Category Archives: United Nations

Yemen’s Houthi rebels accused of diverting food aid from hungry

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Head of UN’s World Food Programme threatens suspension of food aid if safe delivery not assured

The head of the United Nations food agency has accused Yemen’s Houthi rebels of diverting food from the country’s hungriest people and threatened to suspend food aid.

David Beasley, executive director of the World Food Programme (WFP), said the agency had found “serious evidence” that food supplies had been diverted in the capital, Sana’a and other Houthi-controlled areas in the country, which is in the midst of a four-year civil war. He called on the Houthis to implement agreements that would allow the UN agency to operate independently.

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UN report condemns its conduct in Myanmar as systemic failure

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Exclusive: ‘Serious errors’ found in agencies’ approach to Rohingya crisis in Rakhine

A damning report by the UN on its own conduct in Myanmar has condemned the organisation’s “obviously dysfunctional performance” over the past decade and concluded there was a systemic failure.

The report, seen by the Guardian before publication, was commissioned by the secretary general, António Guterres, after accusations that the UN system ignored warning signs of escalating violence before an alleged genocide of Myanmar’s Rohingya minority.

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Myanmar: UN threatens to withdraw aid over ‘policy of apartheid’ against Rohingya

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Exclusive: Body says it will withhold support ‘beyond life-saving assistance’ in internally displaced persons camps deemed “closed” by the Myanmar government

The United Nations in Myanmar has warned it will withdraw support in Rakhine state to avoid complicity in a government “policy of apartheid” for Rohingya Muslims.

A letter seen by the Guardian, sent from UN resident coordinator, Knut Ostby, to the Myanmar government, relayed a decision by the UN and its humanitarian partners to withhold support “beyond life-saving assistance” in internally displaced persons (IDP) camps deemed “closed” by the government, unless fundamental changes occur.

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UN counter-terror tsar visits Xinjiang where Uighurs held in huge numbers

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Activists say official visit risks affirming China’s narrative that camps thought to hold a million people are not an abuse of human rights

The UN’s counter-terrorism tsar is on a visit this week to China’s Xinjiang region, where Beijing insists the estimated 1 million Uighurs and other Muslims it is detaining constitute a potential terrorist threat.

Vladimir Voronkov, the under-secretary general for counter-terrorism, is the highest level UN official to visit Xinjiang, which activists have described as an open-air prison where people are deprived of religious freedom.

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Aid groups need a major shake-up to meet the challenges of a fractured world | Simon O’Connell

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Humanitarian assistance is too siloed, inefficient and expensive to achieve lasting impact for billions of people in need

It is just over three years since the “Grand Bargain” was struck.

It was signed by the world’s major donors and aid providers, promising structural reform and committed to getting more money directly through to local and national organisations. But the deal has seen little change. The system remains dominated by a familiar group of UN agencies and international NGOs. Progress is at a glacial pace.

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It’s not just girls – one in 30 young men were married as children

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Central African Republic has the highest rate of boy grooms, followed by Nicaragua, Madagascar, Nauru and Honduras

One in 30 young men were married as children, according to the first UN analysis of child marriage rates among boys.

Around 115 million boys and men around the world were married before they turned 18, according to Unicef, which warned the issue is often overlooked.

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Inquiry into oil tanker attacks stops short of blaming Iran

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UN security council hears unidentified state was behind explosions in Gulf last month

An unidentified state actor has been blamed for attacks on four oil tankers in the Gulf last month, according to an inconclusive inquiry that stopped short of explicitly pointing the finger at Iran.

The UAE along with Saudi Arabia and Norway presented the preliminary findings during a private briefing to members of the UN security council, which will also receive the final results of the inquiry and consider a possible response.

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DRC Ebola cases pass 2,000, prompting call for ‘total reset’

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Violence by armed groups and community mistrust hamper attempts to halt epidemic

More than 2,000 people have been infected with Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the health ministry has said, and aid agencies expressed concern over the accelerating spread of the disease.

So far there have been 1914 confirmed and 94 probable cases of infection with the virus, making the outbreak, which was declared in August last year, the second largest in history. New cases are being reported at a rate of around 10 every day. Some 1,346 people have died

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US abortion policy is ‘extremist hate’ and ‘torture’, says UN commissioner

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Trump administration’s ban on terminations is a crisis directed at women, warns Kate Gilmore

The US policy on abortion is a form of extremist hate that amounts to the torture of women, the UN deputy high commissioner for human rights told the Guardian.

The attack on women’s rights was a “crisis”, organised and well-resourced by very extremist groups.

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Science institute that advised EU and UN ‘actually industry lobby group’

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International Life Sciences Institute used by corporate backers to counter public health policies, says study

An institute whose experts have occupied key positions on EU and UN regulatory panels is, in reality, an industry lobby group that masquerades as a scientific health charity, according to a peer-reviewed study.

The Washington-based International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) describes its mission as “pursuing objectivity, clarity and reproducibility” to “benefit the public good”.

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Candidate to run global food body will ‘not defend’ EU stance on GM

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Catherine Geslain-Lanéelle tells US she would be more open to its interests in UN role

Europe’s candidate to run the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which guides policymakers around the world, has promised the US she will “not defend the EU position” in resisting the global spread of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

In a bid for US support, Catherine Geslain-Lanéelle told senior US officials at a meeting in Washington on 15 May that under her leadership the FAO would be more open to American interests and accepting of GMOs and gene editing, according to a US official record of the meeting seen by the Guardian.

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UN report proves Catalan separatists ‘political prisoners’, says Puigdemont

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Trio arrested over alleged role in failed independence bid should be freed, panel says

The fugitive Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont has welcomed a UN report on the detention of three fellow separatists, which he said confirmed they were “political prisoners”.

The former Catalan vice-president Oriol Junqueras and the Catalan civil society group chiefs, Jordi Cuixart and Jordi Sànchez, arrested over their alleged role in the failed regional independence bid, have been in custody since late 2017 and are among 12 regional leaders currently on trial in Madrid.

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Latin American rape survivors who were denied abortions turn to UN

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Women from Nicaragua, Ecuador and Guatemala who suffered child rape take cases to UN human rights committee

Four women from Latin America whose lives were put at risk when they were not allowed abortions after being raped as girls are taking their cases to the UN human rights committee.

The women, from Nicaragua, Ecuador and Guatemala, filed cases against their governments on Wednesday for failing to provide appropriate healthcare and denying them abortions, even when it was their legal right to have one.

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Congo Ebola response must be elevated to maximum level, UN told

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Charities call for outbreak to be put on a par with crises in Yemen, Syria and Mozambique as death toll reaches 1,287

The UN has been urged by charities to ramp up Ebola prevention work in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the highest level of emergency response.

Only three crises – Yemen, Syria and Mozambique – are treated as the equivalent of a level-three response, activated when agencies are unable to meet needs on the ground.

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International community ‘lacks moral motivation to end Libyan civil war’

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Ghassan Salamé, UN special envoy for Libya, says country is viewed as a prize

The international community lacks the moral motivation to end the Libyan civil war, and largely views the country as a prize to be captured, Ghassan Salamé, the UN special envoy for Libya, said on Wednesday.

Salamé’s complaint came as one of the belligerents in the civil war, Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, ruled out an immediate ceasefire in talks with the French president Emmanuel Macron in Paris.

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UK suffers crushing defeat in UN vote on Chagos Islands

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General assembly strongly condemns British occupation of Indian Ocean territory

The United Nations general assembly has overwhelmingly backed a motion condemning Britain’s occupation of the remote Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean.

The 116-6 vote left the UK diplomatically isolated and was also a measure of severely diminished US clout on the world stage. Washington had campaigned vigorously at the UN and directly in talks with national capitals around the world in defence of the UK’s continued control of the archipelago, where there is a US military base at Diego Garcia.

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Chagos Islands: isolated UK faces thrashing in UN vote on ownership

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General assembly expected to vote in favour of UK relinquishing control of Indian Ocean archipelago claimed by Mauritius

The UK is facing a diplomatic rout at the United Nations on Wednesday when the general assembly is expected to vote overwhelmingly to demand Britain relinquish hold of one of the last vestiges of empire in the Indian Ocean.

The US and the UK have lobbied intensely at the UN to avoid support for Britain dropping to single figures among the UN’s 193 member states on the issue of its continued possession of the Chagos Islands, known as the British Indian Ocean Territory.

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How a rightwing group accessed the White House to spread its anti-abortion agenda

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The outsize influence of C-Fam in the top reaches of the Trump administration has helped turn the tide on the world stage on issues involving women’s reproductive rights

Last spring, Laurie Shestack Phipps, a diplomat at the US mission to the UN, received a set of talking points from the state department ahead of an international women’s conference, setting out clear red lines against mention of “sexual and reproductive health” care.

This had become the norm in the Trump administration, where the once uncontroversial phrase was seen as code for abortion. Use of the word “gender” was also strongly discouraged, as it was viewed as a stalking horse for LGBT rights.

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Tax carbon, not people: UN chief issues climate plea from Pacific ‘frontline’

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Antonio Guterres hears from leaders at Fiji summit who warn region is facing ‘an unprecedented global catastrophe’

Governments around the world must introduce carbon taxes, halt plans for new coal plants and accelerate the closure of existing ones if damage to the Pacific from climate change is to be limited, the UN secretary general has told Pacific leaders on his first visit to the region.

Antonio Guterres met leaders of Pacific countries in Fiji, on a trip that will also see him visit Vanuatu, considered one of the countries most vulnerable to natural disasters due to climate change, and Tuvalu, which is at risk of sinking under rising waters.

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UN urges worldwide withdrawal of support for Myanmar military

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World must ‘cut off money supply’ to commanders accused of war crimes and genocide against Rohingya, say investigators

The international community must cut off all support to Myanmar’s military as part of efforts to hold army commanders to account for crimes against humanity and genocide, UN investigators have said following a fact-finding mission in the country.

In a statement, the UN said there had been no progress in protecting the Rohingya minority, more than a million of whom have fled military “clearance operations” in the Rakhine region.

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