An independent UN report into last year’s protests along Gaza’s border fence involving Israeli security forces, that resulted in the shooting deaths of more than 180 Palestinians, concluded on Thursday [28 February 2019] that there are “reasonable grounds” to believe Israel violated international humanitarian law.*
Save the Children/Mohamed N Ali | A 14-year-old boy who was reportedly shot and injured in both legs on 30 March 2018, in Gaza, the day that mass protests began at the border with Israel.
There was “no justification” for Israeli forces to use live rounds, according to a press release issued by the UN Commission of Inquiryinto the 2018 Gaza protests.
— The international community’s chilling complacency towards wide-scale human rights violations in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has emboldened governments to commit appalling violations during 2018 by giving them the sense that they need never fear facing justice, said Amnesty International as it published a review of human rights in the region last year.
The report Human rights in the Middle East and North Africa: A review of 2018describes how authorities across the region have unashamedly persisted with ruthless campaigns of repression in order to crush dissent, cracking down on protesters, civil society and political opponents, often with tacit support from powerful allies.
Jamal Khashoggi’s shocking killing in October 2018 sparked an unprecedented global outcry, spurring a Saudi Arabian investigation and even prompting rare action from states such as Denmark and Finland to suspend the supply of arms to Saudi Arabia.
28 February 2019 (Wall Street International)* — Do not panic! This is not about telling you how bank accounts and pension funds have been used to finance the production of nuclear bombs (they call it ‘investment’).
Nor it is about the four dozens of major and minor wars that the so-called “traditional weapons,” which are being manufactured and exported by civilised, democratic countries, continue to systematically fuel.
Joint UNHCR and EU scheme offers Syrian refugees and other children a safe space to learn and play, as part of wider push to get kids out of work and into school. | Español
27 February 2019 (UNHCR)* — On a recent afternoon in a drab neighborhood in the west of Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, a brightly coloured bus pulls up to the side of a street.
A group of children selling chewing gum and tissues to drivers at a busy intersection quickly pack away their wares and gather at the roadside, eagerly waiting to hop on board.
“They call to us here, they tell us to come and play,” says Abed, a 12-year-old refugee from Syria. “We love coming here.” For a few hours, Abed and his friends get the chance to be normal children again, playing and learning away from the dangers of the streets.
27 February 2019 (UN Women)* — Including women’s voices in politics is a starting point of a process to question the privileges and biases that exist, based on gender and social class. It’s a process to break down the patriarchy that frames the construction of this State.
Women account for 53.1 per cent of Parliamentarians in the Plurinational State of Bolivia, the third-highest percentage globally. Adriana Salvatierra, a role model to many, became the fourth woman to be elected as the President of the Senate Chambers of Bolivia this year. The 29-year-old is also the youngest to hold this position in the country, and in Latin America. | Adriana Salvatierra. Photo: UN Women/David Villegas
“Amid the continued escalation of global challenges, crises that were previously unthinkable are now becoming reality throughout the world” — Daisaku Ikeda
In Countries Destroyed by the West, People Should Stop Admiring the U.S. and Europe
It may sound incredible, but it is true: in countries that have been damaged, even totally robbed and destroyed by the West, many people are still enamored with Europe and North America.
Migration and sustainable development are “deeply interconnected” and the 2030 Agenda, the UN’s blueprint for a sustainable future for all, will not be achieved if we do not “comprehensively include migrants,” the President of the General Assembly said on Wednesday [27 February 2019].
27 February 2019 – With around half a million in effect, stateless Rohingya refugee children living in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar camp, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) chief stressed that the international community must address their “untenable situation” and “invest in this generation”.
Arms control, the illegal exploitation of natural resources, and the United Nations’ role in “silencing the guns in Africa” were the focus of a Security Council’s debate on Wednesday [27 February 2019], aimed at conflict prevention across the continent.
UN News/Daniel Dickinson | 25-year old Kedra Abakar was abducted from his home on the the island of Ngomiron Doumou in Lake Chad by extremists from the Boko Haram terrorist group. (9 February 2019)
Noting that two years of joint UN-African Union (AU) efforts have strengthened the continent’s ability to detect and defuse crises before they escalate, Rosemary DiCarlo, Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, said that while “silencing the guns for good requires the participation of all”, it also means “keeping them from firing in the first place”.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 