Category Archives: United Nations

UN climate talks end with limited progress on emissions targets

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Partial agreement at COP25 that countries must be more ambitious to fulfil Paris goals

Climate talks in Madrid have ended with a partial agreement to ask countries to come up with more ambitious targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions in order to meet the terms of the 2015 Paris accord.

Few countries came to this year’s talks with updated plans to reach the Paris goals, though the EU finally agreed its long-term target of reaching net zero emissions by 2050. Experts say more ambitious emissions cuts are needed globally if the Paris pledge to hold global heating to no more than 2C is to be met.

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Richer nations accused of stalling progress on climate crisis

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Brazil, India and China singled out in UN talks as acting to block agreement on article 6 of Paris agreement

Poor countries have accused a handful of richer nations of holding up progress on tackling the climate crisis at UN talks in Madrid, as demonstrators and activists vented their frustration in the final hours of two weeks of negotiations.

The talks dragged on with negotiators battling into the early hours of Saturday to salvage a result, as governments wrangled over the details of a seemingly arcane issue: carbon markets, governed by a provision of the 2015 Paris agreement known as article 6.

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Traditional Thai massage gains Unesco heritage status

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Practice of nuad Thai, which has gained global recognition, is added to Unesco’s ‘intangible cultural heritage’ list

The body-folding, sharp-elbowed techniques of Thai massage have been added to Unesco’s prestigious heritage list.

Originating in India and practised in Thailand for centuries, the massage was popularised when a special school opened in the 1960s to train massage therapists from around the world.

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Activists protest at ‘sidelining of social justice’ at UN climate talks

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Campaigners frustrated at how women and indigenous people have struggled to have voices heard

Youth climate activists have called for a global strike on Friday to protest that human rights and social justice have been sidelined at the UN climate talks in Madrid, where governments look set to wrap up two weeks of negotiations without a breakthrough on the pressing issue of greenhouse gas reduction.

Campaigners have been frustrated not only at the slow progress of the talks but also that groups representing women, indigenous people and poor people have struggled to have their voices heard within the conference halls where the official negotiations are taking place, even while 500,000 people took part in a mass protest in the streets outside last Friday.

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UK still funding Myanmar camps despite UN boycott over conditions

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Humanitarian agencies say Rohingya people displaced by violence in Rakhine state are forced to live in ‘apartheid-like’ facilities

The UK has broken ranks with the UN and is continuing to put money into squalid Rohingya “apartheid-like” camps, despite a policy designed to avoid complicity in Myanmar’s rights abuses, the Guardian has learned.

Internal briefing documents as well as interviews with UN and humanitarian agency officials in Myanmar showed the British government was maintaining a policy of providing aid and other support to displaced people living in camps in Myanmar’s Rakhine state that have been slated for closure since 2017.

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Libya arms embargo being systematically violated by UN states

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Jordan, Turkey and UAE singled out for ‘routinely and blatantly’ supplying weapons

UN member states have systematically violated a Libyan arms embargo, according to a long-awaited UN report due to be published on Monday that will identify Jordan, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates as the main culprits.

The report is expected to say these three countries “routinely and sometimes blatantly supplied weapons with little effort to disguise the source”. It is also likely to link the UAE to a bombing of a detention centre that has been described as a war crime.

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The UN’s fight for Palestinian refugees goes on – but its key agency needs help

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From Israel’s hostility to Trump’s withdrawal of US funding, the UNRWA faces unprecedented challenges. Timely financial and diplomatic support is key

Today, on the 70th anniversary of its founding, the UN Relief and Works Agency, the UN’s main refugee agency serving Palestinians, is facing unprecedented challenges.

It has become a key battleground in Donald Trump’s war against multilateralism and his unilateral attempts to redefine the Middle East peace process along a track proposed by Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

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UN peacekeepers intervene after violent clashes in South Sudan

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Nepalese blue helmets deployed in Lakes state after 79 people die in fighting between Gak and Manuer communities

UN peacekeepers have been sent to South Sudan’s northern Lakes region after a series of clashes in which 79 people were killed and more than 100 injured.

With roads impassable due to heavy rains and flooding, the Nepalese blue helmets travelled by helicopter on Tuesday from Rumbek, the state capital, to Maper, about 100km north, according to the UN mission in the country, Unmiss.

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The ‘qualifications passport’ scheme breaking down barriers for migrants

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Having their skills recognised is one of the main obstacles to employment faced by refugees in developed countries

The armed rebels had first ransacked the hospital where Timothée* worked as a doctor. Then, they went door to door with machetes, hunting down those seen as the wealthiest – the most educated first. When the house next door was burned down with his neighbours still inside, Timothée fled.

Without a chance to grab his passport or phone, Timothée ran through the darkness of the bush of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, knowing he might never see his family or his fiancee again.

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Kenya’s dispossessed seek redress for Britain’s ‘colonial injustices’

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People whose families were brutally evicted to make way for tea plantations are taking their case for restitution to the UN

The red, fertile earth glistens in the Kenyan sun. Here in the lush green of the tea plantation uplands of Kericho County are some of the most lucrative lands in Africa.

Theaceae trees with their leathery, serrated leaves stretch in every direction. They provide tea to Europeans, making millions for the multinational companies that operate in the region. Yet for 85-year-old Peter Torongei, and thousands like him, there is very little hope. His tin shack sits firmly in the area called “Squatters Land”.

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Refugees being ‘starved out’ of UN facility in Tripoli

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Aid worker claims refugees are being denied food to motivate them to leave

The UN has been accused of trying to starve out refugees and asylum seekers who are sheltering for safety inside a centre run by the UN refugee agency in the Libyan capital of Tripoli.

One group of about 400 people, who came to the Tripoli gathering and departure facility in October from Abu Salim detention centre in the south of the country, have apparently been without food for weeks.

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New UNAids chief vows to stamp out sexual misconduct and abuse of power

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Winnie Byanyima says known cases of sexual harassment were ‘tip of the iceberg’ as she pledges to restore trust in organisation

The new head of scandal-hit UNAids has vowed to transform the agency’s culture to safeguard staff not only from sexual harassment – which she called “the tip of the iceberg” – but any abuse of power by those at the top.

Winnie Byanyima said she would draw on lessons learned following allegations of sexual misconduct at Oxfam, of which she was international executive director until earlier this year, to address problems at the UN agency.

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UK calls for UN access to Chinese detention camps in Xinjiang

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Foreign Office responds after leaked China cables appear to confirm brainwashing centres

The UK has urged China to give United Nations observers “immediate and unfettered access” to detention camps in Xinjiang, where more than a million people from the Uighur community and other muslim minorities are being held without trial.

The call from the Foreign Office was in response to the China cables, a leak of classified documents from within the Communist party which appear to provide the first official confirmation that the camps were designed by Beijing as brainwashing internment centres.

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Labour would return Chagos Islands, says Jeremy Corbyn

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UK criticised for defying UN deadline to hand over control of Indian Ocean territory

Jeremy Corbyn has pledged to renounce British sovereignty of the remote Chagos Islands and respect a UN vote calling for the archipelago to be handed back to Mauritius.

In comments that appear to commit Labour to return the Indian Ocean islands, the party’s leader said on Friday he intended to “right one of the wrongs of history”.

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The Guardian view on Israeli settlements: still illegal | Editorial

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The Trump administration’s declaration cannot change international law. But it will be seen as a green light for expansion and annexation

The secretary of state’s announcement that the US no longer considers Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land to be illegal is appalling. It is also the dismal culmination of the Trump administration’s record.

Washington has done all it can to aid Israel’s rightwing government, punish Palestinians and bury the two-state solution: moving its embassy to Jerusalem, ending funding to the UN Palestinian refugee agency, and recognising Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

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UN urges Iran restraint amid reports of high protester death toll

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Concerns raised over alleged use of live ammunition against petrol price demonstrators

The United Nations has urged Iran to end its shutdown of the internet and ensure its security services show restraint after the “clearly very serious” extent of casualties in protests that have swept the country in response to steep petrol price rises.

The office of the United Nations high commissioner for human rights said it was “deeply concerned” about reports of live ammunition being used against demonstrators.

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UN agency to take ‘aggressive’ action if sexual abuse claims substantiated

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An internal survey revealed hundreds of allegations of abuse, including rape and sexual assault, at the World Food Programme

The head of the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) has vowed to take “aggressive” action against sex abusers, following an internal survey that found multiple allegations of rape and sexual assault at the agency.

“If we have a claim of rape by anyone in the WFP, if we can substantiate, I can’t begin to tell you how aggressive” actions will be, executive director David Beasley told news agency Associated Press.

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Greta Thunberg asks for lift back across Atlantic as climate meeting shifts to Madrid

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Swedish teenager needs help getting back to Europe following the COP25 meeting’s move from Chile to Spain

As delegates to the COP25 climate summit scramble to adjust to a last-minute change of venue from Santiago to Madrid, one of the highest-profile attendees has stuck out a metaphorical thumb on social media to ask for a lift across the Atlantic.

Teenage Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who was speaking in California during a stop on her low-emissions journey from Sweden to Chile, tweeted that she was now in need of a ride to Spain.

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US effort to remove ‘sexual health’ from UN agreement may violate law, say senators

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Trump administration may have violated Siljander amendment by lobbying to remove protections, four Democrats said in letter

The Trump administration may have violated federal law by lobbying more than 70 countries to remove protections for “sexual and reproductive health” from a UN agreement, according to a letter from four US senators seen by the Guardian.

The letter from the senators, all high-ranking Democrats, focuses on an effort from the Trump administration to remove “sexual and reproductive health” from a high-level UN agreement on universal health coverage.

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China warns US: criticism of Uighur detentions is not ‘helpful’ for trade talks

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Beijing voices anger over ‘gross interference’ after 23 countries criticise arbitrary detentions in Xinjiang

China’s UN envoy has sounded a warning note over trade talks with Washington after the US joined 22 other countries at the UN in criticising Beijing over the detention of ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims.

China has been widely condemned for setting up internment camps in the western region of Xinjiang that it describes as “vocational training centres” to stamp out extremism and give people new skills. The United Nations says at least a million Uighurs and other Muslims have been detained.

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