Representatives from across the Middle East are meeting at UN Headquarters this week in efforts to negotiate a legally binding treaty establishing a regional zone free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.(*).
UN Photo/Manuel Elias | A view of the sculpture – Good Defeats Evil – on the UN Headquarters grounds, presented to the UN by the Soviet Union on the occasion of the Organization’s 45th anniversary.
.Speaking on Monday [18 November 2019] during the inaugural session of the deliberations on a nuclear-weapon free Middle East, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the zone would have significance beyond the region.
“I therefore hope this Conference will serve as the start of an inclusive process in which all the States of the region can participate,” he said.
18 November 2019 (UN News)* — Ending the practice of defecating in the open, rather than in a toilet, will have “transformational benefits” for some of the world’s most vulnerable people, says the UN’s partner sanitation body, the WSSCC (Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council).
19 November 2019 (United Nations)* — Toilets save lives, because human waste spreads killer diseases. World Toilet Day is about inspiring action to tackle the global sanitation crisis.
World Toilet Day is celebrated on 19th November every year. It’s all about inspiring action to tackle the global sanitation crisis and help achieve Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6), which promises sanitation for all by 2030.
Durban, 14 November 2019 (UN Environment)* – The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) today launched the Global Environment Outlook-6 (GEO-6) for Youth in Africa report on the margins of the 17th session of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN).
The report analyses the economic opportunities that Africa’s natural resources can provide for job creation and sustainable development. It also provides a package of solutions to tackle Africa’s youth unemployment through the Green Economy.
Stockholm (SIPRI)* — Climate change poses serious challenges to current and future peacebuilding missions, according to a new report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) which studies the UN Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM). Climate change amplifies existing challenges and strengthens radical groups. At the same time, climate change forces missions to think out of the box with UNSOM proving to be an encouraging example.
Somali men on motorcycles ride along a road 6 August 2012, opposite the parliament building in the Somali capital, Mogadishu.Photo posted here from SIPRI).
Durban (UN Environment)* – A new UN Environment Programme (UNEP) desk study launched today [15 November 2019] at the 17th African Ministerial Conference on the Environment in Durban, South Africa, calls for urgent action to address the production and consumption of biomass as a source of energy in Africa.
The study presents the current status of biomass energy in Africa and explores ways to mitigate its negative impacts until a transition to cleaner and modern energy sources takes place.
14 November 2019 (Norwegian Refugee Council)*— Millions in Somalia need humanitarian aid because of extreme weather conditions and conflict. However, relief work is difficult and dangerous in a country that has been ravaged by armed conflict for almost 30 years.
Ifrah Ahmed works with the Norwegian Refugee Council’s shelter projects in Garowe. The area has received a large number of internally displaced people due to extreme weather conditions and conflict. The majority live in temporary camps, but the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) also builds permanent housing for vulnerable groups who are unable to return home. Photo: Ingrid Prestetun/NRC
11 August 2019 (Wall Street International)*— This is the fourth of a series of articles on the I Ching, or Yijing, the Book of Changes, an ancient oracle, a divinatory book that played a key role in Chinese culture and became for the Chinese a map of ‘heaven and earth’, of the totality of existence. Much of this material is contained in the Introduction to the Eranos Yijing1. To that book the reader is referred for a deeper discussion of the concepts here presented.
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 14 2019 (IPS)* — When UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made a global appeal for “zero hunger” on World Food Day last month, he provided some grim statistics rich in irony: more than 820 million people do not have enough to eat, he said, while two billion people are overweight or obese.
Credit: Food Tank
“It is unacceptable that hunger is on the rise at a time when the world wastes more than one billion tonnes of food every year.”
15 November 2019 (UN Environment)* — Behind a family home not far from downtown Apia, a small mountain of computer cases teeters in the tropical sun at over 3 metres high. Nearby, stacks of thousands of circuit boards create rolling green foothills. Steel drums, plastic buckets and fraying carboard boxes dot this electronic landscape—overflowing reservoirs of connectors, transistors and wires.
“He’s dismantled thousands of computers in the last couple years,” says Marina Keil, the President of the Samoa Recycling and Waste Management Association, gesturing at the piles surrounding us.
© WSSCC/Jason Florio | As the population in Nigeria increases, efforts are underway to ensure that open defecation does not increase.
Payal (left) and Nisha (right) are happy to have a toilet in their school in Kakrana village. When schools have clean water, toilets and soap for handwashing, children have a healthy learning environment. © UNICEF/UN0271817/Hajra
Pixabay (image posted here from UN Enviroment).
