'Unseen' News and Views – By Baher Kamal & The Like
Many countries are failing to protect and promote the interests of all their people – despite pledging to do so in 2016 – the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Wednesday [16 January 2019].
By Fredrik S. Heffermehl | Nobel Peace Prize Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service*
Please use our attached information on the 2019 Nobel Prize; for your convenience in English, French, German, Spanish and Swedish.
Translated Versions Below
The official reluctance to discussing disarmament is massive – the beauty of the Nobel Peace Prize is that it is based on a testament – and promotion of disarmament is a legal obligation for the Norwegian awarders.
General disarmament would end enormous suffering and waste, free astronomic funds, reduce waste of precious resources, reduce pollution, offer major relief to the climate, improve human rights, democracy, the plight of women, children.
In short, improve security and prosperity to people everywhere on the planet.
Nobel, by his call for disarmament, attacked the problem of war at its roots – the present peace prize, spread in all directions, will never achieve substantial change.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas gestures during a meeting with the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank | Photo: Reuters | Photo from teleSUR.
15 January 2019 (teleSUR)* — The Palestinians will launch a bid to become a full member of the United Nations even though such a move will be blocked by the United States, the Palestinian foreign minister said Tuesday [15 January 2019].
“We know that we are going to face a U.S. veto but that won’t prevent us from presenting our application” for full UN membership, Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Maliki told journalists.
From Germany to India, these campaigners are battling ‘toxic masculinity’ to engage men in fights for gender equality.
FAO Director-General calls for the transformation of production and consumption models to combat hunger, obesity and other forms of malnutrition.
15 January 2019 Santiago de Chile (FAO)* – Hunger, obesity and other forms of malnutrition will continue to increase if there is no deep change in food systems, said FAO Director General José Graziano da Silva.
Acknowledging “a long road ahead” on the United Nations ambitious agenda, Secretary-General António Guterres welcomed on Tuesday [15 January 2019] “the historic leadership of the state of Palestine” as the new Chair of the Group of 77’s (G77).
“Palestine and its citizens have first-hand experience of some of the most challenging and dramatic global issues we face” said Mr. Guterres in his remarks at the annual ceremony for handover of the rotating Chairmanship of the G77.
Begging, scrubbing cars or selling themselves on the street for sex are a way of life for many children in Djibouti, according to a survey released by the International Organization Migration (IOM) on Tuesday [15 January 2019].
Conditions in a makeshift Syrian camp near the border with Jordan are “increasingly desperate” and “have become a matter of life and death”, United Nations officials warned on 15 January 2019, after at least eight children died there from extreme cold and a lack of medical care.
Some Member States have fallen short of offering a better future to children who continue to die prematurely or fall victim to poverty, trafficking and slavery, UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet said on Monday [14 January 2019].
In her opening address to the 80th Session of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, in Geneva – which reviews the records of Member States according to the Convention on the Rights of the Child – the High Commissioner noted that 2019 marked the pact’s 30th anniversary, and that it was “by far the most widely ratified human rights treaty”.
– The world’s developing countries, comprising over two-thirds of the 193 UN member states, are complaining they are not being adequately represented in the higher echelons of the world body –- despite competent candidates with strong professional and academic qualifications vying for these jobs.
António Guterres takes the oath of office for his five-year term as UN Secretary-General. Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten
The 134-member Group of 77, the largest single coalition of developing countries, says “persistent imbalances in equitable geographic representation in the UN Secretariat are a major concern.”
