A rising number of attacks by extremist groups, using more sophisticated tactics, risk undermining progress in West Africa and the Sahel, the region’s UN envoy told the Security Council on Thursday [10 January 2019].
UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe | Mohammed Ibn Chambas, Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the UN Office for West Africa and the Sahel, briefs the Security Council.
“Military solutions, while necessary, are not sufficient,” Mohamed Ibn Chambas, the Special Representative for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS), pushing for holistic responses, “grounded in the respect of human rights, and the socioeconomic needs of the population in the affected areas.”
In breaking down some of the most pressing challenges, he highlighted:
Storm-force winds and snow across Lebanon have worsened the plight for tens of thousands of Syrian refugees who’ve been forced from their homes by nearly eight years of conflict, a top UN humanitarian official said on Thursday [10 January 2019].
UNICEF/UN0158355/Halldorsson | Syrian refugees gather outside their shelters following a winter storm which brought rain and snow, at an informal settlement in Haoush Harime, in Bekaa Valley, Lebanon.
Speaking to journalists in Geneva, Philippe Lazzarini, Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Lebanon, said that refugees had been moved from shelters – including in the exposed Bekaa valley where wintery conditions are especially acute – to safer facilities, after Storm Norma hit at the weekend.
“Some of the settlements have been completely flooded, very cold, it’s extremely inclement conditions, and to describe daily life, it’s just miserable,” he said.
The decision pleased Republican lawmakers and industry groups eager for less onerous federal environmental oversight, but drew criticism from environmental groups critical of the EPA’s direction under Trump.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler addresses staff at EPA headquarters in Washington, U.S., July 11, 2018. | Photo: Reuters | Photo fromteleSUR.
9 January 2019 (teleSUR)* — U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday nominated acting EPA chief Andrew Wheeler to run the agency permanently, the White House said, placing a former energy lobbyist at the helm of the nation’s top environmental regulator.
.
The widely anticipated nomination provides Trump another avid supporter of his deregulatory and pro-fossil fuels agenda, but without the constant criticism of Wheeler’s predecessor, Scott Pruitt.
8 January 2019 (UN Women)* — Aung Ja* was 18 when a woman from Myitkina, northern Myanmar, convinced her to take a ‘factory’ job in China. She was rescued in 2017 and is taking part in a UN Women-supported trafficking prevention programme.
Aung Ja is a Burmese survivor of birth trafficking to China. Photo: UN Women/Stuart Mannion
“[The broker] convinced my aunty that I could get a job in China. I had stopped school and was not doing anything, so I needed a job. She showed me a picture of a phone factory, and a shoe-making factory.
But when I arrived in China in May 2017, they forced me to get pregnant. They gave me pills for 10 days to prepare the womb.
9 January 2019 — Following an upsurge in violence in north-east Nigeria, which was brought to global attention five years ago with the abduction by Boko Haram extremists of the Chibok schoolgirls, tens of thousands of innocent civilians continue to flee, prompting “grave concern” from the United Nations envoy there.
@ UNICEF/Vlad Sokhin | Dada, 15, was abducted by Boko Haram and became pregnant with her daughter after she was raped while in captivity.
Clashes between Nigerian government forces and non-State armed groups on 26 December in Baga town, about 200 kilometers north of state capital Maiduguri, triggered massive displacement, pushing civilians to converge on already-congested camps or sites for internally displaced people (IDPs).
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 