Category Archives: United Nations

‘Embarrassing’: pressure on Merz after Germany’s failure to win UN security council seat

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Criticism comes from across political spectrum after blow to Friedrich Merz’s government

Germany’s unprecedented failure to win one of the rotating seats on the UN security council has prompted an intense round of soul searching in Berlin, and raised questions about its claims to international leadership under Friedrich Merz.

The council vote on Wednesday, which elected Austria and Portugal to a two-year term along with Trinidad and Tobago and Zimbabwe, was a blow to Merz’s struggling government, which has sought to position itself as a leading European voice on the world stage.

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Hunger increasingly used as weapon of war as ‘food-related violence’ surges, analysis shows

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More than 20,000 attacks on markets, farmland and food distribution systems have been recorded since 2018

Hunger is being increasingly exploited as a weapon of war with more than 20,000 documented incidents of “food-related violence” in the past eight years, new analysis reveals.

Attacks include 1,261 strikes on markets used by families for daily groceries and 863 incidents in which food distribution systems were targeted and workers killed.

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UN’s climate crisis vote shows political momentum is growing, say experts

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Resolution backed by 141 states hailed as ‘new chapter’ that could improve climate diplomacy and litigation efforts

When the UN general assembly voted overwhelmingly in favour of a landmark climate crisis ruling on Wednesday, the Pacific island of Vanuatu’s prime minister hailed the result as the start of “a new chapter” in climate action.

“The task before all of us now is to translate legal clarity into meaningful action, stronger cooperation, and greater protection for present and future generations,” said Jotham Napat.

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UN pleads for Equatorial Guinea not to send US asylum seekers to their home countries: ‘Their life would be in danger’

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Human rights experts make rare public appeal as US deportees describe being held in ‘prison-like’ conditions

Human rights experts at the United Nations issued a rare public appeal to Equatorial Guinea, urging the central African country to halt its plans to return US deportees to their home countries, where they face political violence, torture and death.

The statement, co-signed by a representative of the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights, adds diplomatic pressure on Equatorial Guinea, one of the world’s most repressive regimes, to comply with international human rights standards and avoid refoulement, or the expulsion of people to countries where they face persecution.

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Bosnia and Herzegovina left vulnerable by policy clash with US, representative says

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Christian Schmidt, who is resigning post, says multi-ethnic nation may fall apart amid pressure from US and Russia

The UN high representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina has warned about the possible destruction of the multi-ethnic state after he was forced to resign in a policy clash with the US, seemingly complicated by the commercial interests of a firm linked to Donald Trump Jr that is seeking to make investments in the region.

The German Christian Democrat politician Christian Schmidt spoke at a scheduled meeting with the UN security council in New York on Tuesday, where he warned about the fragility of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He has made clear he believes his post should be maintained, saying he will stay on until his successor is appointed.

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More than £1bn pledged for Sudan as humanitarian crisis deepens

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Donors exceed funding target at Berlin conference but prospects for ceasefire remain distant

More than £1bn (€1.15bn) has been pledged for war-ravaged Sudan at a conference in Berlin, eclipsing the funding target organisers had set to help mitigate the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.

The financial commitments made on Wednesday will also help offset a chronic humanitarian funding shortfall in a country devastated by three years of conflict, where two-thirds of its population – 34m people – require assistance.

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North Korea rapidly expanding nuclear weapons capability, UN watchdog warns

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Pyongyang making ‘very serious’ progress on producing weapons, with rapid rise in activity at main nuclear complex

North Korea has made “very serious” progress in its ability to produce more nuclear weapons, the head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog has said, in another sign that the regime is seeking to use its nuclear arsenal to ensure its survival.

North Korea is thought to have assembled about 50 nuclear warheads, although some experts are sceptical of its claims that it is able to miniaturise them so they can be attached to long-range ballistic missiles.

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Anger at ‘bloody unacceptable’ efforts to end Sudan’s war as conflict enters fourth year

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A top UN official has criticised lack of global urgency as reports confirm the world’s largest humanitarian crisis is worsening

Efforts to end Sudan’s catastrophic war have been criticised as “unacceptable” by the country’s top UN official as a series of new reports confirm that the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis is worsening.

Speaking to the Guardian on the eve of the third anniversary of the war, Denise Brown expressed her concern over the apparent lack of political urgency to end a conflict that has forced 14 million Sudanese to flee their homes. Tens of thousands of people are missing.

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World held hostage by reliance on fossil fuels, Christiana Figueres warns – and climate health impacts are ‘mother of all injustices’

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Exclusive: Former UN climate chief to co-chair Lancet Commission examining how sea-level rise is reshaping health, wellbeing and inequality

Countries are being “held hostage” by their reliance on fossil fuels, a former UN climate chief has warned, describing the health impacts of climate change as “the mother of all injustices”.

Christiana Figueres, an international climate negotiator who helped deliver the Paris agreement signed in 2016, made the comments as she was announced on Wednesday as co-chair of a Lancet Commission examining how sea-level rise is reshaping health, wellbeing and inequality.

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UN’s landmark slavery ruling energises African Union’s fight for reparations

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• UN votes to describe slave trade as ‘gravest crime against humanity’

Despite resistance from states who had role in chattel slavery, many feel this is an idea whose time has come

John Mahama knows a thing or two about beating the establishment. On Wednesday, less than two years after completing a remarkable comeback as Ghana’s president with a landslide defeat of the ruling party candidate, he rallied the world to ratify a landmark vote against transatlantic chattel slavery, despite major opposition from the same western entities that drove it for centuries.

The resolution to declare the practice as “the gravest crime against humanity” passed with a decisive majority at the UN general assembly and has been largely welcomed across Africa. Yet the details of the tally reveal a world still deeply divided on the gravity of the sin of enslaving more than 15 million people as chattel over the course of 400 years.

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UN votes to describe slave trade as ‘gravest crime against humanity’

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Members call for reparatory justice as landmark resolution aims for ‘political recognition at the highest level’

The United Nations has voted to describe the transatlantic chattel slave trade as the “gravest crime against humanity” and called for reparations as “a concrete step towards remedying historical wrongs”.

The landmark resolution passed on Wednesday was backed by the African Union (AU) and the Caribbean Community (Caricom). It had been proposed by Ghana’s president, John Dramani Mahama, who said: “Let it be recorded that when history beckoned, we did what was right for the memory of millions who suffered the indignity of slavery.”

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France returns sacred talking drum looted from Côte d’Ivoire over 100 years ago

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Djidji Ayôkwé was handed to Ivorian officials in Paris earlier this month

A sacred artefact looted by French colonial authorities more than a century ago has been returned to Côte d’Ivoire in one of the most significant cultural restitutions to a former French colony in years.

The Djidji Ayôkwé, a talking drum confiscated in 1916 by French administrators, landed at 8.45am on Friday at the airport in Port Bouët on the outskirts of the economic capital, Abidjan. It was handed over to Ivorian officials in Paris earlier this month after being removed from the Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac Museum.

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At least 17 killed after drone strikes school in Sudan

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Strike in Shukeiri killed schoolgirls, teachers and healthcare workers in latest incident in three-year war

At least 17 people, most of them schoolgirls, were killed on Wednesday when an explosive-laden drone blamed on Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces struck a secondary school and a health care centre.

At least 10 people were wounded in the strike in the village of Shukeiri in the White Nile province, according to Dr Musa al-Majeri, director of Douiem hospital, the nearest major medical facility to the village.

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Will UN plans to transform the way it works ‘throw equality under the bus’?

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Many of those attending the world’s largest meeting on women’s rights in New York this week are primed to defend the two key UN agencies that protect women and girls around the world

Thousands of international delegates are gathering in New York this week for the world’s largest meeting on women’s rights. The United Nation’s annual Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is an opportunity for government ministers, UN officials, NGO representatives and activists to discuss the global state of gender equality and women’s empowerment. This year, there will be a strong focus on “ensuring and strengthening access to justice”.

But as senior UN figures urge countries to intensify their efforts to achieve gender equality, many of the delegates will be asking whether the UN is at risk of diluting its own commitment to women and girls.

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Vanuatu moves forward with UN climate resolution despite Trump opposition

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Pacific island says the US weakened its proposal to advance a key climate ruling but vows to hold major polluters accountable

The Trump administration’s attempt to sink a UN resolution demanding countries act on the climate crisis has caused cuts to the proposal but hasn’t entirely killed it, according to the tiny Pacific island country spearheading the effort.

The US has demanded that Vanuatu, an archipelago in the south Pacific, drop its UN draft resolution that calls on the world to implement a landmark international court of justice (ICJ) ruling from last year that countries could face paying reparations if they fail to stem the climate crisis.

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RSF siege of El Fasher in Sudan has ‘hallmarks of genocide’, UN mission finds

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Report details harrowing 18-month occupation of North Darfur capital, showing destruction aimed at ethnic communities

The siege and capture of the Sudanese city of El Fasher by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces group last October bore “the hallmarks of genocide”, a UN-mandated fact-finding mission has said.

In a report detailing the harrowing 18-month occupation of the capital of North Darfur, investigators concluded that the RSF and allied militias deliberately inflicted conditions calculated to bring about the physical destruction of the Zaghawa and Fur ethnic communities.

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UN experts accuse one of England’s biggest social landlords of habitability failings

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Exclusive: Letter says L&Q appears to have systematically failed in its duty to provide adequate standard of living

UN experts have said that one of England’s biggest social landlords appears to have systematically failed to ensure the habitability of its rental properties.

In a letter to the UK government, they cite the case of a disabled tenant, Sanjay Ramburn, 55, who they say lived with his family of five in an L&Q group property in Forest Gate, east London, for several years with no electricity. They experienced four ceiling collapses, as well as severe damp and mould that affected their health.

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Israel has ‘de facto state policy’ of organised torture, says UN report

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Committee highlights allegations including dog attacks and sexual violence, raising concern about impunity for war crimes

Israel has “a de facto state policy of organised and widespread torture”, according to a UN report covering the past two years, which also raised concerns about the impunity of Israeli security forces for war crimes.

The UN committee on torture expressed “deep concern over allegations of repeated severe beatings, dog attacks, electrocution, waterboarding, use of prolonged stress positions [and] sexual violence”.

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John Kerry urges Australia to take ‘hard-nosed’ approach with world’s biggest fossil fuel-producing countries at Cop31

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Exclusive: Former US secretary of state calls for more demanding steps from Australia as it takes over presidency of next year’s UN climate summit

Australia’s government, which will preside over the next UN climate summit, should gather the world’s 25 biggest greenhouse gas emitting countries and push them to draw up a roadmap to end the era of fossil fuels, former US secretary of state John Kerry has said.

Only by “hard-nosed” confrontation with fossil fuel producers, and reducing their consumption in major economies, would the world be able to tackle the climate crisis, he said.

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John Kerry urges Australia to take ‘hard-nosed’ approach with world’s biggest fossil fuel-producing countries at Cop31

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Exclusive: Former US secretary of state calls for more demanding steps from Australia as it takes over presidency of next year’s UN climate summit

Australia’s government, which will preside over the next UN climate summit, should gather the world’s 25 biggest greenhouse gas emitting countries and push them to draw up a roadmap to end the era of fossil fuels, former US secretary of state John Kerry has said.

Only by “hard-nosed” confrontation with fossil fuel producers, and reducing their consumption in major economies, would the world be able to tackle the climate crisis, he said.

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