US News
UN General Assembly elects Human Rights Council members
By DPA
May 9, 2006, 19:00 GMT

New York - The UN General Assembly on Tuesday elected most of the 47 members for the new UN Human Rights Council in the first round of balloting.

A second round of vote was to take place later Tuesday for Eastern Europe, which has six seats on the council, but only three countries received the required absolute majority of 96 votes - Russia, Poland and the Czech Republic.

A total of 65 countries are vying for seats on the Geneva-based council, the top UN human rights body. It replaces the Human Rights Commission, widely viewed as discredited because countries accused of abuses regularly held seats on it.

The council\'s 47 seats are divided among the world\'s five regions.

Africa\'s 13 seats went to Ghana, Zambia, Senegal, South Africa, Mali, Mauritius, Morocco, Gabon, Djibouti, Cameroon, Tunisia, Nigeria and Algeria.

Asia\'s 13 went to India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, South Korea, China, Jordan, the Philippines, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Sri Lanka.

Latin America and the Caribbean has eight seats. The winners: Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Peru, Guatemala, Uruguay, Cuba and Ecuador.

The seven seats for Western Europe and others went to Germany, France, Britain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Finland and Canada.

The US, which opposed the establishment of the council when the l91-nation assembly created it in March, decided not to run this year. One reason given by Washington was that a US candidacy would have to compete with the nine Western European states for the seven seats.