July 15, 2019 No comments
Survivors of ISIL terror in Iraq want justice, not revenge, says head of UN investigation team
INTERNATIONAL, 15 July 2019, Peace and Security - The scale and barbarity of the crimes committed by ISIL have ultimately served not to divide but to unify, Karim Asad Ahmad Khan, head of the UN Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da’esh/Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (UNITAD), told the Security Council on Monday. Mr. Khan was delivering his second report on the activities of UNITAD, during which he confirmed that his team has made “significant progress” in implementing its’ mandate, and that he expects investigators to provide concrete support for at least one case before the national courts, marking an “important milestone” in the delivery of their mandate. The team, he said, had heard harrowing accounts of “mass killings, of entire families erased and of women and girls...
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July 15, 2019 No comments
‘We won’t get to zero cases of Ebola without a big scale-up in funding,’ UN relief chief warns
INTERNATIONAL, 15 July 2019, Health - Deadly, attacks on health workers in Ebola-hit areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), including one at the weekend that left two dead, are an indication that combating the disease outbreak will require far greater international support, UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock said on Monday. Speaking in Geneva, Mr. Lowcock, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, insisted on the need to “be honest with ourselves” on tackling the haemorrhagic disease …unless there’s a big scale-up in the response, we’re unlikely to be successful in getting to zero cases”. At his side, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus confirmed the attacks in Beni and the identification – for the first time – of an infected patient in Goma, a city of one million people bordering Rwanda. According to WHO, almost 3,000 health workers have so far been vaccinated against the disease in Goma. Insisting that he...
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July 15, 2019 No comments
‘No hope’ global development goals can be achieved without women, says UN Assembly President
INTERNATIONAL, 15 July 2019, Women - Without the full participation and leadership of women, “we have no hope” of realizing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the President of the United Nations General Assembly told gender equality leaders on Monday. “This is an obvious point to make, but it is, sadly, one that we cannot repeat enough”, she said, opening the day-long discussion at UN Headquarters in New York to identify best practices aimed to knock down barriers hindering women’s full participation and leadership, in what she called “our shared mission this year”. As the fourth woman in UN history to ever preside over the General Assembly, the Organization’s main and most representative deliberative body, María Fernanda Espinosarecognized that women decision-makers must lead by example to safeguard achievements...
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July 15, 2019 No comments
Baby foods high in sugar, inappropriately marketed in Europe, reveal two UN studies
INTERNATIONAL, 15 July 2019, Health - Proper nutrition for newborn babies into early childhood is key to development and good health in later life, according to the Regional Director of the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) in Europe, as she launched two new studies on Monday. The studies from WHO Europe show that a high proportion of baby foods are incorrectly marketed as suitable for infants under the age of six months, when in fact much of it contains inappropriately high levels of sugar. WHO’s long-standing recommendation spells out that children should be breastfed, exclusively, for the first six months. Moreover, its 2016 global Guidance on Ending the Inappropriate Promotion of Foods for Infants and Young Children explicitly states that commercial complementary foods should not be...
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July 15, 2019 No comments
UN highlights importance of skills development on World Youth Skills Day
INTERNATIONAL, 15 July 2019, Culture and Education - At UN Headquarters, and across the globe, events are taking place on Monday to celebrate World Youth Skills Day – marked each year on 15 July – to raise awareness about the importance of youth skills development. The Day is important because rising youth unemployment is seen as one of the most significant problems facing economies and societies in today’s world, for developed and developing countries alike. Some 73 million young people are currently unemployed, with 40 million joining the labour market each year. To tackle the problem, at least 475 million new jobs need to be created over the next decade. Skills for all However, data suggests that many graduates are ill-prepared for the world of work,...
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