New medicines can end AIDS – if the price is fair
18/5/2022: In too many communities new HIV infections are rising - 1.5 million in 2020 against a global target of 500,000. New breakthrough treatments to prevent and control HIV are becoming available but there is concern that high prices and monopolies will keep people in low- and middle-income countries locked out.
Source: Inter Press Service
Human rights must be at heart of solution to Sri Lanka crisis
17/5/2022: The UN is working to ensure that any solution to the severe economic crisis in Sri Lanka must recognize the broader political and systematic root causes that have perpetrated discrimination, and undermined human rights.
Source: UN News
Rescuing global goals is world’s highest common priority
17/5/2022: UN Secretary-General António Guterres has warned that the repercussions of the COVID pandemic and the Ukraine war have put the drive towards the Sustainable Development Goals into reverse. He said that the developing world has been left to fend for itself “in a global financial system that favours the richest and punishes the poorest”.
Source: UN News
Call to freedom for millions of children trapped in child labour
13/5/2022: There are 160 million child labourers worldwide, an increase of 8.4 million children in the last four years , according to the UN's most recent global estimates. How to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal to eliminate child labour by 2025 will be the subject of the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour now in progress in Durban, South Africa.
Source: Inter Press Service
The time to support the global South is now
13/5/2022: No region of the world benefits from the rules-based multilateral order as much as the European Union. The abstentions of some developing and emerging countries in the vote on the Ukraine resolution in the UN General Assembly in early March was a warning signal that continuing a strong global engagement is essential for Europe.
Source: Inter Press Service
One billion hectares under threat of dryland status
13/5/2022: One billion hectares of land, additional to the 6.1 billion hectares of official drylands, are under threat from unsustainable use. These areas are home to a large number of people who rely on the land for their livelihoods, as well as containing significant biodiversity.
Source: UN Food and Agriculture Organization
No country can afford to ignore desertification
12/5/2022: The UN Convention to Combat Desertification, whose latest conference is under way in Abidjan, has long been the poor relation of environmental conventions. The issue of land degradation needs far more attention if we are to avoid a hungrier, more unstable world.
Source: The Third Pole
War crimes in Africa must be stopped at all costs
14/5/2022: African leaders should learn from NATO's role in Europe to redouble efforts to contain conflict in their own backyard. Collective action on the flow of illicit arms, money and minerals could diminish the swathe of territory embroiled in conflict and war crimes, from Somalia to the Central African Republic.
Source: The East African
US-ASEAN summit can kickstart stalled approach to Myanmar
12/5/2022: The Biden administration should spotlight human rights violations in Myanmar during the US summit with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The Five-Point Consensus facilitated by ASEAN in April 2021 has failed to curtail Myanmar's military oppression.
Source: Amnesty International
Elon Musk, Twitter, and human rights
10/5/2022: A director of Human Rights Watch assesses the implications of the potential acquisition of Twitter by an individual owner calling himself a “free speech absolutist.” There is a fine line between protecting free speech and addressing online content and behaviour that threatens people’s rights.
Source: Human Rights Watch