democracy, gender equality, social and territorial justice, the effectiveness of human rights, inclusive participation, and youth empowerment, stressed the statement.

"The Kingdom's election, supported by a large number of countries around the globe in spite of Algeria's and South Africa's efforts to counter it, demonstrates the trust and the credibility inspired by Morocco's external actions."

“During its presidency, the Kingdom will remain faithful to the line it has set itself during its three mandates within the Human Rights Council, always favoring dialogue and consensus,” pointed out the statement.

Zniber is Morocco's permanent representative at the UN in Geneva and has previously served as the ambassador of Morocco to several European countries.

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Trump Administration Ends Some USAID Contracts Providing Lifesaving Aid across the Middle East

A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
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Trump Administration Ends Some USAID Contracts Providing Lifesaving Aid across the Middle East

A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)

The Trump administration has notified the World Food Program and other partners that it has terminated some of the last remaining lifesaving humanitarian programs across the Middle East, a US official and a UN official told The Associated Press on Monday.

The projects were being canceled “for the convenience of the US Government” at the direction of Jeremy Lewin, a top lieutenant at Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency whom the Trump administration appointed to oversee and finish dismantling the US Agency for International Development, according to letters sent to USAID partners and viewed by the AP.

About 60 letters canceling contracts were sent over the past week, including for major projects with the World Food Program, the world’s largest provider of food aid, a USAID official said. An official with the United Nations in the Middle East said the World Food Program received termination letters for US-funded programs in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

Both officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

Some of the last remaining US funding for key programs in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and the southern African nation of Zimbabwe also was affected, including for those providing food, water, medical care and shelter for people displaced by war, the USAID official said.

The UN official said the groups that would be hit hardest include Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon. Also affected are programs supporting vulnerable Lebanese people and providing irrigation systems inside Syria, a country emerging from a brutal civil war and struggling with poverty and hunger.

In Yemen, another war-divided country that is facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, the terminated aid apparently includes food that has already arrived in distribution centers, the UN official said.

Aid officials were just learning of many of the cuts Monday and said they were struggling to understand their scope.

Another of the notices, sent Friday, abruptly pulled US funding for a program with strong support in Congress that had sent young Afghan women overseas for schooling amid Taliban prohibitions on women’s education, said an administrator for that project, which is run by Texas A&M University.

The young women would now face return to Afghanistan, where their lives would be in danger, according to that administrator, who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The Trump administration had pledged to spare those most urgent, lifesaving programs in its cutting of aid and development programs through the State Department and USAID.

The Republican administration already has canceled thousands of USAID contracts as it dismantles USAID, which it accuses of wastefulness and of advancing liberal causes.

The newly terminated contracts were among about 900 surviving programs that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had notified Congress he intended to preserve, the USAID official said.

There was no immediate comment from the State Department.