The US is ready to “take names” of its critics, America’s ambassador to the UN has warned, ahead of a GA session to debate Washington’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital and move its embassy there.
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**U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Nikki Haley meets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his office in Jerusalem, June 7, 2017. | Source: Ambassador Nikki Haley visit June 2017 | Author: U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv | Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
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The US is ratcheting up its rhetoric and its threats in defending the December 6 decision to move its Israeli embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem from global indignation.
19 December 2017 – Shocked at the “incomprehensible” killing of a wheelchair-bound amputee protester by Israeli security forces, the top United Nations human rights official has called on the country to open an independent and impartial investigation into the incident.*
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein. UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferré
“International human rights law strictly regulates the use of force in the context of protests and demonstrations. The lethal use of firearms should only be employed as the last resort, when strictly unavoidable, in order to protect life,” Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said on 19 December 2017.
GENEVA, 18 December 2017 (IOM)* – The UN International Organization for Migration –IOM’s Global Migration Trends Factsheet presents a snapshot of the major migration trends worldwide for the year 2015 based on statistics from a variety of sources. Considering the state of migration globally in 2015, the following facts stand out:
Credit: IOM
In 2015, the number of international migrants worldwide – people residing in a country other than their country of birth – was the highest ever recorded, having reached 244 million (from 232 million in 2013).
ROME, Dec 18 2017 (IPS) – While the media may be attracted by images of migrants drowning or sold as slaves, another flagrant but lesser-known drama is that of care workers, who are overwhelmingly women, often migrants, and who make a very large contribution to global public health, but are exposed to great health risks themselves with little or no protection, let alone basic labour rights.
Credit: UN
Migrant women care workers buttress health systems in countries where there are shortfalls in health-care provision, while their own rights to health and well-being can be eroded and their health-care needs unfulfilled, the UN leading health agency reminded on the occasion of the World Migrants Day on 18 December.
The number of Americans living in poverty and the already high income inequality could worsen further in the days to come, making the United States the most unequal society in the world, the United Nations expert on extreme poverty and human rights on 15 December 2017 warned.
A homeless man sits at the steps of a store in lower east side, Manhattan, New York City. (File) UN Photo/Pernaca Sudhakaran
“The American Dream is rapidly becoming the American Illusion, as the US now has the lowest rate of social mobility of any of the rich countries,” said the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, on 15 December 2017, at the end of a fact finding mission to the country.
Some 50 million children are on the move worldwide, and if countries follow best practices to ensure their safety and well-being, 2018 could be a landmark year for migrant children the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on 15 December 2017 said.
A young child eats a sandwich next to the tarpaulin that serves as a makeshift shelter, close to the town of Gevgelija, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, on the border with Greece (September 2015). Photo: UNICEF/NYHQ2015-2191/Georgiev
They congregate in the marketplace, boys of 15, 16 years, take stones and throw them at our soldiers, who are armed to the teeth.
The soldiers shoot, sometimes over their heads, sometimes straight at them. Every day there are wounded, every few days there are dead.
What for? They do not have the slightest chance of changing the policy of the Israeli occupation. Only very rarely do the boys hit a soldier and cause him a slight injury.
Yet they go on. Why?
A FRIEND of mine sent me an article by a respected Palestinian. He described his first demonstration, many years ago.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on 15 December 2017 said that he is deeply concerned over the risk of military confrontation on the Korean Peninsula, “including as a result of miscalculation
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres addresses the Security Council on non-proliferation / DPRK. UN Photo/Manuel Elias
Expressing deep shock at a mass execution of 38 men at a prison in the Iraqi city of Nassiriya, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has called on the country to establish an immediate moratorium and carry out an urgent and comprehensive review of its criminal justice system.
This op-ed by Roberto Savio, IPS founder and President Emeritus is adapted from a statement he made as a panelist on Migration and Human Solidarity, A Challenge and an Opportunity for Europe and the MENA region held on 14 December at the Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue.
Roberto Savio
ROME, Dec 14 2017 (IPS) – At the outset my thanks to Dr Hanif Hassan Ali Al Kassim, and Ambassador Idriss Jazairy who lead the Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue for organizing this panel discussion at a critical moment in history.
The Centre is one of the few actors for peace and cooperation between the Arab world and Europe. As a representative of global civil society, I think it will be more meaningful if I speak without the constraints of diplomacy, and I make frank and unfettered reflections.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 