{{Canada has withdrawn from the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) in protest over Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe\u2019s recognition as a tourism ambassador by the world body.}}<\/p>\n
This follows the presentation of an open letter to President Mugabe and his Zambian counterpart Michael Sata last week after they signed a tripartite agreement to co-host the UNWTO general assembly in Victoria Falls in August next year.<\/p>\n
Canada\u2019s Foreign Affairs minister John Baird told his country\u2019s House of Commons that the Zimbabwean leader\u2019s appointment \u201csymbolises what is wrong with the UN\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said Canada would withdraw from the UNWTO this month.
\nBut the UN body insisted President Mugabe had not been made an ambassador as claimed, in a statement released on Thursday<\/p>\n
\u201cThe receiving of the Open Letter implies no legal commitment or official title attribution to the country or the recipient,\u201d the agency said.<\/p>\n
President Mugabe\u2019s alleged appointment has also dominated world news headlines, with many newspapers saying the 88-year-old leader was not fit for the role, because of his human rights record.<\/p>\n
He is currently under US and European Union travel ban for alleged electoral fraud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{Canada has withdrawn from the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) in protest over Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe\u2019s recognition as a tourism ambassador by the world body.}} This follows the presentation of an open letter to President Mugabe and his Zambian counterpart Michael Sata last week after they signed a tripartite agreement to co-host the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[334],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-2458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-igihe-reporter"],"bylines":[{"id":334,"name":"IGIHE Reporter","slug":"igihe-reporter","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":334,"name":"IGIHE Reporter","slug":"igihe-reporter","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2458\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2458"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=2458"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=2458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}