Category Archives: United Nations

OPCW report set to blame Syria chemical attacks on Bashar al-Assad

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Watchdog to release first report blaming president for attacks during the conflict

The UN’s chemical weapons watchdog is expected to release its first report explicitly blaming Bashar al-Assad for sarin and chlorine gas attacks on civilians in Syria as efforts to establish accountability for the use of chemical agents in the nine-year-old conflict gain momentum.

Observers anticipate that public and classified versions of a report by a new unit at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) will be published on Wednesday, close to the anniversaries of a major chlorine attack on the then rebel-held Damascus suburb of Douma that killed at least 85 people in 2018 as well as a deadly sarin attack on Khan Sheikhun in 2017 which killed at least 89. The report is believed to focus on 2017 attacks on the village of al-Lataminah.

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US awol from world stage as China tries on global leadership for size

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Mike Pompeo labelling the virus ‘Chinese’ has added to lack of international cooperation

When the UN security council and the G7 group sought to agree a global response to the coronavirus pandemic, the efforts stumbled on the US insistence on describing the threat as distinctively Chinese.

There are other reasons for the lack of collaboration in the face of a global crisis, but the focus on labelling the virus Chinese and blaming China pursued by the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, helped ensure there would be no meaningful collective response from the world’s most powerful nations.

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Libya fighting intensifies as rival forces defy UN call for global ceasefire

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Factions step up offensives while international actors distracted by coronavirus pandemic

Libyan armed factions have defied a UN call for a “global ceasefire” by escalating fighting across the country, with forces loyal to eastern warlord Gen Khalifa Haftar claiming to have gained control of a string of towns in the north-west.

A spokesman for Haftar said his forces, the Libyan National Army (LNA), had also repulsed an offensive by the UN-backed government of national accord designed to capture its key airbase – the failure of which will increase the fragility of the Tripoli government and its dependence on its Turkish backers.

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Coronavirus measures could cause global food shortage, UN warns

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Exclusive: Protectionist policies and shortage of workers could see problems start within weeks

Protectionist measures by national governments during the coronavirus crisis could provoke food shortages around the world, the UN’s food body has warned.

Harvests have been good and the outlook for staple crops is promising, but a shortage of field workers brought on by the virus crisis and a move towards protectionism – tariffs and export bans – mean problems could quickly appear in the coming weeks, Maximo Torero, chief economist of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, told the Guardian.

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Poor water infrastructure is greater risk than coronavirus, says UN

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On World Water Day, UN warns that more than half the global population lacking access to safely managed sanitation

Decades of chronic underfunding of water infrastructure is putting many countries at worse risk in the coronavirus crisis, with more than half the global population lacking access to safely managed sanitation, experts said as the UN marked World Water Day on Sunday.

Good hygiene – soap and water – are the first line of defence against coronavirus and a vast range of other diseases, yet three quarters of households in developing countries do not have access to somewhere to wash with soap and water, according to Tim Wainwright, chief executive of the charity WaterAid. A third of healthcare facilities in developing countries also lack access to clean water on site.

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‘It became part of life’: how Haiti curbed cholera

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When cholera broke out just months after a devastating earthquake, Haiti’s health system was pushed to the brink. The extraordinary rearguard action that followed offers an object lesson in dealing with a public health crisis

Marie Millande Tulmé was at work in a prison when she received a call confirming her fears: the gruesome sickness spreading rapidly across her nation was indeed cholera.

The head nurse for Haiti’s Central Plateau region at the time, Tulmé was investigating rumours that prisoners were getting violently ill and that two had died. “I thought: ‘Haiti will perish,’” she says, recalling her reaction when Haiti’s national laboratory phoned with the news. “Because I knew that cholera was grave. That it spreads easily.”

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West Saharan group takes New Zealand superannuation fund to court over ‘blood phosphate’

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Independence movement lodges documents in high court arguing $45bn fund invests in illegally mined fertiliser

The Western Sahara liberation movement has taken New Zealand’s superannuation fund to the country’s highest court over its investments in farms that use phosphate illegally mined in the occupied territory.

New Zealand is one of the few remaining countries – and last western nation – that accepts imports from the contested territory in West Africa, forcibly occupied by Morocco since 1975. Morocco’s claims to the territory are largely unrecognised internationally.

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Coronavirus pandemic reaches world leaders and disrupts global sporting events

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Justin Trudeau’s wife and diplomat at the UN test positive as Australian Grand Prix is cancelled and Arsenal and Chelsea teams affected

The coronavirus has reached the highest levels of government and the sporting world, with Canada’s prime minister isolating himself when his wife tested positive, the Arsenal manager and a Chelsea player being diagnosed and the Australian Grand Prix cancelled just hours before the event was due to start.

On Thursday night, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, Justin Trudeau’s wife, announced she had been diagnosed with Covid-19 after returning from the UK. Her symptoms were mild and she began two weeks of isolation. Her husband also began isolation and was “in good health with no symptoms”.

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UN under fire over choice of ‘corporate puppet’ as envoy at key food summit

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Organisation accused of kowtowing to big business by appointing former Rwandan agriculture minister with links to agro-industry

A global summit on food security is at risk of being dominated by big business at the expense of farmers and social movements, according to the UN’s former food expert.

Olivier De Schutter, the former UN special rapporteur on the right to food, said food security groups around the world had expressed misgivings about the UN food systems summit, which is due to take place in 2021 and could be crucial to making agriculture more sustainable.

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Climate emergency: global action is ‘way off track’ says UN head

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Deadly heatwaves, floods and rising hunger far greater threat to world than coronavirus, scientists say

The world is “way off track” in dealing with the climate emergency and time is fast running out, the UN secretary general has said.

António Guterres sounded the alarm at the launch of the UN’s assessment of the global climate in 2019. The report concludes it was a record-breaking year for heat, and there was rising hunger, displacement and loss of life owing to extreme temperatures and floods around the world.

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UNAids chief vows to act after tribunal upholds staff harassment complaints

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Winnie Byanyima pledges to stamp out abuse after International Labour Organization rules that agency breached duty of care

The head of UNAids said the agency would “take stock, learn and become a stronger and better organisation” after a tribunal ruled that it had failed in its duty to deal adequately with complaints of staff harassment.

In an email to staff, Winnie Byanyima, who promised to stamp out abusive behaviour when she took over the agency in November, said losing a case at the International Labour Organization tribunal – the highest internal court of appeal – was “very significant”.

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Nine out of 10 people found to be biased against women

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Analysis of 75 countries reveals ‘shocking’ scale of global women’s rights backlash

Almost 90% of people are biased against women, according to a new index that highlights the “shocking” extent of the global backlash towards gender equality.

Despite progress in closing the equality gap, 91% of men and 86% of women hold at least one bias against women in relation to politics, economics, education, violence or reproductive rights.

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EU member states call for 2030 climate target

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Dozen member states hope letter will focus minds before Glasgow UN talks this year

A dozen countries have called for an EU climate target for 2030 to be drawn up “as soon as possible”, if the bloc is to galvanise the rest of the world before vital UN talks in Glasgow later this year.

In a letter to the EU’s top official on climate action, Frans Timmermans, the dozen EU member states say “the EU can lead by example and contribute to creating the international momentum needed for all parties to scale up their ambition” by adopting a 2030 EU greenhouse gas emissions reduction target “as soon as possible and by June 2020 at the latest”.

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Russia committed war crimes in Syria, finds UN report

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The country was also blamed for indiscriminate attacks in civilian areas without ‘a specific military objective’

A UN investigation into atrocities committed in Syria has for the first time accused Russia of direct involvement in war crimes for indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas.

The latest report from the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria focuses on events of July 2019 to January this year, and in particular attacks by “pro-government forces” on civilian targets like medical facilities, driving 700,000 civilians from their homes.

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Libya peace efforts thrown further into chaos as UN envoy quits

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Move follows Ghassan Salamé’s failure to get nations to use their leverage to end civil war

International efforts to broker a Libyan ceasefire have been plunged further into chaos by the unexpected resignation of Ghassan Salamé, the UN special envoy to the country.

Salamé’s move, amid UN-led talks in Geneva, is an admission that he has been unable to persuade major powers to use their leverage to end the civil war between Khalifa Haftar, the leader of so-called Libyan National Army forces in the country’s east, and the UN-recognised government of Fayez al-Sarraj, based in the capital, Tripoli.

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Dominic Raab heads off to the Gulf with a full agenda

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War in Yemen and Saudia human rights repression will keep foreign secretary busy

Dramatic Houthi rebel advances and threats to end humanitarian aid in Yemen will lead Dominic Raab’s agenda when he makes his first visit to Saudi Arabia on Monday.

The British foreign secretary will also travel to Muscat later this week to meet the new Sultan of Oman, Haitham bin Tariq, to discuss his role in any mediation talks in Yemen.

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Clashes as thousands gather at Turkish border to enter Greece

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EU border agency Frontex on high alert as Turkish president keeps crossings open

Migrants trying to reach Europe have clashed violently with Greek riot police as Turkey claimed more than 76,000 people were now heading for the EU as a result of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s decision to open the Turkish side of the border.

Officers fired teargas at the migrants, some of whom threw stones and wielded metal bars as they sought to force their way into Greece at the normally quiet crossing in the north-eastern town of Kastanies.

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On the ground in Idlib: ‘This is the last call to people with humanity to help’ – video

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The UN has estimated that 170,000 of the 900,000 civilians forced from their homes in a recent wave of displacement in north-west Syria are living out in the open. Laith, an activist who is part of the White Helmets volunteer group, has called for the international community to 'stand with [those] who left their homes and be with them in the camps'. The massive displacement follows an escalation of Russian-supported offensives by the Assad regime to the destroy the last rebel bastions in Idlib and Aleppo provinces 

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China’s handling of coronavirus is a diplomatic challenge for WHO

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Beijing’s draconian measures to contain outbreak have delayed global transmission

The World Health Organization is having to perform a diplomatic balancing act over the new coronavirus outbreak, caught between China – whose draconian measures to contain the disease have delayed transmission to the rest of the world –and China’s critics, who say its behaviour is typical of its disregard for human rights.

At every press briefing, WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has defended China’s handling of the epidemic in the face of critical questions, very often from US journalists. At the end of January, when Tedros declared a public health emergency of international concern – having put it off a week earlier under what was assumed to be pressure from Beijing – he praised China for protecting the rest of the world.

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EU agrees to deploy warships to enforce Libya arms embargo

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Operation to come into force as mission to save migrants and refugees from sea is wound down

The EU has agreed to deploy warships to stop the flow of weapons into Libya, as the bloc wound down a military mission that had once rescued migrants and refugees from drowning in the Mediterranean.

Josep Borrell, the EU’s chief diplomat, announced that 27 foreign ministers had agreed to launch a new operation with naval ships, planes and satellites in order to enforce the UN arms embargo on Libya.

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