Speaking at a pledging conference for the agency, the UN chief outlined the countless challenges facing Palestinian civilians in Gaza who are “forced to move like human pinballs across a landscape of destruction and death”. “Hopelessness is the greatest ally of instability,” he warned, stressing that through its work, “UNRWA is one of the greatest factors providing hope and stability across a troubled region.” The agency has been supporting critical services including education, health and social services to some 5.9 million Palestine refugees, including vulnerable groups such as women, children, and persons with disabilities. It also administers 58 refugee camps,…
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Parliamentarians in the West African country voted on Monday to reject a bill that sought to overturn a 2015 law against the harmful practice, which involves cutting or removing some or all of the external female genitalia. FGM is mostly carried out on infants and young girls. It can inflict severe immediate and long-term physical and psychological damage, including infection, later childbearing complications, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Commitment to rights and well-being “Following the vote today by the National Assembly of The Gambia, we commend the country’s decision to uphold the ban on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), reaffirming its commitments to human…
“The rapid rate of change, uncertainty and technological developments we’re seeing, against a backdrop of geopolitical turbulence, means any country can be thrown off course more easily and more often,” said UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen. The shifts include humanity’s degradation of the natural world, the rapid development of technologies such as AI, competition for natural resources, widening inequalities and declining trust in institutions. Together, they are creating a so-called polycrisis in which global crises are amplifying and synchronizing – with huge implications for human and planetary wellbeing. Signals of change Alongside the eight shifts the report identifies 18 signals…
In a message for Monday’s World Youth Skills Day, António Guterres pointed out that the world’s young people are already working to build safer and stronger communities, even though almost a quarter are not in education, employment or training. “They can make an even bigger difference for our shared future with training for the burgeoning green and digital economies, education to help break the cycle of hate speech and misinformation, tools to enhance mediation and dialogue, and so much more,” he declared. The UN chief also highlighted the link between countries spending on education, school completion rates and levels…
Russian Foreign Minister and Council President for July, Sergey Lavrov accused the United States of exceptionalism and promoting a “rules-based order” that threatens multilateralism and international law. Washington “demands unquestioning obedience” from its allies, he said, “even to the detriment of their national interests”. “Rule America, that is the essence of the notorious rules-based order, which is a direct threat to multilateralism and international law,” he asserted. ‘Wilful’ violations of the Charter In response, US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield chided Russian “hypocrisy” in convening a meeting on multilateral cooperation while “wilfully and flagrantly violating” the UN Charter’s core tenets of territorial…
The Boeing 777 flight was heading from Amsterdam, capital of the Netherlands, to the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, when it was shot down near the Russian border, in an area controlled by pro-Russian rebels, on 17 July 2014. All 283 passengers and 15 crew members, together representing some 16 countries, were killed. The passengers included 196 Dutch nationals, according to the Government of the Netherlands. UN chief’s appeal “On the 10th anniversary of the tragic downing of the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine, the Secretary-General recalls with sadness the 298 victims who lost their lives,” the statement said.…
The “grim milestone” means that 20 per cent of the population has been forced to flee in the span of just 15 months, he added. “The majority of those displaced are inside the country – that is almost eight million human beings – and over half of those are children,” said Mr. Dujarric, speaking during his daily media briefing from UN Headquarters in New York. “Meanwhile, more than two million people have crossed into neighbouring countries, countries that often are facing their own humanitarian challenges.” Major humanitarian challenges Mr. Dujarric said the humanitarian community in Sudan is doing everything possible…
One hundred years ago the discovery of a skull in South Africa’s North West province altered our understanding of human evolution. The juvenile skull was dubbed the Taung Child by Raymond Dart, an anatomist at the University of the Witwatersrand, who first described it. In 1924 Dart could not say exactly how old it was, but he announced that it belonged to a new species which he named Australopithecus africanus. It was the first evidence that confirmed British naturalist Charles Darwin’s assertion that apes and humans shared a long-ago common ancestor and that humanity originated from Africa. Following on from…
Danish architecture studio Schmidt Hammer Lassen has adaptively reused a domed cement factory in Shanghai, China, to create a performing arts and sports venue. Now named West Bund Art Center, the factory’s central curved structure has been converted into a 300-square-metre multipurpose hall for art exhibitions, music concerts and sporting events. Schmidt Hammer Lassen has converted a cement factory in ShanghaiThe renovated building, which takes its name from its site in the West Bund cultural district, has been adapted as lightly as possible in celebration of its industrial history. Schmidt Hammer Lassen used historic documents to restore the dome’s orange-painted…
In August 1879, around 6,000 spectators lined the banks of the River Clyde in Glasgow, Scotland, to see two teenagers called Elizabeth and Minnie swim half a mile. Now, 145 years later, there’s a growing global movement to revive urban waterways – rivers, harbours and canals – as safe swimming spots for city dwellers. For my PhD, I’m investigating the social and cultural history of swimming in Glasgow, Scotland, from 1850 to 1950. I’ve discovered a fascinating connection between the rich, and often unexplored, history of swimming in urban waterways and the modern open air swimming movement. In Glasgow, as…