UN approves proposals to destroy weapons
UNITED NATIONS – U.N. diplomats say the Security Council has agreed to proposals by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons by the target of mid-2014.
France’s U.N. Ambassador Gerard Araud and Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said after closed consultations late Thursday that the 15 council members decided to authorize the plan proposed by Ban in a letter – not a resolution.
In an 11-page letter to the council on Monday, Ban recommended that a joint mission be established by the U.N. and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, with a total staff of approximately 100, to carry out what he described as a dangerous and unprecedented operation.
Azerbaijan’s U.N. Ambassador Agshin Mehdiyev, the current council president, said he would draft a letter to the secretary-general soon.
Appeals court upholds assisted-suicide law
VANCOUVER, British Columbia – British Columbia’s appeals court overturned a lower court ruling Thursday that found Canada’s law against physician-assisted suicide to be unconstitutional.
The court ruled in a split decision that a judge erred last year when she found sections of the Criminal Code that prohibit assisted suicide to be an unconstitutional violation of the charter rights of gravely ill Canadians.
The case will now likely go to the Canadian Supreme Court, which last considered the issue of assisted suicide in 1993.
The federal government had appealed the decision from the B.C. Supreme Court, which ruled last year that safeguards could be put in place to protect against the risks associated with doctor-assisted dying.
Justices Mary Newbury and Mary Saunders agreed in the decision released Thursday that while the law banning assisted suicide has certainly evolved in the last two decades, it hasn’t changed enough to undermine the 1993 decision from Supreme Court of Canada.
Associated Press
