(UN News)* —The Security Council rejected Palestine’s request for UN membership on Thursday [], with the United States casting a veto.
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UN Photo/Manuel Elías | Ambassador Robert A. Wood of the United States votes against the draft resolution on Palestine in the Security Council.
In a vote of 12 in favour to one against, with two abstentions, the Council did not adopt a draft resolution that would have recommended the General Assembly to hold a vote with the broader UN membership to allow Palestine to join as a full UN Member State.
The draft resolution is among the shortest in the Council’s history: “The Security Council, having examined the application of the State of Palestine for admission to the United Nations (S/2011/592), recommends to the General Assembly that the State of Palestine be admitted to membership in the United Nations.”
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 23 2024 (IPS)* – The Biden administration, once again displayed its political hypocrisy by denying UN membership to Palestine, while continuing to advocate a “two-state’ solution” to the crisis in the Middle East.
Mahmoud Abbas (centre right), President of the State of Palestine, addresses an event to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the Nakba, held by the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People on 15 May 2023.
But one lingering question remains: will the two-state solution include– or exclude– Palestine as a full-fledged UN member state?
Sudan, 12 April 2024 (UNFPA)* – “I can’t forget that moment. I can’t forget his smell. I can’t forget their faces. This moment will haunt me until I die.”
Fawzya*, 26, was travelling towards the border with Chad to escape the violence that had engulfed her hometown in Sudan, when fighting broke out just in front of her.
(UN News)* — The year-long ongoing war in Sudan is “a crisis of epic proportions”, and the world must rethink the way it supports the Sudanese people amid rampant atrocities against civilians and no end in sight, top UN and African Union officials warned the Security Council on Friday [].
The Sudanese people have endured “unbearable suffering” since the conflict started just over a year ago when an outbreak of fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) “brutally interrupted the political transition”, Rosemary DiCarlo, UN Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, said.
(UN News)* — Climate change shocks caused record levels of disruption and misery for millions in Europe in 2023 with widespread flooding and severe heatwaves – a new normal which countries must adapt to as a priority, the UN weather agency said on Monday [].
New data published jointly by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the Copernicus Climate Change Service confirmed fears that that 2023 was the joint warmest or second warmest year on record in Europe, depending on the dataset selected.
(UN News)* — UN-coordinated food convoys are three times more likely to be denied access to north Gaza than other aid convoys, the UN humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, reported on Tuesday [9 April 2024].
Israeli authorities have not given a clear reason why, said OCHA Spokesperson Jens Laerke, speaking during the regular briefing by UN humanitarian agencies in Geneva.
“They very often deny and that is it, and it ends there. We do not get an explanation,” he said.
(UN NEWS)* — Over 8.5 million Sudanese have been forced to flee their homes in Sudan since the war between rival militaries erupted last April, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said on Tuesday [].
At least 1.8 million among them fled across the border into neighbouring, South Sudan, Chad, Central African Republic, Egypt and Ethiopia; as well as Uganda.
Thousands more are arriving by the day, agency spokesperson Olga Sarrado told journalists at the regular news briefing in Geneva.
(UN News)* — The President of the UN General Assembly appealed on Monday [8 April 2024] for “all those with leverage” to use their power to bring an end to the six-month-long war in Gaza.
Dennis Francis convened the UN’s most representative body, comprising all 193 Member States, following the Security Council’s failure to adopt a resolution put forward by the United States last month.
The debate was triggered by a 2022 Assembly resolution that calls for a meeting to be held within 10 working days whenever a veto is cast in the Council.
ACCRA, Ghana, Apr 3 2024 (IPS)* – Developing countries are being blamed for having borrowed and spent irresponsibly. But they have only been doing what foreign powers and financial interests have urged them to do.
Ndongo Samba Sylla
Since the 2008 global financial crisis, developing nations have been told to borrow massively from private finance, even at exorbitant interest rates, to scale funding up ‘from billions to trillions’.
With progress towards sustainable development often in reverse, servicing external debt now blocks progress. Many governments have cut back spending in line with conditions or advice from powerful foreign economic agencies.
Current account tales Many still believe all national economies should have trade or current account surpluses with others – typically citing Germany’s and Japan’s post-war booms. But of course, not all countries can have surpluses simultaneously.
UNITED NATIONS, New York, 5 April 2024(UNFPA)* -–Everyone has the right to health; and for women and girls, one aspect of this fundamental promise is the right to safe motherhood.
Yet every two minutes, a woman or girl still dies due to pregnancy or childbirth, with the vast majority of these tragedies preventable.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 