News headlines in 2023, page 181

The UN’s top advocate on ending violence against children, joined UN agencies on Wednesday in highlighting the urgent need to protect the rights of young people on the move, amid spiralling crises worldwide.

Swift action is needed to prevent flare ups of Israeli-Palestinian violence and avert a looming food crisis, the top UN official in the Middle East told the Security Council on Wednesday.

A hundred and ninety-three countries have unanimously approved the creation of a global greenhouse gas monitoring mechanism, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced on Wednesday.

With “crisis atop of crisis” threatening millions in the Horn of Africa, the international community cannot afford to stand idly by, Secretary-General António Guterres said at a pledging event to raise $7 billion for the region, held at UN Headquarters in New York on Wednesday.

New ideas must open fresh pathways towards finally ending the era of colonialism and to help advance sustainable development in the world’s 17 remaining colonies, the UN chief said in a video message to the Organization’s decolonization seminar in Bali, Indonesia

The “senseless” fighting in Sudan must stop now, and the warring generals have to insist on zero tolerance for sexual violence among their troops, the UN rights chief said on Wednesday.

NEW YORK, May 23 (IPS) - In 2021 alone, almost 24,000 grave violations of children’s rights in war were documented by the United Nations – these included killing and maiming, sexual violence, use and recruitment, and abductions. Schools and hospitals were destroyed, and humanitarian relief was denied on arbitrary grounds, depriving children of vital services. More children now live in conflict zones than in the past two decades.

Chapel Hill, NC, US, May 23 (IPS) - At the UN Water Conference in March 2023, the Water Institute at the University of North Carolina (UNC) along with several key partners, including UNICEF, Water Aid, the World Health Organization, and the governments of Ghana, Uganda, and South Africa, among others, organized a session centered around the elimination of lead in drinking water across the globe.

WASHINGTON DC, May 23 (IPS) - Global fisheries are worth more than US$140 billion each year, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. But this hefty sum does not capture the true value of fish to ocean health, and to the food security and cultures of communities around the world.

UNITED NATIONS, May 23 (IPS) - When the UN displayed a female robot back in February 2019, it was a peek into the future: a fast-paced, cutting-edge digital technology where humans may one day be replaced with machines and robots.

However, a joke circulating in the UN delegate’s lounge at that time was the possibility, perhaps in a distant future, of a robot-- a female robot-- as the UN Secretary-General in a world body which has been dominated by nine secretaries-general, all male, over the last 78 years.