Category Archives: United Nations

UN tells Afghan staff to stay home after Taliban ban on female workers

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Review launched into operations in Afghanistan as men and women told not to go to work at least until May

The United Nations has launched a review of its operations in Afghanistan and asked all Afghan staff not to come to work at least until May after the Taliban barred its female staff from working.

The UN said last week that the Taliban, who swept to power in 2021, had communicated that Afghan women would not be able to work for the global organisation. Taliban officials have not commented on the order.

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Outcry over lengthy jail terms handed to China human rights lawyers

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UN rights chief voices concern over sentencing of Ding Jiaxi and Xu Zhiyong

The UN human rights chief, Volker Türk, has said he is “very concerned” after China sentenced two prominent human rights lawyers to more than a decade each in jail.

Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi were convicted of subversion of state power after closed-door trials and sentenced to 14 and 12 years respectively.

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UK blocks UN webcast featuring Russia children’s commissioner, wanted on war crimes charges

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Move to deny Moscow’s children’s commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova a platform comes as she tells parents to write to her ‘to find’ their missing children

Britain has blocked the UN webcast of an informal security council meeting on Ukraine on Wednesday at which Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights – wanted by the international criminal court on war crimes charges – is due to speak.

The meeting this week will focus on “evacuating children from conflict zone” and Russia said on Tuesday that commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova would feature virtually. Such meetings are not held in the security council chamber and all 15 council members have to agree to allow it to be webcast by the United Nations.

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‘Absurdity to a new level’ as Russia takes charge of UN security council

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Monthly rotation of presidency of 15-member council has been unaffected by Ukraine war

In Ukraine, Moscow is pursuing an unprovoked war of aggression. In The Hague, Vladimir Putin is facing an arrest warrant for war crimes. But at the UN, Russia is about to take charge of a powerful international body, the security council.

From Saturday, it will be Russia’s turn to take up the monthly presidency of the 15-member council, in line with a rotation that has been unaffected by the Ukraine war.

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‘We are very vulnerable’: cyclone-hit Vanuatu pins climate hopes on UN vote

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Pacific nation is sponsoring resolution that will ask ICJ to rule on consequences for climate inaction

Last month, twin cyclones tore through Port Vila, the capital of the Pacific nation of Vanuatu. The category-four storms left corrugated iron roofs crumpled like leftover wrapping paper, flooded the streets with waste-ridden mud, cut residents off from water and electricity for several days, and sent many fleeing to hastily established evacuation centres.

Devastation of this sort is becoming more common throughout the Pacific, where rising sea levels are leaving shorelines increasingly vulnerable to extreme weather made more intense by climate change.

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First global water conference in 50 years yields hundreds of pledges, zero checks

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Non-binding commitments, paucity of scientific data and poor representation of global south left a lot to be desired at summit

The first global water conference in almost half a century has concluded with the creation of a new UN envoy for water and hundreds of non-binding pledges that if fulfilled would edge the world towards universal access to clean water and sanitation.

The three-day summit in New York spurred almost 700 commitments from local and national governments, non-profits and some businesses to a new Water Action Agenda, and progress on the hotchpotch of voluntary pledges will be monitored at future UN gatherings. A new scientific panel on water will also be created by the UN.

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Spanish PM to discuss Ukraine with Xi Jinping on visit to China

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Pedro Sánchez says he will tell Chinese leader it must be Ukrainians who ‘lay down conditions’ for any peace agreement

Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, will visit China next week to meet President Xi Jinping, where he is expected to stress that it will be up to Ukraine to decide on the foundations of any peace agreement with Russia.

News of Sánchez’s visit emerged on Wednesday evening, as Xi – who is trying to position himself as a mediator in the war between Russia and Ukraine – wrapped up a symbolic, two-day trip to Moscow.

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UN calls for foreign intervention in Haiti as violence surges

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‘Specialized support force’ urged for Caribbean state where 530 have been killed in gang-led violence so far this year

The United Nations has called for the deployment of an international “specialized support force” to impede Haiti’s accelerating tumble into extreme violence after more than 530 people were killed in the opening weeks of this year.

“Clashes between gangs are becoming more violent and more frequent,” the spokesperson for the UN human rights office, Marta Hurtado, warned on Tuesday, voicing “grave concern” that the security situation was spiraling out of control.

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Belarus jails senior staff at independent news site in crackdown on Lukashenko critics

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Twelve-year sentences for the women condemned as president’s ‘revenge’ while UN report accuses country of possible crimes against humanity

Belarus has handed long jail terms to senior staff at the country’s largest independent news site, which was forced to close after historic demonstrations against strongman Alexander Lukashenko over two years ago.

The verdicts are the latest in a crackdown on journalists, opposition figures and activists who challenged Lukashenko’s claim that he won a sixth presidential term in 2020.

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Australia the second thirstiest country for bottled water despite paying the highest prices

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New UN report finds the average Australian spent $580 buying 504L of bottled water in 2021

Australia has the most expensive bottled water on the planet but that hasn’t curbed consumer thirst for something people can basically get for free.

On average, Australians each spent about $580 buying 504 litres of bottled water in 2021, a new UN report shows.

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Campaign calls for gender apartheid to be crime under international law

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Prominent Afghans and Iranians say current laws do not capture the systematic suppression of women

A prominent group of Afghan and Iranian women are backing a campaign calling for gender apartheid to be recognised as a crime under international law.

The campaign, launched on International Women’s Day, reflects a belief that the current laws covering discrimination against women do not capture the systematic nature of the policies imposed in Afghanistan and Iran to downgrade the status of women in society.

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IAEA chief qualifies claim that Iran will restore nuclear site monitoring

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Head of UN nuclear watchdog had said Tehran agreed to restore equipment and hand over data

The head of the UN nuclear weapons inspectorate was forced to qualify some of the claims he made about commitments he had extracted from Iran at the weekend about increasing access to UN inspectors.

At his first press conference on his return from Tehran on Saturday, Rafael Grossi said “yes” when asked if Iran had pledged to restore all the cameras and other surveillance equipment that it had removed from its nuclear-related sites. But at Monday’s press conference he qualified this, saying it required further discussion.

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IAEA chief holds ‘constructive’ talks in Iran after uranium enrichment findings

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Rafael Grossi to meet president to ‘relaunch dialogue’ on nuclear programme, says source, following discovery of 83.7% enrichment

The UN nuclear watchdog chief has said he has had “constructive” meetings with Iranian officials in Tehran after the discovery of uranium particles enriched to near weapons-grade level.

The two-day visit by the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, comes as the Vienna-based organisation seeks greater cooperation with Iran over its nuclear activities.

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UN raises $1.2bn from donors towards $4.3bn Yemen aid plan

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Number falls well short of target to respond to one of world’s biggest humanitarian disasters

The United Nations has raised about $1.2bn (£996m) from crisis-strained donors towards its $4.3bn aid plan for Yemen, one of the world’s biggest humanitarian disasters despite a no-war, no-peace stalemate that has largely stopped fighting.

Underfunding has seen agencies scale back Yemen aid projects, including food rations, in the past couple of years. Last year donors gave $2.2bn of the $4.27bn sought, UN data shows.

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UN calls for immediate Russian withdrawal from Ukraine

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Resounding vote before anniversary of war sees 141 countries condemning Russian invasion with seven against and 32 abstentions

The UN has overwhelmingly voted to call for Russia to immediately and unconditionally withdraw from Ukraine, marking one year since Moscow’s invasion by calling for a “comprehensive, just and lasting peace”.

Applause broke out when the result was announced, with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, calling the resolution “a powerful signal of unflagging global support for Ukraine” in a tweet late on Thursday.

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Russian invasion ‘an affront’, says UN chief, as assembly meets on Ukraine

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UN general assembly debates motion calling for unconditional withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine on anniversary of war

UN secretary general António Guterres has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as an “affront to our collective conscience” as the 193-member General assembly meets ahead of a vote that the US said would “go down in history.”

Speaking on Wednesday during a special session of the general assembly, Guterres called the anniversary of Moscow’s attack “a grim milestone for the people of Ukraine and for the international community.”

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UN warns of ‘unconscionable’ cuts to Rohingya food rations as donations fall

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World Food Programme calls for urgent $125m injection after being forced into axing supplies into Bangladesh refugee camps by 17%

The UN has been forced to cut food rations for Rohingya refugees by 17% and has warned of “unconscionable” further cuts in April as a result of dwindling international donations.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said it needs $125m (£104m) urgently to avoid the further cuts.

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Chagos islanders must get full reparations for forced exile, says NGO

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Human Rights Watch also demands trial for ‘appalling colonial crime’ of expulsion – and continuing ill treatment – of Chagossians

The UK should pay full and unconditional reparations to generations affected by its forcible displacement of Chagos Islands inhabitants in the 1960s and 70s, an action that constituted a crime against humanity, Human Rights Watch has said.

The NGO said that individuals should be put on trial for the expulsion of Chagossians when the UK retained possession of what it refers to as British Indian Ocean Territory, or BIOT, after Mauritius gained independence in 1968.

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