Page 40 - United Nations

End repression of independent voices in Russia: UN after Navalny's death

The UN human rights chief called on Monday for a quick end to the repression of independent voices in Russia and expressed concerns about the persecution" of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in prison last month. Volker Turk, in a wide-ranging speech, also lamented dozens of conflicts around the world, widespread violations of human rights law that have impacted millions, and displacements caused by war, which could escalate in places like the Middle East, the Horn of Africa and Sudan. Rarely has humanity faced so many rapidly spiralling crises," he told the Human Rights Council. Alluding to some countries among the dozens holding national elections this year, Turk denounced increasing restrictions" on rights defenders, journalists and perceived critics in India. He urged US authorities to ensure that voting is universal, alluding to discriminatory policies that restricted the right to vote for people of African descent. In the run-up to Russia's presidential elections f

World Civil Defence Day 2024: All you need to know about civil defence

World Civil Defence Day, inter alia, promotes joint effort and participation among countries to reinforce resilience and reaction capacities in the face of developing dangers and challenges

Zero Discrimination Day 2024: History, significance, theme or more

Zero Discrimination Day 2024: The UN marks March 1 as Zero Discrimination Day to prevent all sorts of discrimination, whether it is social, political or borders. Get to know more about it here

UN court proceedings: Majority nations argue Israel violated int'l law

The United Nations' highest court on Monday wrapped up historic proceedings into the legality of Israel's 57-year occupation of lands sought by Palestinians for a future state, with most voices at the hearing arguing against the Israeli government. Over six days, the International Court of Justice heard from an unprecedented number of countries and the majority argued Israel was violating international law and called for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. The real obstacle to peace is obvious the deepening occupation by Israel of the Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem, and failure to implement the two-state vision, Israel and Palestine living side by side, Turkiye's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Ahmet Yildiz said. The hearings addressed a request by the UN General Assembly for a non-binding opinion on the legality of Israel's policies. The court says it will issue its opinion in due course. On average, advisory opinions are released six month

Statsguru: Six charts explain India's food divide and higher inflation

A recent release of data that the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization compiled from 28 countries shows similar patterns

Israel accused of blocking aid to Gazans in violation of a UN court order

Israel has failed to comply with an order by the United Nations' top court to provide urgently needed aid to desperate people in the Gaza Strip, Human Rights Watch said Monday, a month after a landmark ruling in The Hague ordered Israel to moderate its war. In a preliminary response to a South African petition accusing Israel of genocide, the UN's top court ordered Israel to do all it can to prevent death, destruction and any acts of genocide in Gaza. It stopped short of ordering an end to its military offensive that has triggered a humanitarian catastrophe in the tiny Palestinian enclave. Israel vehemently denies the charges against it, saying it is fighting a war in self-defense. One month later and nearly five months into the war, preparations are underway for Israel to expand its ground operation into Rafah, Gaza's southernmost town along the border with Egypt, where 1.4 million Palestinians have flooded into in search of safety. Early Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin ..

UN member states meet to plan how to tackle world's environmental crises

The world's top decision-making body on the environment is meeting in Kenya's capital on Monday to discuss how countries can work together to tackle environmental crises like climate change, pollution and loss of biodiversity. The meeting in Nairobi is the sixth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly, and governments, civil society groups, scientists and the private sector are attending. None of us live on an island. We live on planet Earth, and we are all connected, Inger Andersen, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, which is leading the process, told The Associated Press ahead of the talks. The only way we can solve some of these problems is by talking together. At the meeting, member states discuss a raft of draft resolutions on a range of issues that the assembly adopts upon consensus. If a proposal is adopted, it sets the stage for countries to implement what's been agreed on. In the last round of talks in 2022, also in Nairobi, governments adopted

The global multilateral system is facing a 'logjam': EAM S Jaishankar

A lot of our challenges today emanate today from how countries have used that for their benefit at the expense of the international system, EAM S Jaishankar said

Brazil min calls for reform of United Nations as it starts G20 presidency

Brazil's foreign minister called for reforms of the United Nations and other multilateral institutions on Wednesday while criticising their inability to prevent global conflicts, as his country kicked off its presidency of the Group of 20 nations. Mauro Vieira told fellow foreign ministers during opening remarks for a G20 meeting in Rio de Janeiro that the UN Security Council has been unable to prevent or halt conflicts such as those playing out in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip. Multilateral institutions are not adequately equipped to deal with current challenges, as demonstrated by the unacceptable paralysis of the Security Council in relation to ongoing conflicts, Vieira said. Foreign ministers of the 20 leading rich and developing nations are gathering this week to discuss poverty, climate change and heightened global tensions, setting a roadmap for work to accomplish ahead of a November 18-19 summit in Rio. One of Brazil's key proposals, set by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva,

UN shouldn't urge Israel to withdraw from Palestinian-claimed lands: US

The United States said Wednesday the United Nations' top court should not issue an advisory opinion that says Israel should immediately and unconditionally withdraw from territories sought for a Palestinian state. Acting State Department legal adviser Richard Visek said the 15-judge panel at the International Court of Justice should not seek to resolve the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict through an advisory opinion addressed to questions focusing on the acts of only one party. Visek spoke on the third day of hearings at the court into a request by the General Assembly for a non-binding advisory opinion on the legality of Israel's policies in the occupied territories. He said the court "can address the questions before it within the established framework based on the land for peace principle and within the parameters of established principles of occupation law. Visek added that the court's opinion will have consequences for the parties to the conflict and for the ongoing .

UN World Food Programme suspends aid amid chaos, violence in northern Gaza

The United Nations' World Food Programme announced a pause in food and aid deliveries to northern Gaza on Tuesday after its drivers faced gunfire and violence from desperate residents swarming the trucks. The convoys faced complete chaos and violence due to the collapse of civil order, according to a statement from the WFP. WFP had attempted to resume aid deliveries in northern Gaza after a three-week pause following a strike on an aid convoy from the Israeli military. The WFP said 1 in 6 children under age 2 are acutely malnourished and people are dying of hunger-related cases, and the situation is even more dire in northern Gaza. In these past two days our teams witnessed unprecedented levels of desperation, the WFP said. Hamas's government media office described the WFP decision as a death sentence for hundreds of thousands of people who are in the northern half of Gaza. The office called for the WFP to withdraw its decisions and for all UN agencies to return and avert catastrop

US vetoes UN resolution demanding immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza

The UN Security Council on Tuesday failed to adopt a resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war after a veto by the US. The 15-nation Council met Tuesday to vote on the latest resolution in the Israel-Hamas conflict that was put forward by Algeria on behalf of Arab States. The resolution demanded an immediate humanitarian ceasefire that must be respected by all parties. The resolution got 13 votes in favour and an abstention by the UK but could not be adopted since the US voted against the draft by casting its veto. Commenting on the Algerian-proposed draft resolution on the situation in the Middle East ahead of the vote, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said that Washington is working on a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas, which would bring an immediate and sustained period of calm to Gaza for at least six weeks, and from which we could then take the time and the steps to build a more enduring peace. She had said that the deal ...

Israel orders evacuations in Gaza, where UN says children are malnourished

Israel ordered new evacuations from parts of Gaza City on Tuesday, as a study led by the UN children's agency found that one in six children are acutely malnourished in the isolated and largely devastated north of the territory, where the city is located. The report finds deepening misery across the territory, where Israel's air and ground offensive, launched in response to Hamas' Oct 7 attack, has killed over 29,000 Palestinians, obliterated entire neighborhoods and displaced more than 80% of the population. Israel has vowed to expand the offensive to the Gaza Strip's southernmost city of Rafah, where more than half of the territory's population of 2.3 million has sought refuge from fighting elsewhere. Many have crowded into sprawling tent camps and overflowing UN-run shelters near the Egyptian border. On Tuesday, the military ordered the evacuation of the Zaytoun and Turkoman neighbourhoods on the southern edge of Gaza City, an indication that Palestinian militants are still putti

US proposes UN resolution supporting temporary ceasefire in Gaza: Report

Washington traditionally shields its ally Israel from UN

Israel fuelling apartheid, says Palestinian foreign minister at UN court

The Palestinian foreign minister on Monday accused Israel of apartheid and urged the United Nations' top court to declare that Israel's occupation of lands sought for a Palestinian state is illegal and must end immediately and unconditionally for any hope for a two-state future to survive. The remarks came at historic hearings into the legality of Israel's 57-year occupation. The case opened against the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war, which immediately became a focal point of the day even though the hearings were meant to centre on Israel's open-ended control over the occupied West Bank, the Gaza Strip and annexed east Jerusalem. Palestinian Foreign Affairs Minister Riyad al-Maliki told the International Court of Justice that 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, half of them children, are besieged and bombed, killed and maimed, starved and displaced. "More than 3.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank, including in Jerusalem, are subjected to colonisation of their territory and ...

Taliban has set 'unacceptable' terms for meeting, says UN secy general

The Taliban set unacceptable conditions for attending a UN-sponsored meeting about Afghanistan, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Monday. Taliban demands included the exclusion of Afghan civil society members from the talks in Doha, Qatar, and treatment that amounted to official recognition of the Taliban as the country's legitimate rulers, Guterres said at the conclusion of a two-day meeting in Qatar. The Taliban seized power in 2021, as US and NATO forces withdrew following two decades of war. No country recognises them as Afghanistan's government, and the UN has said that recognition is almost impossible while bans on female education and employment remain in place. The two-day meeting in Doha brought together member states and special envoys. But the Taliban didn't attend because their demands had not been met. I received a letter (from the Taliban) with a set of conditions to be present in this meeting that were not acceptable, Guterres told a news conference. These .

Israel strikes Gaza as US says it will block another cease-fire resolution

Israeli strikes across Gaza killed at least 18 people overnight and into Sunday, according to medics and witnesses, as the United States said it would veto another draft UN cease-fire resolution. The US, Israel's top ally, instead hopes to broker a cease-fire agreement and hostage release between Israel and Hamas, and envisions a wider resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pushed back, calling Hamas' demands delusional and rejecting US and international calls for a pathway to Palestinian statehood. Netanyahu has vowed to continue the offensive until total victory over Hamas and to expand it to Gaza's southernmost town of Rafah, where more than half the enclave's population of 2.3 million Palestinians have sought refuge from fighting elsewhere. An airstrike in Rafah overnight killed six people, including a woman and three children, and another strike killed five men in the southern city of Khan Younis, the main target of the ...

Israel hasn't presented evidence that Hamas diverted UN aid: US envoy

Israel has not presented specific evidence that Hamas is diverting UN aid and its recent targeted killings of Gaza police commanders safeguarding truck convoys have made it virtually impossible to distribute the goods safely, a top US envoy said in rare public criticism of Israel. With the departure of police escorts following Israeli strikes, criminal gangs are increasingly targeting the convoys, said David Satterfield, the Biden administration's special Middle East envoy for humanitarian issues. He said the lawlessness as well as regular Israeli protests at crossing points by those opposed to aid going into Gaza have disrupted delivery and distribution. We are working with the Israeli government, the Israeli military in seeing what solutions can be found here because everyone wants to see the assistance continue, Satterfield told the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on Friday. A solution "is going to require some form of security escorts to return. Satterfield said that

UN calls for 'credible' Russian investigation into Alexei Navalny death

Navalny collapsed and died on Friday after a walk at the "Polar Wolf" Arctic penal colony where he was serving a three-decade jail term, the Russian prison service said

Islamic State group poses rising threat in Africa despite progress: UN

The Islamic State extremist group poses a rising threat amid political instability in West Africa and the Sahel and remains intent on carrying out attacks abroad, the U.N. counter-terrorism chief said Thursday. Vladimir Voronkov reiterated U.N. findings that IS continues to pose a significant threat to international peace and security, especially in conflict zones, despite significant progress by U.N. member nations in countering the threat. The group has also increased operations in its former strongholds in Iraq and Syria as well as Southeast Asia, Voronkov said. Voronkov told the U.N. Security Council that in West Africa and the Sahel, a broad region cutting across the continent, the situation has deteriorated and is becoming more complex, as local ethnic and regional disputes cross with the agenda and operations of the extremist group, which is also known by its Arabic name Daesh, and its affiliates. Daesh affiliates continued to operate with increasingly more autonomy from the