Category Archives: United Nations

How $10 radios and taxi bikes are helping to end the mutilation of girls

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Across the continent, young Africans are using their unique local knowledge and bargaining power to challenge beliefs about female genital mutilation

It took courage for Ayodeji Bella to raise the subject of female genital mutilation in her rural community in southern Nigeria. She knew local chiefs were key to challenging beliefs around the practice but when Bella, who was cut at five, broached the issue with an elder from her village, she was rebuked.

“I was young and unmarried and they wouldn’t take me seriously.”

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Greta Thunberg condemns UK firm’s plans for iron mine on Sami land

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Beowulf Mining ‘hopeful’ for decision on mine in Sápmi despite opposition from activist, UN and Swedish church

A British company has fallen foul of Greta Thunberg, Unesco, Sweden’s national church, and the indigenous people in the north of the country over plans for an open-pit mine on historical Sami reindeer-herding lands.

The clamour of opposition was voiced as Beowulf Mining, headquartered in the City of London, suggested it was “hopeful” of a decision within weeks of a 5 sq mile iron-ore mine in an area where Sami communities have lived for thousands of years.

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‘Anything to stop the massacres’: peace still eludes DRC as armed groups proliferate

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After years of conflict between the DR Congo’s ineffective army, rebel forces and local militias, can Uganda’s entry into the war bring peace?

For the past three months, Ugandan forces have been bombarding Islamist rebels in its border region with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The offensive, in the Rwenzori mountain range that straddles both countries, has forced many Congolese to leave their homes and move to the cities for shelter.

Sarah Kasanga* is one. The Allied Democratic Force (ADF) militia stormed Kalingathe, her village north of Beni, in December 2019. People were made to lie on the floor while rebels searched homes for food, pots, money or clothes.

DRC soldiers overlook Virunga national park at a military base on the outskirts of Beni

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Unesco warns of crisis in creative sector with 10m jobs lost due to pandemic

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Artists finding it harder than ever to make a living despite being part of one of the fastest growing industries

Ten million jobs in creative industries worldwide were lost in 2020 as a result of the Covid pandemic, and the increasing digitisation of cultural output means it is harder than ever for artists to make a living, a Unesco report has said.

Covid has led to “an unprecedented crisis in the cultural sector”, said Audrey Azoulay, the director-general of Unesco, the UN’s cultural body, in a foreword to the report. “All over the world, museums, cinemas, theatres and concert halls – places of creation and sharing – have closed their doors …

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US troops arrive in Poland as Russia adds to forces at Ukraine border – video

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The US has ordered about 3,000 extra troops to bolster Nato’s eastern flank in Poland and Romania.

Russia has denied planning to invade Ukraine but has tens of thousands of troops near its neighbour’s borders

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‘We want the truth’: families of ethnic Pamiris killed in Tajikistan call for justice as tensions rise

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Urgent protection for minority groups facing increased repression needed in crisis connected to escalating clashes across central Asian ex-Soviet region, say human rights groups

Parents of men killed by Tajikistan forces have called on the international community to step in and urgently protect ethnic groups being targeted by the Tajik regime.

In a rare interview, families from the Pamiri ethnic minority have demanded that soldiers who killed their sons be brought to justice and urged the UN to prevent a new phase of conflict in Tajikistan, a landlocked country in central Asia.

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Myanmar’s UN envoy under fire for proposing ‘power share’ with military

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Pro-democracy groups condemn Noeleen Heyzer’s comments in a TV interview, and maintain the junta is losing its grip

The UN special envoy to Myanmar has been widely rebuked for suggesting that pro-democracy activists should negotiate a power-sharing agreement with the country’s military, which is accused of atrocities including genocide.

Almost 250 civil society organisations published a statement condemning the comments, warning they risked emboldening the military to commit “grave crimes with total impunity”.

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While the focus is on Ukraine, Russia’s presence in the Sahel is steadily growing | Bruce Mutsvairo, Mirjam de Bruijn, Kristin Skare Orgeret

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With Russian mercenaries invited to Mali as European forces withdraw, how worried should the west be about Russia’s increasing influence across Africa?

Even in the turbulent, conflict-wracked Sahel region of Africa, the recent military takeover in Burkina Faso was intriguing. Amid the deteriorating security and humanitarian situation, the decision by neighbouring Mali’s military-led government to invite fighters from the Wagner Group, widely seen as a paramilitary network of mercenaries with Russian connections, is causing growing concern in many western capitals.

Mali’s transitional government faces a rough road to recognition after the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) announced a strengthening of economic and diplomatic sanctions in January in response to the proposal to postpone elections until at least 2026.

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Moscow warns Ukraine may ‘destroy itself’ as Russia and US clash at UN

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At a UNSC meeting, Russian diplomat Vasily Nebenzya claimed Ukraine’s violation of the Minsk pact could end in ‘worst way’

Ukraine will be responsible for its own destruction if it undermines existing peace agreements, a senior Russian diplomat has warned at a UN security council debate on the crisis.

The warning from Vasily Nebenzya, Russia’s permanent representative to the UN, during a combative council session, came on a day of continued high-level diplomacy aimed at defusing the Ukraine crisis. The state department confirmed it had received a response from Moscow to a document the US delivered in Moscow last week, formally outlining areas where the Biden administration believes the two countries could find common ground. US officials would not disclose the contents of the Russian letter, saying they would not “negotiate in public”.

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Peter Greaves obituary

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My friend Peter Greaves, who has died aged 89, was a health and nutrition officer for Unicef whose work made a huge difference to children’s lives around the world. He was an early advocate of low-cost interventions including immunisation, oral rehydration and breastfeeding.

While he was Unicef’s chief nutrition adviser in the mid-1980s, he managed to get Unicef and the World Health Organization to agree on the final draft of The Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding. This document helped transform global maternal care policies.

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Afghanistan: more than 100 believed killed despite Taliban amnesty offer, says UN

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Extrajudicial killings allegedly carried out despite Taliban assurances of safety for those linked to previous leadership or foreign forces

The United Nations says it has received “credible allegations” that more than 100 members of the ousted Afghan government, its security forces and those who worked with international troops have been killed since the Taliban took over on 15 August.

Secretary general Antonio Guterres said in a report that “more than two thirds” of the deaths were alleged to have resulted from extrajudicial killings by the Taliban or its affiliates, despite the Taliban’s announcement of “general amnesties” for those affiliated with the former government and US-led coalition forces.

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Libya elite told to end ‘game of musical chairs and focus on elections’

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UN special adviser Stephanie Williams warns of resurgence of Islamic State if country is divided

Libya’s political class should stop conducting musical chairs to stay in power and focus instead on preparing for nationwide elections to be held by June, the special adviser to the UN secretary general has said.

Stephanie Williams also warned of a possible resurgence of Islamic State if Libya were to fall back into total division.

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UN data reveals ‘nearly insurmountable’ scale of lost schooling due to Covid

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Up to 70% of 10-year-olds in low- and middle-income countries lack basic reading skills, with learning losses seen from US to Ethiopia

The scale of the number of children who have lost out on their schooling during the pandemic is “nearly insurmountable”, according to UN data.

Up to 70% of 10-year-olds in low- and middle-income countries cannot read or understand a simple text, up from 53% pre-Covid, the research suggested.

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‘Paradigm shift’ needed in way WHO is funded, says director general

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Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says Covid pandemic has proven that health is ‘an international issue’

The head of the World Health Organization has warned member countries that the UN’s global health body is being “set up to fail” without a “paradigm shift” in the way that it is funded and supported.

In stark language delivered to the WHO’s executive board, the organisation’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that the coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed more than 5.5 million lives, had underlined the need to strengthen health systems as well as pandemic preparedness plans.

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UN condemns airstrike in Yemen that leaves more than 80 dead

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Hundreds also wounded as Saudi-led coalition denies reports it bombed detention centre in Sa’ada

The UN has condemned an airstrike on a detention centre in northern Yemen as the death toll rose to more than 80.

The airstrike in the rebel-held Sa’ada province on Friday morning followed a Houthi drone attack on the United Arab Emirates on Monday that killed three people. It marks an intensification of violence in the seven-year civil war between the government, supported by a Saudi-led coalition, and the Iranian-backed rebels.

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Medics in Tigray plead with Ethiopia for insulin airlift as supplies run out

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Thousands of diabetics in region face ‘agonising death’ amid blockage on food, fuel and medicines in 14-month conflict

Doctors at Tigray’s main hospital are urging the Ethiopian government to allow supplies of insulin to be airlifted into the region, warning that their stocks will run out within a week and that patients with type 1 diabetes are “at serious risk of death”.

At the Ayder referral hospital in Mekelle, the largest in the region of 7 million people, staff have been told they only have 150 vials of insulin left and no oral diabetes medicines, according to a statement late on Friday.

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Ethiopia: Tigray on brink of humanitarian disaster, UN says

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Supplies for more than 5 million people in need of food are running out, says World Food Programme

The Tigray region of northern Ethiopia stands on the edge of a humanitarian disaster, the UN has said, as fighting escalates and stocks of essential food for malnourished children run out.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday that it would be distributing its last supplies of cereals, pulses and oil next week to Tigray, where more than 5 million people are estimated to be in need of food assistance.

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Warning over fuel and food stocks as ‘hellish’ Tigray reels from airstrikes

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Stocks run perilously low, with main supply route into region of northern Ethiopia unusable since December

Humanitarian organisations in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia are running perilously low on food and fuel stocks as an intensified wave of airstrikes further hampers a threadbare aid effort already stymied by lack of access.

In what it calls a de facto blockade, the UN says fighting between Tigrayan rebels and forces loyal to the Ethiopian government has rendered the main supply route into the war-torn region unusable since mid-December.

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As violence in the Congo escalates, thousands of displaced people are effectively held hostage | Vava Tampa

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The UN has appealed for urgent help following militia attacks on camps for internally displaced people. But money alone won’t solve the crisis

In a bare and violent patch of land in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 75,000 people are living in what one UN field officer described as “hellish conditions”. Food and water are scarce. Even the flimsiest shelters are in short supply and sanitation is nonexistent. Girls have been raped by militiamen while attempting to find food in fields around the site. Ibrahim Cisse of Unicef says people here are effectively being held hostage.

Rhoe – a remote camp of internally displaced people (IDP) approximately 45km northeast of Bunia, the capital of DRC’s Ituri province – is “a tragedy waiting to happen”, according to those who have visited.

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Five of world’s most powerful nations pledge to avoid nuclear war

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US, Russia, China, the UK and France who are permanent members of the UN security council agree ‘nuclear war cannot be won’

Five of the world’s most powerful nations have agreed that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought” in a rare joint pledge to reduce the risk of such a conflict ever starting.

The pledge was signed by the US, Russia, China, the UK and France, the five nuclear weapons states recognised by the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) who are also the five permanent members of the UN security council. They are known as the P5 or the N5.

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