War in Syria: eleven years of carnage
22/3/2022: The latest UN Human Rights Council report on the Syrian conflict estimates the poverty rate to be an unprecedented 90 percent, with 14.6 million people dependent on humanitarian aid. More than half of the pre-war population of 22 million has been displaced. More than 100,000 are missing or forcibly disappeared.
Source: Inter Press Service
NGOs seek a summit on financing for development
23/3/2022: Twenty years ago, world leaders adopted the UN’s Monterrey Consensus, with commitments to financing for development of an equitable global economic system. The hard lessons that led to the Monterrey Consensus are still very valid, namely that non-inclusive decision-making leads to an unfair global economic system and never-ending political power struggles between countries.
Source: Inter Press Service
UN talks fail to finalize a treaty to manage the high seas
21/3/2022: UN member states have failed to reach consensus on several key points of a treaty governing the high seas, including how to establish marine protected areas. This was the last of four diplomatic sessions planned since 2017. There is now pressure to complete a treaty in 2022.
Source: Mongabay
Amazon deforestation map shows devastating impact of ranching
22/3/2022: Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project has found that forest loss in 2021 was mostly the result of cattle ranching and other agricultural activities. Most of the deforestation took place in Brazil and Bolivia.
Source: Mongabay
UN report looks underfoot, to solve global water crises
21/3/2022: While groundwater accounts for 99 per cent of all running freshwater on Earth, it is often undervalued, mismanaged, and overexploited, according to a new report by UNESCO. Water use is projected to grow by roughly one per cent annually over the next 30 years, and dependency on groundwater is expected to rise.
Source: UN News
Human rights in Myanmar face profound crisis
21/3/2022: UN High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet has told the Human Rights Council that Myanmar's humanitarian crisis continues to expand, as systematic brutality by security forces has inflamed pre-existing armed conflicts in multiple ethnic states.
Source: UN News
Environmentalism after Ukraine
21/3/2022: The modern environmental movement has taken the rules-based system for granted, trusting in national commitments even when they came from authoritarian states. But Russia has exposed the fragility of the global order, what now?
Source: Eco-Business
Where is the UN’s Guterres?
15/3/2022: It is long overdue for UN Secretary-General António Guterres to intervene more forcefully in Russia’s war on Ukraine and use his good offices to try to forge a cease-fire and work out a final settlement on this nightmarish conflict. Guterres should follow up with all sorts of new proposals on how to end the fighting.
Source: PassBlue
Ukraine war feeds fears of another food crisis
13/3/2022: Important lessons were learned from the 2007–08 food crisis, and avoiding those mistakes will be critical in responding to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The rice crisis in 2007–08 was caused by panicked importers, exporters and hoarding by small-scale participants along the rice supply chain.
Source: East Asia Forum
Appalling violations in Myanmar demand international response
15/3/2022: Security forces in Myanmar have killed at least 1,600 people and detained more than 12,500, since the military coup last year, the UN rights office has said. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has warned that serious rights abuses may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Source: UN News