'Unseen' News and Views
Mr. Guterres was speaking to journalists at UN Headquarters following a meeting with civil society climate leaders from across the world.
‘Catastrophe’ looms
He said limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius is still possible but will require a 45 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2030.
(UN News)* — The UN Secretary-General said on Wednesday [] he was horrified at the news of dozens more deaths in the Mediterranean after an overloaded boat reportedly capsized and sank off the coast of Greece.
“We trusted the government not to screw us,” said Edward Snowden. “But they did. We trusted the tech companies not to take advantage of us. But they did. That is going to happen again, because that is the nature of power.”.
Edward Snowden said in an interview on June 8, 2023 that advances in surveillance technology have made it far easier for government agencies to spy on citizens than it was in 2013, when he first disclosed the broad use of spying by the NSA and other agencies.(Image: Screenshot/Citizenfour)
Citing a report from the Center for AI Safety, the New York Times reported last week that a group of over 350 AI industry leaders warned that artificial intelligence poses a growing new danger to humanity –and should be considered a “societal risk on a par with pandemics and nuclear wars”.
© UNICEF/UN051302/Herwig | Adolescent girls use cellphones and tablets in the Za’atari camp for Syrian refugees (file).
Alarm over the potential threat posed by the rapid development of generative artificial intelligence (AI) must not obscure the damage already being done by digital technologies that enable the spread of online hate speech, as well as mis- and disinformation, he said.
The policy brief argues that they should be integral players in upholding the accuracy, consistency and reliability of information shared by users.
(UN NEWS)* — Bangladesh must “immediately suspend” a pilot repatriation project for Rohingya refugees to return to Myanmar, where they face “serious risks” to their lives and freedom, a UN-appointed independent rights expert said on Thursday [].
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Tom Andrews, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, insisted that current conditions there were “anything but conducive” for the return of Rohingya refugees.
He stressed that the very generals who had launched “genocidal” attacks against the Rohingya, causing hundreds of thousands to flee the country, were now in power and “attacking civilian populations while denying the Rohingya citizenship and other basic rights”.
While poor maternal outcomes among Black women in the U.S. is not new, improving it is imperative. U.S. policymakers can look to sub-Saharan Africa for guidance on reversing this trend. Credit: Ernest Ankomah/IPS
(UN NEWS)* — The United Nations on Friday [] appealed for sustainable funding for its agency that supports Palestine refugees, UNRWA, which is on the brink of financial collapse.
Chronic underfunding over the past decade, and resultant severe austerity measures, mean UNRWA is already operating with a $75 million shortfall, putting its lifesaving programmes across the Middle East at risk.
“As I address you today, I do not have the funds to keep our schools, health centres and other services running as of September,” Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini told a pledging conference at UN Headquarters in New York.
In this feature, part of a series exploring the fight against trafficking in the Sahel, UN News focuses on the illegal fuel trade in the region.
(UN NEWS)* — Kourou/Koualou, a tiny village in a neutral zone straddling Benin and Burkina Faso, was the centre of a one-million-litre-a-year cross-border illicit fuel trade, a snapshot of a phenomenon that spreads far across the 6,000-kilometre-wide African Sahel region.
Transported by criminal networks and taxed by terrorist groups, illegal fuel flows along four major routes snaking across the Sahel towards ready buyers, siphoning millions from nations on the road to stabilizing their security-challenged region, home to 300 million people.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 