February 19, 2019 No comments
UN global education envoy urges new funding for ‘lost generation’ of children forced out of classrooms by conflict
INTERNATIONAL, 19 February 2019, Culture and Education - A child’s “real passport” to the future – education – should be stamped in the classroom, not at a border checkpoint, UN Special Envoy for Global EducationGordon Brown said on Tuesday. Ensuring that the world’s children have a place in school classroom is essential to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4, which calls for quality education for all by 2030. Speaking to journalists at UN Headquarters in New York, Mr. Brown warned that “99 per cent of the world’s young refugees who are now becoming the invisible generation will never get a place in college or higher education; and only 20 per cent will get a secondary education”. “It’s time the world woke up to the horror of so...
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February 19, 2019 No comments
Not enough resettlement solutions for refugees worldwide, says UN
INTERNATIONAL, 19 February 2019, Migrants and Refugees - Despite record numbers of people forcibly displaced across borders, with 1.2 million in need of a new permanent place to call home last year, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) released new data on Tuesday showing that only 55,700 of them – 4.7 per cent – were able to be resettled in 2018. Resettlement, which involves the relocation of refugees from a country of asylum to a country that has agreed to admit them and grant them permanent settlement, is available only to a fraction of the world’s refugees. Typically, less than one per cent of the 20 million refugees under UNHCR’s mandate worldwide are ever resettled. The data covers specifically UNHCR-facilitated resettlements and shows that the highest...
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February 19, 2019 No comments
UN rights chief ‘alarmed’ by upsurge in attacks against civilians in Syria’s Idlib
INTERNATIONAL, 19 February 2019, Human Rights - Civilians in Syria's north-western city of idlib continue to be used “as pawns”, caught in the crossfire of bombardments by the Government and its allies, and attacks by non-State armed groups, the United Nations human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, warned on Tuesday. Since December, the intensified ground-based bombardment of the city, located in the north-west of the country, coupled with a series of attacks by non-State actors, has led to numerous civilian casualties and left close to a million people, including hundreds of thousands of displaced people, in an extremely vulnerable situation, her statement explained. “Large numbers of civilians, including hundreds of thousands of displaced people, in Idlib and northern Aleppo are living an intolerable existence,” said Ms. Bachelet. “They are trapped...
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February 19, 2019 No comments
Myanmar and UN agriculture agency agree framework to improve nutrition and food security
INTERNATIONAL, 19 February 2019, Economic Development - The Myanmar Government and the UN’s agriculture agency signed on Tuesday a multi-year agreement that will create conditions to help improve nutrition and food security in the south-east Asian country, while safeguarding and sustainably managing the use of natural resources. “The agriculture sector has a major role to play in addressing [the] sustained rates of food insecurity and malnutrition through agricultural diversification and rural income generation,” Kundhavi Kadiresan, Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for Asia and the Pacific of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), said at the launch of the accord in Nay Pyi Taw. The Country Programming Framework (CPF) was signed by U Than Aung Kyaw, Director General, Foreign Economic Relations Department (FERD), Ministry of Investment and Foreign Economic...
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February 19, 2019 No comments
UN rights chief ‘strongly condemns’ attack on Indian security forces in Kashmir
INTERNATIONAL, 19 February 2019, Human Rights - The top United Nations human rights official has strongly condemned the suicide bomb attack against Indian security forces in Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir on 14 February and has called on authorities to bring those responsible to justice. In Geneva on Tuesday, Rupert Colville, Spokesperson for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), said the UN was also saddened by the further loss of life reported from subsequent gun battles in Pulwama yesterday, 18 February, which is reported to have claimed 9 more lives. “We hope escalating tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbours will not add further to the insecurity in the region,” he said. Mr. Colville said the High Commissioner, Michelle Bachelet, is also...
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