The indigenous people's language and culture are being threatened, says Meenakshi Munda, an indigenous youth from the Munda community of Jharkhand, India. As President of the Asia Pacific Indigenous Youth Network (APIYN), Meenakshi is attending an expert group meeting on indigenous youth here in New York. Beng Poblete-Enriquez caught up with her and discussed [...]
• Young people from around the world attended the first international expert group meeting on indigenous youth in New York this week. During the three-day meeting, they analyzed how they can benefit from human rights standards and policies. A participant from Uganda says the Batwa people in his country are living under difficult conditions. Art [...]
UNESCO will spare no effort to help rebuild the mausoleums of Timbuktu and the tomb of Askia in Gao, says UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova. The head of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization said UNESCO will do everything possible to safeguard and rebuild Mali's extraordinary cultural heritage, which she described as "a vital [...]
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has noted with grave concern reports of Israeli air strikes in Syria. A note to correspondents says "At this time, the United Nations does not have details of the reported incident, nor is it in a position to independently verify what has occurred". The note says the Secretary-General calls on all [...]
As the French and Malian forces continue to retake towns from rebels in northern Mali, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) is preparing for a possible return of displaced people to their homes. Thousands of people have fled northern Mali where ethnic Tuaregs have been fighting with the Malian government forces for autonomy. Other armed [...]
Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory are a symbol of the lack of justice experienced by Palestinians, a human rights body contends. The three lawyers who comprise the fact-finding mission appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, say the settlements are maintained through a system of total segregation that infringes on the rights [...]
UN Women – the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women has noted with great concern the escalation of violence and alarming reports of rising violence against women in public spaces in the days following the second anniversary of the Egyptian revolution.. Michelle Bachelet, the Executive Director of UN Women [...]
World Cancer Day will be observed by the International Atomic Energy Agency –IAEA on Monday, 4 February, with an event to raise awareness about the nature of cancer in low- and middle-income countries. The IAEA says this year’s “Did You Know?” theme for World Cancer Day is an opportunity to improve general knowledge about cancer [...]
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, has appealed for more than $130 million for the promotion of human rights in 2013. In her annual appeal to donors in Geneva on Thursday, Ms. Pillay says the UN Human Rights Office can respond to more of the many requests for assistance if additional resources [...]
UN human rights experts say continued Israeli settlements in the occupied territories violate a multitude of Palestinian’s human rights violate international law and constitute war crimes. But the members of a fact-finding mission say only the International Criminal Court can decide whether to take judicial action on the matter. The mission was set up by [...]
The Mozambican government and aid organizations are struggling to respond to the needs of 150,000 people displaced by recent flooding in the country's southern Gaza Province, says the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR. Residents of Chókwè, one of the worst-affected districts, were forced to flee to higher ground when water levels in the Limpopo River [...]
Andrea Landry, a proud representative of the Anishinaabe, one of the First Nations or indigenous people of North America, is at the UN for the first international expert group meeting for indigenous youth which wraps up on Thursday. Although she's pursuing a Masters in Communications and Social Justice at the University of Windsor in Canada, [...]
The World Health Organization (WHO) released Thursday a resource package of practical tools specifically aimed at improving patient safety in hospitals in developing countries. The resource package was co-developed by frontline health professionals through a pioneering WHO programme, African Partnerships for Patient Safety (APPS), that pairs 14 African hospitals each with a hospital in England, [...]
A top UN official has expressed the UN's strong commitment to support Somali efforts to build peace. Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman, during a visit to Mogadishu expressed the United Nations' firm commitment to support the Somali government in its efforts to extend state authority and peace dividends to the population at large, and [...]
It's almost two years that the crisis in Syria continues, in what started as protests and evolved into an armed confrontation between the government and opposition fighters. The United Nations estimates that more than 60,000 people have been killed in the ongoing violence. Veteran diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi, the Joint Special Representative of the United Nations [...]
