Category Archives: United Nations

Climate activists block Federal Reserve bank, calling for end to fossil fuel funding

Posted on by

Action came as world leaders begin arriving in New York for the UN general assembly and after Sunday’s march to end fossil fuels

One day after the largest climate march since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, hundreds of climate activists blockaded the Federal Reserve Bank in New York to call for an end to funding for coal, oil and gas, with police making scores of arrests.

“Fossil fuel companies … wouldn’t be able to operate without money, and that money is coming primarily from Wall Street,” Alicé Nascimento, environmental campaigns director at New York Communities for Change, said hours before she was arrested.

Continue reading...

Western leaders defend slow progress to end global inequality as UN summit starts

Posted on by

Leaders insisted war in Ukraine had not distracted them from sustainable development goals

Western leaders have gone on a charm offensive on the opening day of the UN general assembly as they were forced to defend their record in meeting the organisation’s sustainable development goals (SDGs), and insist that the war in Ukraine had not distracted them from this commitment to end global inequality.

At a special summit in New York amounting to a halfway stocktake on progress towards meeting the goals by the target date of 2030, all sides acknowledged there was little chance that the ambitious set of commitments set in 2015, including ending extreme poverty and safeguarding the environment, will be met on schedule.

Continue reading...

Joe Biden to meet Benjamin Netanyahu at UN in awkward rapprochement

Posted on by

US president agrees to talks at general assembly despite deep unease over policies of Israeli PM’s hardline coalition

Nine months after returning to office, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is finally getting his long sought-after meeting with Joe Biden – but an awkward rapprochement at the UN general assembly is unlikely to improve the strained relationship between the two leaders.

The US president is scheduled to meet Netanyahu in New York on Wednesday, the White House said on Friday. The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said the two leaders would “discuss a range of bilateral and regional issues focused on the shared democratic values between the United States and Israel and a vision for a more stable and prosperous and integrated region, as well as to compare notes on effectively countering and deterring Iran”.

Continue reading...

AOC to headline rally at New York climate march ahead of UN summit

Posted on by

March on Sunday will cap a week of more than 650 global actions and is expected to be the largest US climate march in five years

A climate protest and rally headlined by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Sunday are expected to bring thousands of activists to the streets of New York.

Under the banner March to End Fossil Fuels, protesters will push the Biden administration to take bold steps to phase out fossil fuels. The demonstration will fall days before the United Nations Climate Ambition Summit, which the UN secretary general, António Guterres, has described as a “no nonsense” conference meant to highlight new climate commitments.

Continue reading...

Unicef sounds alarm as record numbers of children cross dangerous Darién Gap

Posted on by

Children risking lives to migrate across Latin America and Caribbean, with aid groups warning they cannot cope

Record numbers of children are migrating across Latin America and the Caribbean with more than 60,000 children risking life and limb to cross the treacherous Darién Gap jungle pass this year, according to a new Unicef report.

Sounding the alarm over the rising number of youngsters on the move, the UN’s children’s agency said at least 92 migrant children had died or gone missing last year – more than any other year since 2014.

Continue reading...

‘We can’t keep up’: Panama-Colombia border sees record number of migrants

Posted on by

In August, 50,000 people fleeing northward were met with long lines for medical attention, a lack of water and sleeping spaces

Medical non-governmental organizations (NGOs) attending to injured and sick migrants crossing the Darién Gap are increasingly unable to manage the record number of people taking the perilous journey, according to Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and the United Nation high commissioner for human rights.

In August 50,000 people took the week-long trek through the dense jungle connecting Colombia and Panama, outstretching the capacity of MSF’s staff at medical treatment posts on the Panamanian border.

Continue reading...

Venice to trial €5 ticketing system for day visitors from 2024

Posted on by

Authorities want to cut number of tourists as Unesco considers putting Italian city on heritage danger list

Venice will trial a ticketing system from spring next year, with day visitors charged €5 to enter the Italian city’s historic centre in an attempt to reduce tourist numbers.

The city’s council executive backed the move on Tuesday, just weeks after Unesco recommended Venice be added to its list of world heritage sites in danger, in part due to the impact of mass tourism.

Continue reading...

UN highlights ‘psychological harm’ to UK man jailed since 2012 for phone theft

Posted on by

Exclusive: Expert repeats call to review indefinite sentences such as Thomas White’s, whose family says now suffers from psychosis

A UN torture expert has called the case of a man driven to psychosis after being jailed in the UK for more than a decade for stealing a mobile phone “emblematic of the psychological harm” caused by indeterminate sentences.

Thomas White was handed an imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentence in 2012 for stealing a mobile phone – four months before such prison terms were abolished. He has been in jail ever since after initially receiving a minimum two-year tariff.

Continue reading...

Unesco removes ‘hurtful’ document claiming Tasmanian Aboriginal people ‘extinct’

Posted on by

Inaccurate statement by the International Union for Conservation of Nature made as part of the 1982 process for world heritage status for Tasmanian wilderness area

A UN agency was forced to remove a “hurtful” document that for more than 40 years publicly claimed Tasmanian Aboriginal people were extinct.

The inaccurate claim, stating that “Tasmanians are now an extinct race of humans”, was made as part of the nomination process for the declaration of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area and its addition to the world heritage list in 1982.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

War crimes being committed in Darfur, says UK minister Andrew Mitchell

Posted on by

Africa minister says civilian death toll horrific and UK is to send evidence to UN

War crimes and atrocities against civilians are being committed in Darfur, western Sudan, the UK’s Africa minister Andrew Mitchell said on Tuesday, becoming one of the first western officials to identify that the fighting in Sudan has developed into more than a power struggle between two rival factions.

Mitchell said there was growing evidence of serious atrocities being committed, describing the civilian death toll as horrific in a statement released by the Foreign Office. “Reports of deliberate targeting and mass displacement of the Masalit community in Darfur are particularly shocking and abhorrent. Intentional directing of attacks at the civilian population is a war crime.”

Continue reading...

Sudan: more than a million people have fled ‘spiralling’ conflict, says UN

Posted on by

Joint statement from UN agencies lays bare the effect of violence on the country’s food and healthcare systems

More than 1 million people have fled Sudan to neighbouring states, as people inside the country are running out of food and dying due to a lack of healthcare after four months of war, the United Nations has said.

Fighting between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has devastated the capital Khartoum and sparked ethnically driven attacks in Darfur, threatening to plunge Sudan into a protracted civil war and destabilise the region.

Continue reading...

Global heating likely to hit world food supply before 1.5C, says UN expert

Posted on by

Water scarcity threatening agriculture faster than expected, warns Cop15 desertification president

The world is likely to face major disruption to food supplies well before temperatures rise by the 1.5C target, the president of the UN’s desertification conference has warned, as the impacts of the climate crisis combine with water scarcity and poor farming practices to threaten global agriculture.

Alain-Richard Donwahi, a former Ivory Coast defence minister who led last year’s UN Cop15 summit on desertification, said the effects of drought were taking hold more rapidly than expected.

Continue reading...

UN aid deliveries to rebel-held area of Syria poised to resume

Posted on by

The Bab al-Hawa crossing from Turkey will reopen to the UN for six months after negotiations with Assad’s government

The United Nations is poised to resume aid deliveries into north-western Syria, an area controlled by rebels, via a crossing that has been a lifeline for the region, after aid workers said Damascus appeared to loosen terms that had led to a hiatus.

Deliveries from Turkey via the Bab al-Hawa crossing stopped in July when western powers and Russia, the Syrian government’s main ally, failed to agree on extending a UN security council mandate for the operation. Syria then gave unilateral approval – but on terms that the UN rejected as unacceptable.

Continue reading...

Uganda’s president under attack over closure of UN human rights office

Posted on by

Forced closure described as ‘a huge blow’ to human rights as country fosters hostile environment for activists, journalists and LGBTQ+ people

Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, has come under attack from campaigners and activists for forcing the closure of the UN human rights office in the country.

The head office in the capital, Kampala, closed at the weekend. Two field offices, in Gulu and Moroto, had already ceased operating over the summer, after the government’s decision not to renew a host agreement allowing the agency to operate.

Continue reading...

John Bolton suggests US will leave Nato if ‘erratic’ Trump wins in 2024

Posted on by

Ex-national security adviser calls former boss ‘irrational’ and criticizes Republicans who support him on foreign policy

Ex-national security adviser John Bolton issued harsh remarks against his former boss and the leading 2024 Republican presidential candidate, saying that the US will likely withdraw from Nato if Donald Trump wins the election.

In an interview with the Hill on Thursday, Bolton criticized the former president’s foreign policy after an op-ed he wrote earlier this week called Trump’s behavior “erratic, irrational and unconstrained”.

Continue reading...

Military intervention in Niger is ‘last resort’, says west African bloc

Posted on by

Defence chiefs demand reinstatement of president after coup, which triggered exodus of foreign nationals

Defence heads from west Africa’s regional political and security bloc have said a military intervention in junta-ruled Niger was “the last resort”, as European countries continued to evacuate foreign nationals after last week’s coup against its democratically elected president.

The 15-nation regional bloc Ecowas – the Economic Community of West African States – has threatened to use force to put down the coup in Niger after giving an ultimatum to those behind it to restore Mohamed Bazoum as president and reinstate the constitution and democratic institutions.

Continue reading...

UN complaint lodged over Turkish airstrikes on hospital in Iraq

Posted on by

Exclusive: Survivors and witnesses bring case to human rights council over 2021 attack killing eight people

Turkish airstrikes that allegedly targeted a civilian hospital and killed eight people in Iraq have been made the subject of a formal complaint to the UN human rights council.

It is the first case to be brought on the issue of Turkish airstrikes against the Yazidi people. The attack on 17 August 2021 destroyed the Sikeniye medical clinic in Sinjar and left more than 20 people injured.

Continue reading...

Six dead as fighting breaks out at Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon

Posted on by

At least seven injured after violence between Fatah and Islamists in Ain al-Hilweh camp

At least six people have been killed after fighting broke out in Lebanon’s largest Palestinian refugee camp near the southern port city of Sidon, Palestinian officials said on Sunday.

UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, put the death toll at six, and Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said two children were among seven people wounded at the Ain al-Hilweh camp.

Continue reading...

‘This is another beast’: UN chief heat officer on living amid fires, how to cool cities and fears for her daughter

Posted on by

Eleni Myrivili, whose job is to help cities prepare for extreme heat, says many people do not understand how deadly it can be

It is “shocking” how little people know about the danger of hot weather, the United Nations global chief heat officer has said, as high temperatures bake cities across the northern hemisphere and politicians backslide on climate promises.

A study this month found that extreme heat in Europe last summer killed 61,000 people, most of whom were women and older people. As well as killing people through heatstroke, hot weather can push the bodies of people with heart and lung disease into deadly overdrive.

Continue reading...

Niger coup: US offers ‘unflagging’ support to ousted leader as sanctions threatened

Posted on by

UN, US and France all call for a return to order after Gen Abdourahamane Tchiani declares himself the new head of state

The United States will work to ensure full restoration of constitutional order in Niger after the military takeover, the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, told the ousted president, Mohamed Bazoum, in a phone call late on Friday, offering him his “unflagging support”.

The US is communicating with “a broad array” military leader in Niger, the state department said, after coup leaders declared Gen Abdourahamane Tchiani – the Nigerien military leader behind the detention of the country’s democratically elected president – the new head of state.

Continue reading...