A sense of urgency hangs over the final day of negotiations on the political document for the Rio+20 conference on sustainable development. That assessment comes from Nikhil Seth, head of the conference Secretariat, during a press briefing in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Friday. Government representatives have been meeting in the city since Wednesday to [...]
Leaders of the major developed and developing economies are being urged to tackle the jobs crisis. The call has come from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a letter to the G20 summit which starts in Los Cabos, Mexico on Monday. The Secretary-General warns that a modest economic recovery in some countries should not disguise the [...]
Iceland is the country most at peace for the second year in a row, according to the recently-released Global Peace Index for 2012. The ranking, which describes the level of peace existing in a country, is compiled by the Institute for Economics and Peace. It's an independent non-profit research organization dedicated to shifting the world's [...]
Refugees who have fled fighting in Sudan's Blue Nile State and crossed into Ethiopia are being relocated from a transit centre to a new camp. Thousands of Sudanese started to flee to Ethiopia when fighting broke out between the Sudanese armed forces and rebels at the beginning of September 2011. The International Organization for Migration [...]
A toolkit to help countries stop the abuse of people with mental health conditions has been launched by the World Health Organization (WHO). According to WHO, violations of the rights of people with mental conditions include overcrowding and unhygienic living conditions, violence, abuse, harmful treatment and neglect. The agency says the Quality Rights Tool Kit [...]
Nearly one million children under the age of five in Burundi are chronically malnourished, according to the UN Children's Fund. UNICEF says 58 per cent of those children suffer from stunted growth, while acute malnutrition levels have reached 6 per cent. Burundi is one of the poorest countries in the world and the already fragile [...]
A lack of funds is seriously threatening the efforts of the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) to help more than 300,000 displaced by conflict and insecurity in northern Mali. According to UNHCR, more people are fleeing instability and fighting in Mali with some 20,000 crossing into Burkina Faso, Niger and Mauritania over the past four [...]
A spike in violence in Syria is derailing the work of United Nations unarmed military observers in the conflict-torn country. This warning has come from Major General Robert Mood, the head of the UN Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS). Major General Mood said in Damascus on Friday, that initially there was a lull in violence [...]
The Academy Award winning actress and advocate Geena Davis has been appointed the Special Envoy for Women and Girls, for the UN's International Telecommunication Union. She will be a leading spokesperson for the Tech Needs Girls campaign and will promote the empowering role technology can play in the lives of women and girls. [...]
More than 2,000 business leaders are meeting this weekend in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to examine the role of the private sector in creating a sustainable future. The Corporate Sustainability Forum, which opens on Friday, is taking place on the sidelines of the Rio+20 conference on sustainable development. The forum is an initiative of the [...]
Hundreds of people fleeing violence in western Myanmar are stranded in boats off the coast of Bangladesh, according to the UN Refugee agency UNHCR. The boats, which are reported to be carrying mainly women children and wounded people from Myanmar's Rakhine State, have been denied entry into Bangladesh. UNHCR is appealing to authorities in Bangladesh [...]
The head of the Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future has high hopes for the United Nations Rio+20 conference taking place in Brazil from 20 to 22 June. Felix Dodds is not only the organization's Executive Director, but also the co-author of "Only One Earth". The book looks at what has been achieved in the [...]
The United Nations Global Compact is holding its own conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil just ahead of the UN's Sustainable Development conference, known as Rio+20. Over 1,000 business people from 130 countries are expected to attend the “The Rio+20 Corporate Sustainability Forum” from 15-18 June. They are discussing how to align their operations and [...]
