April 18, 2024 No comments
Palestine’s status at the UN explained
INTERNATIONAL, 18 April 2024, UN Affairs - What will it take for Palestine to become a full UN Member State? As the Security Council takes up the matter while the devastating war in Gaza enters its seventh month, we looked at Palestine’s current status and what it takes to become a UN Member State. Palestine’s current status Right now, Palestine is a “Permanent Observer State” at the UN, enjoying the status that allows it to participate in all of the Organization’s proceedings, except for voting on draft resolutions and decisions in its main organs and bodies, from the Security Council to the General Assembly and its six main committees. However, some other participation is off-limits to Permanent Observers. This was made clear by a General Assembly resolution, which temporarily,...
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April 18, 2024 No comments
Gaza: UN experts decry ‘systemic obliteration’ of education system
INTERNATIONAL, 18 April 2024, Peace and Security - UN independent human rights experts on Thursday raised alarm over the “systematic destruction” of the Palestinian education system in the Gaza Strip, as Israel’s military operation continues unabated. Since the brutal 7 October attacks by Hamas and other Palestinian militants on southern Israel, and the ensuing military assault by Israel, over 5,800 students and teachers have been killed and a further 8,575 have been injured across the enclave. Many others have been arrested, while attacks on places of learning have left more than 625,000 students without any ability to study. UN schools sheltering civilians displaced from their homes have also come under fire, including some inside Israeli military-designated “safe zones”. Hopes and dreams destroyed “With more than 80 per cent...
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April 18, 2024 No comments
Assembly President calls for massive investment in sustainable infrastructure
INTERNATIONAL, 18 April 2024, Economic Development - The President of the UN General Assembly on Thursday underscored the critical need for resilient infrastructure if the world is the reach the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the 2030 deadline. In a special meeting dedicated to building resilience and promoting sustainable development through infrastructure connectivity, Dennis Francis emphasized the importance of quality and endurance. “Quality, reliable, sustainable and resilient infrastructure – including regional and transborder infrastructure – is important to sustain trade and commerce, facilitate effective transportation, connect us to virtual grids, maintain energy flows, and make populations safer against natural hazards,” he said. Highlighting recent shocking failures such as the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland, Mr. Francis pointed out the extensive economic...
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April 18, 2024 No comments
World News in Brief: Rights chief Türk urges peace in DR Congo, Haiti aid update, food insecurity in Timor Leste
INTERNATIONAL, 18 April 2024, Peace and Security - UN human rights chief Volker Türk this week met survivors of massacres in eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) who told him they are desperate for peace. The huge central African nation has seen years of violence in the restive but resources-rich east, which have uprooted millions of people – some 2.7 million in North Kivu alone and more than seven million nationally. “What breaks my heart is to see a population exhausted by violence, exhausted by conflict, exhausted by the horrors of their daily life”, Mr. Türk told journalists on Thursday in the capital Kinshasa. “They need to have a future. They need to see a future. And we all need to work...
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April 18, 2024 No comments
Pandemic experts express concern over avian influenza spread to humans
INTERNATIONAL, 18 April 2024, Health - The ongoing global spread of “bird flu” infections to mammals including humans is a significant public health concern, senior UN medics said on Thursday, as they announced new measures to tackle airborne diseases. Dr Jeremy Farrar, Chief Scientist at the World Health Organization (WHO), said that the avian influenza virus - which is also known as H5N1 - has had an “extremely high” mortality rate among the several hundred people known to have been infected with it to date. To date, no human-to-human H5N1 transmission has been recorded. “H5N1 is (an) influenza infection, predominantly started in poultry and ducks and has spread effectively over the course of the last one or two years to become a global zoonotic – animal –...
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