The UN and 250,000 Dead Somalis ~ Counterpunch
by THOMAS C. MOUNTAIN
Counterpunch
‘The UN has announced that in 2010-2012, including the Great Horn of Africa Drought period, at least 250,000 Somalis starved to death.
Most of those who died from starvation were internally displaced persons, displaced in the main by the military invasion and occupation of southern Somalia by the UN backed Ethiopian Army and then the AU “peacekeepers”, today some 25,000 strong.
When I last wrote about starvation in Somalia I spoke of the UN budgeting 10 cents a day for food aid to feed each Somali refugee. Its called a “budget shortfall” as in “we want to help but we just don’t have the money”.
Yet during this period of mass starvation of the Somali people the UN and its western overlords spent over $1 billion funding its military “peacekeeping mission” in what’s left of the country.
$1 billion for war and 250,000 Somalis left to starve to death?
Maybe knowing that the head of the largest UN food aid “ngo” in Somalia, UNICEF, is Anthony “Tony” Lake, formerly National Security Advisor of the USA and once nominated to be Director of the CIA can help one understand why this happened.’
Senators introduce bipartisan bill to arm Syrian rebels ~ FP
SEE ALSO: British leader urges pressure on Syrian regime and rebels to agree on transition government (Washington Post)
SEE ALSO: U.N. urges support for Syria opposition; Russia opposed (Reuters)
by John Hudson
Foreign Policy
‘Sens. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Bob Corker (R-TN) introduced a bill Wednesday to arm the Syrian rebels, the latest piece of legislation aimed at pressuring the Obama administration to intervene more aggressively in the protracted civil war. The bill provides lethal weapons to vetted members of the Syrian opposition and beefs up sanctions on weapons sales and petroleum sales to President Bashar al-Assad‘s regime.
In short, it has all the hallmarks of the bill Menendez introduced last week, but with a bipartisan sheen. As Andrew Tabler, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, described the Menendez bill last week, “If you want to pressure the president into acting, it’s a pretty good bill …The last time the Hill moved on Syria was sanctions on Syrian oil in the summer of 2011. That pressured the president to move, and this could too.” Its new bipartisan gloss could give it that much more power.
The legislation is set to be taken up by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with a markup session scheduled for Tuesday, May 21.’
Hungry? Lacking protein? Eat an insect, UN says ~ RT
RT
‘The UN has been working on ways to end world hunger for decades, but their newest idea does not involve economics, politics, or even food: The organization is now advising people to eat more insects.
Insect farming is “one of the many ways to address food and feed security,” the agency said in a 200-page report released at a news conference at the UN’s Rome headquarters. The report said that insects are “extremely efficient” in converting feed into edible meat for humans. It added that insects are“particularly important as a food supplement for undernourished children.”
University biologists agree, claiming that certain types of beetles, ants, crickets, and grasshoppers offer nearly as much protein per gram as lean red meat or broiled fish. Crickets need 12 times less feed than cattle to produce the same amount of protein. Insects can also be rich in copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, selenium and zinc. They are also a source of fiber.’
UN: Syria rebels detain four peacekeepers in Golan Heights ~ AP
‘Armed men detained four United Nations peacekeepers on patrol on the Golan Heights in a tense area that separates Syria and Israel, the UN said Tuesday. A rebel group claimed it was holding the peacekeepers.
It was the second time in two months that unarmed UN military observers have been taken captive, and illustrated again the vulnerability of the UN peacekeeping mission amid the spillover from the war in Syria.’
UN report wants moratorium on killer robots ~ AP
AP
‘Killer robots that can attack targets without any human input “should not have the power of life and death over human beings,” a new draft U.N. report says.
The report for the U.N. Human Rights Commission posted online this week deals with legal and philosophical issues involved in giving robots lethal powers over humans, echoing countless science-fiction novels and films. The debate dates to author Isaac Asimov’s first rule for robots in the 1942 story “Runaround:” ”A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.”
Report author Christof Heyns, a South African professor of human rights law, calls for a worldwide moratorium on the “testing, production, assembly, transfer, acquisition, deployment and use” of killer robots until an international conference can develop rules for their use.
His findings are due to be debated at the Human Rights Council in Geneva on May 29. According to the report, the United States, Britain, Israel, South Korea and Japan have developed various types of fully or semi-autonomous weapons.’
US casts doubt on claim Syrian rebels may have used sarin gas ~ Guardian
by Luke Harding
The Guardian
‘The US and United Nations have cast doubt on claims by Carla del Ponte that Syrian rebel forces might have used the nerve agent sarin.
“We are highly sceptical of any suggestions that the opposition used chemical weapons,” said White House spokesman Jay Carney. “We think it highly likely that Assad regime was responsible but we have to be sure about the facts before we make any decisions about a response.”
Speaking on Sunday del Ponte, a member of a UN panel investigating in Syria, said there were “strong, concrete suspicions” the Syrian rebels had used poison gas. She cited testimony from survivors in hospitals outside Syria, but gave no details. “This was use on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities,” she told Swiss-Italian TV.
But the UN’s Syria investigators appeared to row back on del Ponte’s remarks on Monday, saying there was thus far “no conclusive proof” that either side in the Syria conflict had used chemical weapons.’
UN: Force Feeding Gitmo Hunger Strikers Violates International Law ~ Antiwar
by John Glaser
Antiwar
‘President Obama this week defended the US’s policy of force feeding detainees in Guantanamo Bay who are protesting their due process-free indefinite detention by going on a hunger strike.
On Wednesday, UN human rights officials declared that force feeding amounts to torture, saying “it is unjustifiable to engage in forced feeding of individuals contrary to their informed and voluntary refusal of such a measure.”’
Genetics tie Haiti’s cholera strain to U.N. peacekeepers, more than 8,000 dead ~ PBP
by Stacey Singer
Palm Beach Post
There’s new evidence that the strain of cholera raging through Haiti today is an especially toxic one that was delivered by United Nations peacekeepers from Nepal, sent to respond to Haiti’s devastating earthquake in 2010.
The news comes two months after the United Nations claimed immunity from any financial responsibility for the return of cholera to Haiti, citing a 1946 document, the Convention on Privileges and Immunities.
Cholera is an intestinal infection caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. It can cause such severe and sudden diarrhea that the rapid loss of body fluids causes dehydration, shock and death. Haiti had been free of it for a century before the 2010 outbreak. It’s frequently spread by contaminated water.
Since October 2010, according to the Haitian government, 8,055 people have died of cholera; 614 of them were small children, under 5. More than 653,000 people have been sickened, widely believed to be an under count.
France wants to keep 1,000 soldiers in Mali permanently ~ Reuters
by Adama Diarra and John Irish
Reuters
France has proposed keeping a permanent force of 1,000 French troops in Mali to fight armed Islamist militants, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Friday.
Fabius, on a visit to Bamako, said France was pushing ahead with plans to reduce its 4,000-strong military presence from the end of this month but planned to keep a combat force in Mali to support a future U.N. peacekeeping mission.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called last week for the deployment of a U.N. mission of 11,200 troops and 1,440 police in Mali once major combat ends.
This would include thousands of African troops already in Mali in support of France’s three-month military campaign, which has swept Islamist rebels out of the towns of northern Mali and into remote desert and mountain hideaways.
Ban’s plan also referred to a parallel force to tackle al Qaeda-linked Islamist extremists directly, which diplomats had said would likely be French. Paris has repeatedly warned that the Islamist enclave in north Mali posed a threat to the West and pledged to entirely eradicate it.
Bahrain shuts out UN torture probe ~ The National
by Elizabeth Dickinson
The National
A United Nations mission to Bahrain to assess the country’s progress in eliminating torture has been unilaterally “cancelled” by authorities in Manama, the organisation’s special rapporteur for torture has said.
Bahrain’s state news agency reported earlier this week that Juan Méndez, the UN’s special rapporteur for torture, had “put off his visit” scheduled for early May following a letter from Dr Salah bin Ali Abdulrahman, Bahrain’s human rights affairs minister. The letter outlined “reasons for the request to postpone the visit”, the agency said.
However, Mr Méndez said on Wednesday there was no choice in the matter, calling the refusal to play host to his visit “a unilateral decision by the [Bahraini] authorities”.
“This is the second time that my visit has been postponed, at very short notice. It is effectively a cancellation, as no alternative dates were proposed, nor is there a future road map to discuss,” Mr Méndez added.
Mr Méndez was scheduled to be in Bahrain May 8-15 to evaluate progress on eliminating torture and mistreatment in the country’s criminal justice system.
In 2011, a government-commissioned report, called the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry, found evidence of torture and other violations committed by the country’s security forces during a pro-reform uprising that year.
Susan Rice Says Defending Israel Key Part of U.N. Job ~ Forward
Forward
Susan Rice said a major part of her work as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations is defending Israel’s legitimacy.
“It’s a huge part of my work to the United Nations,” Rice said Sunday evening, launching this year’s Consultation on Conscience, an event for Reform movement social activists organized by the Religious Action Center.
She likened the volume of work to her efforts to coordinate Syria’s isolation and to contain violence and abuses in Sudan.
She said she often works in “lockstep” with the Israeli delegation.
Drones could replace peacekeepers in Ivory Coast ~ Guardian
by Afua Hirsch
The Guardian
Peacekeepers in Ivory Coast could be replaced by drones in a further step towards greater use of the military aircraft in sub-Saharan Africa.
Ivory Coast, whose security situation is described as “fragile” after a decade of turmoil that culminated in a brief civil war in 2011, has asked the United Nations to consider deploying the unmanned aerial systems when its peacekeeping forces are reduced later this year.
“The use of drones would enhance the monitoring capacity of the UN mission in Ivory Coast, especially its surveillance and information gathering,” said Sylvie van den Wildenberg, spokesperson for the UN Operation in Ivory Coast (UNOCI).
“This would help us to cope better with the difficulty we face in the west of the country and the heavily forested border area with Liberia which is very difficult to monitor and an ideal sanctuary for armed men.”
UN: Afghanistan’s opium cultivation to surge in 2013 ~ AFP
Agence France-Presse
Opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan is expected to increase for a third straight year, expanding even to poppy-free areas this year, a United Nations report warned on Monday.
The Afghanistan Opium Risk Assessment 2013 said Afghanistan was moving towards record levels of opium production this year despite eradication efforts by the international community and Afghan government.
“The assessment suggests that poppy cultivation is not only expected to expand in areas where it already existed in 2012… but also in new areas or in areas where poppy cultivation was stopped,” the survey said.
The study by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) says that a strong association between insecurity, lack of agricultural assistance and opium cultivation are fuelling the trend.
[...] Afghanistan produces about 90 percent of the world’s opium and in 2012 the UNODC warned that opium cultivation in the country had increased by 18 percent.
UN says food distribution centers reopen in Gaza ~ AP
The United Nations says it has reopened food distribution centers in Gaza that closed last week following a violent protest at a UN compound.
UN spokesman Chris Gunness says the agency’s decision was based on “assurances received from different local parties” on the safety of its property and staff. Gunness says the distribution centers reopened on Tuesday. He says the UN may close its facilities in the future if its employees are threatened again.
Dozens of people stormed the UN headquarters on Thursday to protest the suspension of cash assistance to thousands of Palestinian families.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, known as UNRWA, assists Palestinian refugees and their descendants throughout the region. The agency says it provides food to 25,000 people a day in Gaza.
UN: Libya arms fueling conflicts in Syria, Mali and beyond ~ Reuters
by Michelle Nichols
The report by the U.N. Security Council’s Group of Experts – who monitor an arms embargo imposed on Libya at the start of an uprising in 2011 which ousted leader Muammar Gaddafi - said the North African state had become a key source of weapons in the region as its nascent government struggles to exert authority.
Libyan government security forces remain weak and militias, made up of former rebel fighters, hold power on the ground.
5 UN troops, 7 others killed in South Sudan ~ AP
by CHARLTON DOKI
Armed rebels that South Sudan believes are backed by Sudan opened fire on a United Nations convoy on Tuesday, killing five U.N. peacekeepers from India and at least seven civilians, officials said.
Five peacekeepers and seven civilians working with the U.N. mission were killed, said Hilde Johnson, the top U.N. envoy in South Sudan, in a statement. She said at least nine additional peacekeepers and civilians were injured and some remain unaccounted for.
South Sudan’s military spokesman, Col. Philip Aguer, blamed the attack on fighters led by David Yau Yau, a rebel leader South Sudan’s military has battled for months.
Aguer said the attack took place on a convoy traveling between the South Sudanese towns of Pibor and Bor on Tuesday morning.
UN agency ‘broke’ as Syria refugee funds run out ~ BBC
A UN agency has said it will soon be unable to provide “life-saving” aid to Syrian refugees in Jordan and other countries due to funds running out.
“The needs are rising exponentially and we are broke,” said Marixie Mercado, a spokeswoman for children’s charity Unicef.
Some 1.2 million Syrians have fled since the uprising began in March 2011.
Around 385,500 have escaped to Jordan, with figures set to triple by the end of the year, Ms Mercado said.
This would bring the number of Syrian refugees there close to 1.2 million – the equivalent of one-fifth of Jordan’s total population.
“Since the beginning of year, more than 2000 refugees have streamed across the border [into Jordan] every day,” Ms Mercado told reporters at a UN news conference in the Swiss city of Geneva on Friday.
“We expect these numbers to more than double by July and triple by December.”
Many of the refugees are children, the spokeswoman added.
FM: France to Keep Troops in Mali ‘Permanently’ ~ Antiwar
by Jason Ditz
In January, French officials promised to turn Mali into a “terror-free” and flourishing democracy, and bragged that they figured the war would take “only a few weeks.” As the war escalated, they quickly changed it to a promise to have much of the force withdrawn by year’s end.
Today, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius revealed France’s new timetable for Mali – forever. Fabius says that the new plan is to cut some of the occupation forces but to keep at least 1,000 combat troops deployed “permanently” in Mali.
The plan centers on the assumption of having a UN mission of 11,000-plus troops fighting what seems to now be an open-ended war, and France says their own deployment will center on supporting them as well as “fighting terror.”
France officials say they believe they will have the plan for a permanent deployment, along with the UN’s backing for its own large, poorly trained force, within the next two or three weeks. Getting permanent war approved, at least, seems to be on a firm schedule.
UN: Gitmo Detention Regime ‘Clear Breach of International Law’ ~ Antiwar
by John Glaser
A press release from the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights:
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on Friday urged all branches of the United States Government to work together to close the Guantanamo detention centre, saying “the continuing indefinite incarceration of many of the detainees amounts to arbitrary detention and is in clear breach of international law.”
“I am deeply disappointed that the US Government has not been able to close Guantanamo Bay, despite repeatedly committing itself to do so,” Pillay said. “Allegedly, around half of the 166 detainees still being held in detention have been cleared for transfer to either home countries or third countries for resettlement. Yet they remain in detention at Guantanamo Bay. Others reportedly have been designated for further indefinite detention. Some of them have been festering in this detention centre for more than a decade. This raises serious concerns under international law. It severely undermines the United States’ stance that it is an upholder of human rights, and weakens its position when addressing human rights violations elsewhere.”
Commenting on the current hunger strike by Guantanamo detainees, Pillay said that “a hunger strike is a desperate act, and one which brings a clear risk of people doing serious lasting harm to themselves. I always urge people to think of alternative, less dangerous, ways to protest about their situation. But given the uncertainty and anxieties surrounding their prolonged and apparently indefinite detention in Guantanamo, it is scarcely surprising that people’s frustrations boil over and they resort to such desperate measures.”
Pillay noted that four years ago she warmly welcomed President Obama’s announcement immediately after his inauguration that he was placing a high priority on closing Guantanamo and setting in motion a system to safeguard the fundamental rights of the detainees. She welcomed a White House spokesman’s reiteration of this commitment last week (27 March), citing Congressional legislation as the prime obstacle.
“Nevertheless, this systemic abuse of individuals’ human rights continues year after year,” she said. “We must be clear about this: the United States is in clear breach not just of its own commitments but also of international laws and standards that it is obliged to uphold. When other countries breach these standards, the US – quite rightly – strongly criticizes them for it.”
The Obama administration’s response to such sweeping criticisms of their indefinite detention policies has largely been to ignore them. ‘What? We’re criminals? Oh, hush up.’
For two of the best write-ups of this Gitmo hunger strike, see Carol Rosenberg at the Miami Herald and Antiwar.com’s own Kelley Vlahos.
UN suspends food and cash distribution, leaving Gaza destitute ~ RT
The UN has suspended operation of all of its food distribution outlets in Gaza following protesters storming one of them. The centers will resume operation when the UN Relief and Works Agency gets safety confirmation for its property and staff.
On Thursday dozens of men stormed one of UNRWA’s distribution centers in protest against the UN suspending direct financial assistance to thousands of poor Palestinian families in Gaza starting from April 1. The cash aid was halted due to significant budget cuts of UNRWA, which already caused a US$67-million-plus deficit in the organization’s budget.
In return, UNRWA announced temporary closure of their field food distribution centers due to “a dramatic and disturbing escalation in a series of demonstrations that have taken place over the past week,” UNRWA said in its statement.
The UNRWA’s chief in Gaza has been categorical.
“What happened today was completely unacceptable,” acknowledged in the statement Robert Turner, head of the agency’s Gaza operations.
Now Palestinians in Gaza are not likely to get any help at all as the UNRWA has been supporting nearly a half, 800,000 Palestinians out of a total 1.7 million population in Gaza. The UNRWA also still runs several dozens of schools and medical clinics in Gaza.
It is also worth noting that the UNRWA has been feeding 25,000 people in Gaza on a daily basis.
UN: Close to 4 million displaced inside Syria ~ AFP
The UN is hiking its estimates of people trapped in Syria after fleeing their homes, saying Wednesday some four million are now displaced inside the country and in dire need of international help.
The figure, due to be officially released in the coming days, is a dramatic increase on earlier estimates of some 2.5 million displaced put forward by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees for the period from January to June.
It also adds to the 1.2 million refugees who have fled to neighboring countries — meaning that almost a quarter of the nation’s population of around 22.5 million has now been forced to flee the two-year conflict.
UNHCR regional public information officer Reem Alsalem acknowledged the initial figures laid out in the Syria humanitarian assistance plan earlier this year “no longer reflect the quickly evolving situation.”
U.N. overwhelmingly approves global arms trade treaty ~ Reuters
by Louis Charbonneau
The 193-nation U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved the first treaty on the global arms trade, which seeks to regulate the $70 billion business inconventional arms and keep weapons out of the hands of human rights abusers.
The official U.N. tally showed 154 votes in favor, 3 against and 23 abstentions, though diplomats and U.N. officials said the actual vote was 155-3-22 due to Angola being recorded as having abstained and not voting yes. Venezuela, which said it had planned to abstain, Zimbabwe and three other countries were not allowed to vote because they were in arrears on their U.N. dues.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the vote, saying the treaty “will make it more difficult for deadly weapons to be diverted into the illicit market and … will help to keep warlords, pirates, terrorists, criminals and their like from acquiring deadly arms.”
Iran, Syria and North Korea last week prevented a treaty-drafting conference at U.N. headquarters from reaching the required consensus to adopt the treaty. That left delegations that support it no choice but to turn to a General Assembly vote to adopt it.
The Iranian, Syrian and North Korean delegations cast the sole votes against the treaty.
North Korea ‘crisis gone too far’ says UN’s Ban Ki-moon ~ BBC
UN chief Ban Ki-moon has said the North Korea “crisis has gone too far” after Pyongyang announced plans to restart its main Yongbyon nuclear complex.
Speaking at a news conference during a visit to Andorra, Mr Ban called for urgent talks with the North.
The move by Pyongyang is the latest in a series of measures in the wake of its third nuclear test in February.
North Korea has been angered by the resultant UN sanctions and joint US-South Korea annual military drills.
UN approves DR Congo ‘intervention brigade’ ~ Al Jazeera
The UN Security Council has unanimously approved the first-ever “offensive” UN peacekeeping brigade to battle rebels groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The force of more than 2,500 troops will operate under orders to “neutralise” and “disarm” armed groups in the resource-rich east of the huge country, according to the council’s resolution on Thursday.
The intervention brigade is unprecedented in UN peacekeeping because of its offensive mandate.
But the resolution states clearly that it would be established for one year “on an exceptional basis and without creating a precedent” to the principles of UN peacekeeping.
Surveillance drones will be used to monitor the DR Congo’s borders with neighbours accused of backing the rebels will be operating by July, according to UN officials.
The resolution, sponsored by France, the US and Togo, would give the brigade a mandate to operate “in a robust, highly mobile and versatile manner” to ensure that armed groups cannot seriously threaten government authority or the security of civilians.
UN peacekeepers were unable to protect civilians from M23 rebels, whose movement began in April 2012 when hundreds of troops defected from the Congolese armed forces.
The resolution strongly condemns the continued presence of the M23 in the immediate vicinity of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, and its attempts to establish “an illegitimate parallel administration in North Kivu”.
It demands that the M23 and other armed groups, including those seeking the “liberation” of Rwanda and Uganda, immediately halt all violence and “permanently disband and lay down their arms”.
It also strongly condemns their continuing human rights abuses including summary executions, sexual and gender-based violence and large-scale recruitment and use of children.
U.N. Treaty to Control Arms Sales Hits Snag ~ NY Times
The global effort to regulate the sale of conventional weapons suffered a significant but not fatal setback on Thursday after Iran, Syria and North Korea opposed the draft Arms Trade Treaty, blocking the consensus needed for passage after years of arduous negotiations.
The three countries, often isolated as pariahs for their arms and human rights records, used their rejection of the treaty to lash out at what they see as their unfair treatment.
Achieving consensus among all 193 member states of the United Nations is considered a monumental task, but it was hoped that it would be possible in this case because so many countries supported the idea of trying to regulate the $70 billion annual industry at the root of much death and destruction.
The treaty would require states exporting conventional weapons to develop criteria that would link exports to avoiding human rights abuses, terrorism and organized crime. It would also ban shipments if they were deemed harmful to women and children.
After Iran and North Korea voted against the draft treaty, Peter Woolcott, the Australian ambassador who was the president of the treaty conference, suspended the meeting. When it resumed, Syria voted against the treaty as well.
In the absence of consensus, it was expected that the treaty would be sent to the General Assembly as early as next week for approval. That is considered a weaker, but no less binding, manner of getting it passed. After General Assembly passage, the treaty would still require ratification by 50 member states before it could take effect.
Ban: UN Needs Tens of Thousands of Troops for Mali War ~ Antiwar
by Jason Ditz
Ever since French troops invaded Mali, the French government has been hoping to pawn the long-term occupation off on the United Nations. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon seems on board with that request, however, and has issued a report on the tens of thousands of troops he believes the UN needs for its war.
His recommendations include 11,200 troops as a bare minimum to control and protect certain “main” towns that are perceived to have the highest risk. He then calls for a “parallel force” at least as big to continue the offensive war against northern rebels.
As with most of the protracted international wars prosecuted in Africa, the UN envisions most of the troops being contributed from the other dirt-poor African nations in the surrounding area. Yet past wars, particularly in Somalia, have showed that while these nations can contribute troops for the right price, they are rarely combat-ready, setting the stage for even longer wars while they wait for those troops to get trained.
European nations have offered to send training units to Mali, but in a country this size with so many rebels and so much territory between towns for them to hide in, there is no reason to think the rebel factions will be easily uprooted, and to the contrary the deployments may encourage more insurgents from around the region.
More People Have Cell Phones Than Toilets, U.N. Study Shows ~ Time
On the eve of World Water Day last week, the United Nations offered a sobering statistic: according to its recent study, more people on Earth have access to cell phones than toilets.
Out of the world’s estimated 7 billion people, six billion have access to mobile phones. Far fewer — only 4.5 billion people — have access to working toilets. Of the 2.5 billion who don’t have proper sanitation, 1.1 billion defecate in the open, according to the study.
U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson said in a statement that this is a global crisis that people “don’t like to talk about.” He said the U.N. is trying to cut in half the number of people without access to clean toilets by 2015 and eliminate by 2025 the practice of open defecation, which is linked to many diseases.
According to Yahoo, India alone is responsible for 60 percent of the global population lacking access to basic sanitation. About half of its 1.2 billion population are mobile subscribers, but only 366 million people, around one-third of its total population, have access to toilets, noted a 2010 U.N. report.
In August 2012, Bill Gates launched the campaign “reinvent the toilet” to reduce the number of children who die as a result of sanitation problems. According to the Los Angeles Times, The Gates Foundation offered in 2011 $42 million to researchers, asking them to build the toilet of tomorrow—one that is safe, hygienic, uses little water and easy to install.
Football must ‘catch up’ with society says UN commissioner ~ BBC
by Richard Conway
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights believes football is behind the times and must “catch up” with modern society on social issues.
Navi Pillay, who grew up and worked as a lawyer in Apartheid South Africa, is also concerned women remain severely under-represented within the game.
She said: “It is time for football to catch up with 21st century values of respecting diversity.”
And she added football “has to respect human rights law”.
U.N. development chief slams War on Drugs ~ Salon
Helen Clark, the head of the United Nations Development Program, has publicly slammed global strategies to combat drugs, claiming there is increasing evidence that “the war on drugs” has failed. The former prime minister of New Zealand urged Latin American leaders to develop new policies to tackle drugs, which she says should be addressed as a public health problem rather than criminalized. “I’ve been a health minister in my past and there’s no doubt that the health position would be to treat the issue of drugs as primarily a health and social issue rather than a criminalized issue,” she told Reuters. “Once you criminalize, you put very big stakes around. Of course, our world has proceeded on the basis that criminalization is the approach. To deal with drugs as a one-dimensional, law-and-order issue is to miss the point.” Although she did not directly comment on US involvement in the drug war, her words have been widely interpreted as a criticism of US drug policy, which she later denied. “She was speaking about the negative effects the drug trade has had on development in some Latin American countries in the context of the Human Development Report,” said UNDP spokeswoman Christina LoNigro in a statement.
Latin American leaders have already been brainstorming new ideas to address drug trafficking and subsequent violence in the region. At the UN General Assembly last September, former Mexican President Felipe Calderon and the leaders of Colombia and Guatemala called on world governments to help Latin American countries explore alternatives to the problem. Many leaders in the region have also spoken about the possibility of legalizing drugs. While Clark did not directly advocate for legalization, she stressed the importance of keeping profits out of criminal hands. “We have waves of violent crime sustained by drug trade, so we have to take the money out of drugs,” she said. “The countries in the region that have been ravaged by the armed violence associated with drug cartels are starting to think laterally about a broad range of approaches and they should be encouraged to do that. They should act on evidence.”
