By Izumi Nakamitsu, United Nations High Representative for Disarmament Affairs*
Human suffering caused by war is not a new phenomenon.
Izumi Nakamitsu
And while our highest priority remains the prevention of war, evolving patterns of armed violence are posing new and more difficult challenges that require action.
Conflict is migrating into villages, towns and cities, but governments and non-state actors are continuing to use weapons designed for open battlefields.
Many weapons originally intended for battlefield use, those that disperse multiple munitions over a wide area, fire without a direct line of sight to the target, or produce large blasts and fragmentation, pose serious humanitarian concerns when used in populated areas. Continue reading →
The UN’s Political and Humanitarian Affairs chiefs on Friday [17 May 2019] called on the Security Council to unite in support of an immediate de-escalation of fighting around Syria’s Idlib province, and work towards an enduring political solution on behalf of the Syrian people.
The UN’s head of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, Rosemary DiCarlo told members that “we have been here before: in Aleppo, Eastern Ghouta and Raqqa” where civilian casualties mounted along with an all-out offensive by the Syrian Government and its allies.
While the (surprisingly) still called homo sapiens continues to destroy Mother Nature, bees and other pollinators, such as butterflies, bats and hummingbirds, carry on performing their vital role as one of the most marvellous, unpaid, life guarantors. See what the world community of scientists and specialised organisations tell about them. Continue reading →
The central problem which the world faces in its attempts to avoid catastrophic climate change is a contrast of time scales.
In order to save human civilization and the biosphere from the most disastrous effects of climate change, we need to act immediately.
But it is difficult to mobilize public opinion behind urgently needed action because the most severe effects of global warming belong to the long-term future.
However, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in their October 2018 report, used strong enough language to wake up at least part of the public: the children whose future is at stake.
Here is an excerpt from a speech which 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg made at the Davos Economic Forum in January, 2019:
Sorry for coming back to this issue, but its immense human dimension justifies this new attempt to report on another aspect, which is deliberately hidden, unwanted to be seen by the new wave of racist, xenophobe, far-right pseudo-politicians, which is now steadily growing in the biggest industrialised powers on Earth: United States and so far a full dozen of European countries. See what it is about:
New research finds that expanding access and broadening provision of Universal Basic Services would be of greater value to people in the lowest income groups.
Image: HM Treasury, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
16 May 2019 (openDemocracy)* — Strengthening and extending universal services would be a more effective way of tackling global poverty and improving wellbeing than a universal basic income (UBI), according to a report by the UCL Institute for Global Prosperity (IGP).
Cox’s Bazar, 17 May 2019 (IOM)* –Under clear 36-degree Celsius skies, an exhausted Rafiq leans against his house, surrounded by his five children. Glancing upwards, he ponders another sweltering walk down a steep dirt path to haul clean water for his family.
Rohingya refugees at a shallow well in Cox’s Bazar.
A pump just nearby provides water whose drinkability he views as “unreliable” and requires an arduous hillside trek. Sterilizing water by boiling also is difficult because firewood is hard to come by.
18 May 2019 (teleSUR)* — Canada has long been overrun with large numbers of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls and over-representation of Indigenous people in correctional facilities.
Canadian Museum for Human Rights says the colonial experience in the country, from the time of first contact to present day, is genocide. | Image from teleSUR.
The treatment of Indigenous peoples in Canada was reviewed and will henceforth be identified as a genocide, the Winnipeg-based Museum for Human Rights has declared.
Tuvalu “faces an existential threat from sea-level rise”, the United Nations chief said during his visit to the Pacific island nation on Friday [17 May 2019] whose highest point is less than five metres above the waves.
UN Photo/Mark Garten | The UN Secretary-General António Guterres overflies the low-lying coastline of Tuvalu in the Pacific Ocean. (17 May 2019)
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“We must stop Tuvalu from sinking and the world from sinking with Tuvalu”, Secretary-General António Guterres said in a tweet posted during his on-going trip to the South Pacific.
New York, 17 May 2019 (Human Rights Watch)* – Bangladesh authorities made a series of new arrests in their crackdown on the right to free speech, Human Rights Watch said today [17 May 2019]. The arrests were based on vague charges such as “hurting religious sentiment” or undermining “law and order.” Continue reading →
Why do most voice assistants have female names, and why do they have submissive personalities? The answer, says a new report released on Friday [17 May 2019] by UNESCO, the UN’s Education, Science and Culture agency, is that there are hardly any women working in the technical teams that develop these services and other cutting-edge digital tools.
World Bank/Charlotte Kesl | Two schoolgirls make use of classroom computers at San Jose, a rural secondary school in La Ceja del Tambo, Antioquia, Colombia. | Photo from UN News.
The publication, produced in collaboration with the Germany Government and the EQUALS Skills Coalition – an alliance of public and private sector partners which encourages the involvement of women and girls in scientific and digital technology sectors – is called “I’d Blush If I Could.”Continue reading →
STOCKHOLM, May 17 2019 (IPS)* – When the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) concluded a three-day forum on “Peace and Development” on May 16, the primary focus was the daunting challenges threatening global security, including growing military interventions, spreading humanitarian emergencies, forced migration, increasing civil wars, extreme weather conditions triggered by climate change and widespread poverty and conflict-related hunger.
Sweden’s Minister for International Development Cooperation Peter Eriksson
