A roundup of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Myanmar to Germany
Continue reading...Category Archives: United Nations
Cop26: Women must be heard on climate, say rights groups
Those worst hit by global heating are left out of talks, says feminist coalition calling for systemic change
Women must be enabled to play a greater role at the Cop26 summit, as the needs of women and girls are being overlooked amid the global climate crisis, a coalition of feminist groups has said.
The Global Women’s Assembly for Climate Justice has laid out a call for action at the UN general assembly, including demands that world leaders meeting at Cop26, in Glasgow this November, must end fossil fuel expansion and move to 100% renewable energy.
Continue reading...‘Catastrophic pathway’: UN secretary general urges action to save Pacific lives
Antonio Guterres said ‘more ambition from every country’ was required and that current emissions rates threatened the ‘very survival of Pacific communities’
The secretary general of the United Nations has told Pacific nations that a 45% cut in emissions by 2030 was needed globally to reach carbon neutrality by 2050, adding that continuing on the current trajectory “puts us on a catastrophic pathway”.
António Guterres was speaking at a virtual meeting with Pacific Island Forum leaders as part of the UN general assembly taking place in New York.
Continue reading...16 million in Yemen ‘marching towards starvation’ as food rations run low – UN
Aid worker describes ‘horrific’ scenes in one hospital where starving and malnourished children ‘look like skeletons’
At least 5 million people in Yemen are on the brink of famine and a further 16 million are “marching toward starvation”, as the country’s humanitarian crisis spirals out of control.
The situation in Yemen, which has been torn apart by civil war, has been described as “rapidly deteriorating” by experts.
Continue reading...Small farmers have the answer to feeding the world. Why isn’t the UN listening? | Elizabeth Mpofu and Henk Hobbelink
We’re among the thousands boycotting the UN food summit – it’s been hijacked by corporate interests while the voices of small-scale farmers go unheard
Thursday’s UN food summit proposes to help solve the world’s nutrition crisis, with 800 million people going hungry and 1.9 billion labelled obese, by better aligning food systems with development goals. But it won’t achieve any of this. The summit was hijacked early on by powerful corporate interests – but people are resisting.
Hundreds of social movements and civil society groups across the world representing small-scale and subsistence food producers, consumers and environmentalists are protesting about the summit for being undemocratic, non-transparent and focused only on strengthening only one food system: that backed by the big corporations. Civil society bodies active at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), for instance, are running a massive grassroots boycott of the summit, and there is a website and several actions dedicated to it. Grain, a small nonprofit group campaigning for biodiversity-based food systems, shut down its website and social media in protest on Thursday and many other organisations are holding their own protests around the world. An online alternative forum in July, running in parallel with the pre-summit meeting in Rome, attracted about 9,000 participants. This week, even more are expected.
Continue reading...More than 100 countries face spending cuts as Covid worsens debt crisis, report warns
As pandemic widens inequalities, many developing countries spend more on debt than health, study says
More than 100 countries face cuts to public spending on health, education and social protection as the Covid-19 pandemic compounds already high levels of debt, a new report says.
The International Monetary Fund believes that 35 to 40 countries are “debt distressed” – defined as when a country is experiencing difficulties in servicing its debt, such as when there are arrears or debt restructuring.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson tells UN that Cop26 must be ‘turning point for humanity’
UK PM says it is time for the world to ‘grow up’ and ‘listen to scientists’ in speech to general assembly
Cop26 must be a “turning point for humanity” in just 40 days’ time, Boris Johnson has urged in a call to arms to fellow global leaders ahead of the climate summit in Glasgow.
Addressing the UN general assembly in New York on Wednesday evening, Johnson warned it was time for humanity to “grow up”.
Continue reading...UN food summit will be ‘elitist’ and ‘pro-corporate’, says special rapporteur
Michael Fakhri says Thursday’s meeting will not be promised ‘people’s summit’ on tackling world’s nutrition crisis
The UN global food summit is “elitist and regressive” and has failed in its goal of being a “people’s summit”, according to the special rapporteur on food rights.
As world leaders prepare to attend the virtual event on Thursday, which aims to examine ways to transform global food systems to be more sustainable, Michael Fakhri said it risked leaving behind the very people critical for its success. In an interview with the Guardian, Fakhri said neither the worsening impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the right to food, nor fundamental questions of inequality, accountability and governance were being properly addressed by the meeting.
Continue reading...Brazilian minister tests positive for Covid after meeting maskless Johnson
Marcelo Queiroga sat close to Boris Johnson and Liz Truss at New York meeting
Brazil’s health minister, Marcelo Queiroga, has tested positive for Covid and gone into isolation, 24 hours after meeting a maskless Boris Johnson and other British officials in New York.
Queiroga, who sat close to Johnson and the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, on Monday during their meeting with Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, announced his positive test on Twitter on Tuesday night.
Continue reading...‘Ecofeminism is about respect’: the activist working to revolutionise west African farming
Mariama Sonko is an unstoppable force who continued her work even when she was ostracised by her community in Senegal
Outside Mariama Sonko’s home in the Casamance region of southern Senegal pink shells hang on improvised nets that will be placed in mangroves to provide a breeding spot for oysters.
Normally, women collecting oysters chop at the branches – a method that can harm the mangroves. But these nets allow them to harvest sustainably, says Sonko, who is trying to revolutionise agriculture in west Africa.
Continue reading...Most infants in 91 countries are malnourished, warns Unicef
Climate crisis, conflict and Covid stunting progress on nutrition, UN says on eve of food security summit
Only a third of children under two in many developing countries are fed what they need for healthy growth and no progress has been made on improving their nutrition over the past decade.
Unicef, the UN’s children’s agency, said in a report published on Wednesday that a combination of crises from Covid-19 to conflict and the climate breakdown had stunted progress on children’s nutrition in 91 countries.
Continue reading...US-UK ‘special relationship’ faces new challenges despite signs of healing
Relationship between Biden’s US and Johnson’s post-Brexit UK remains complicated and inevitably transactional
What a difference a month makes.
In August Joe Biden was being denounced in the British parliament for a “shameful” retreat from Afghanistan that blindsided the UK and other allies. The US president reportedly took a day and a half to return prime minister Boris Johnson’s call.
Continue reading...US is ‘opening a new era of relentless diplomacy’ says Joe Biden in UN speech – video
Joe Biden has promised to the United Nations that the withdrawal from Afghanistan is a turning point in history, in which 'relentless war' would be supplanted by 'relentless diplomacy', pledging a renewed commitment to the UN and to his nation’s alliances.
Speaking to the general assembly on Tuesday, the president also touched on his country's withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and the Covid-19 pandemic.
- Joe Biden promises UN an end to ‘relentless war’ and the start of ‘relentless diplomacy’
- Biden vows to double aid to developing countries vulnerable to climate crisis
Joe Biden promises UN an end to ‘relentless war’ and the start of ‘relentless diplomacy’
President tellls UN that US will give $11bn a year to developing nations to respond to climate emergency
Joe Biden has promised to the United Nations that the withdrawal from Afghanistan is a turning point in history, in which “relentless war” would be supplanted by “relentless diplomacy”, pledging a renewed commitment to the UN and to his nation’s alliances.
“As I stand here today, for the first time in 20 years the United States is not at war. We’ve turned the page,” Biden said in his first address to the UN general assembly as president. “All the unmatched strength, energy, commitment, will and resources of our nation are now fully and squarely focused on what’s ahead of us, not what was behind.”
Continue reading...‘The world must wake up’: António Guterres ‘sounds the alarm’ in UN speech – video
The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, painted a stark picture of unsustainable inequalities, runaway climate change and feckless leadership in a speech to the UN general assembly on Tuesday.
'I’m here to sound the alarm. The world must wake up,' Guterres said, pointing to gross inequalities in the global distribution of Covid vaccines, among other issues
Continue reading...Biden’s UN speech will try to convince member states that ‘America is back’
But president will contend with skepticism in wake of Aukus, disagreements over Israel and the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal
Joe Biden will make his first speech to the United Nations as president on Tuesday, seeking to “close the chapter on 20 years of war” and begin an era of intensive diplomacy.
Biden will however have to contend with hostility from China, an open rift with France and widespread scepticism among UN member states over his commitment to multilateralism following disagreements over Israel, a chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, and a nuclear submarine deal that took adversaries and allies by surprise.
Continue reading...Jair Bolsonaro plans to flout New York vaccine rules at UN meeting
Brazil’s president claims he has not received a Covid-19 vaccine – but his immunization records have been locked away for 100 years
The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, has signaled that he will snub New York City vaccination rules when he travels to next week’s UN general assembly claiming not to have received a Covid jab.
Bolsonaro is the only G20 leader who publicly claims not to have been vaccinated against a disease that has killed nearly 600,000 Brazilians, although the decision to place a 100-year secrecy order on his immunization records means many citizens doubt that claim.
Continue reading...UK borders bill could criminalise Afghan refugees, UN representative warns
Rossella Pagliuchi-Lor tells MPs proposed legislation could end up punishing those fleeing Taliban if travelling by illegal routes
The UN’s refugee chief in London has said the introduction of the new nationality and borders bill could criminalise Afghan people who manage to escape the Taliban.
Rossella Pagliuchi-Lor, the UNHCR’S representative in the UK, told MPs that the government could find itself in a situation where it is jailing Afghans who seek refuge in the UK because they travelled by illegal routes.
Continue reading...Yemen at war: conflict, chaos and rare joy – in pictures
Over the past four years, photographer Giles Clarke has reported from Yemen for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), documenting the tragedy of a country devastated by war but also the resilience of its people. The photojournalism festival Visa pour l’image is featuring his work at an exhibition in Perpignan, France
Continue reading...Taliban assure UN over safety and security of humanitarian workers
Written assurances also say aid agencies will be able to operate independently of government and will be free to employ women
The Taliban have given the UN written assurances on the safe passage and freedom of movement for humanitarian workers operating in Afghanistan, the UN under-secretary for humanitarian affairs, Martin Griffiths, has told a UN fundraising conference in Geneva.
Reading extracts from the Taliban undertakings, Griffiths said he had also received the assurances that aid agencies would be able to operate independently of the government, and would be free to employ women.
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