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UN ends peacekeeping mission in Mali, US blames Russia’s Wagner

UN ends peacekeeping mission in Mali, US blames Russia’s Wagner

THE United Nations Security Council unanimously voted to end a decade-long peacekeeping mission in Mali after the West African country's military junta abruptly asked the 13,000-strong force to leave - a move the United States said was engineered by Russia's Wagner mercenary group. The end of the operation, known as MINUSMA, follows years of tensions and government restrictions that have hobbled peacekeeping air and ground operations since Mali teamed up in 2021 with Russia's Wagner group, which was behind an abortive armed mutiny in Russia last weekend. U.N. peacekeepers are credited with playing a vital role in protecting civilians against an Islamist insurgency that has killed…
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UN, Africa bank work to ease Russian grain, fertilizer exports -UN official

UN, Africa bank work to ease Russian grain, fertilizer exports -UN official

THE United Nations is working with the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) to create a platform to help process transactions for Russian exports of grain and fertilizer to Africa, the top U.N. trade official told Reuters on Wednesday. An agreement struck in July last year requires the U.N. to help Russia overcome any obstacles to its grain and fertilizer exports for three years. It was reached at the same time as a deal allowing the safe Black Sea export of food and fertilizer from Ukraine following Russia's February 2022 invasion. The deals were intended to ease a global goods crisis that the United…
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UN rights experts urge Uganda to halt pre-election violence, arrests

UN rights experts urge Uganda to halt pre-election violence, arrests

UNITED Nations human rights experts have called on Uganda to rein in violent security forces and drop charges against political opponents and activists arrested in what the experts termed an election clampdown. Popstar Bobi Wine has emerged as the strongest challenger to President Yoweri Museveni in the presidential election scheduled for January 14. On Sunday Wine, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi, said one of his bodyguards was killed when military police ran him over while Wine's convoy was taking a wounded journalist to seek medical help. Military police said the bodyguard had fallen from a speeding car. "We are…
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Code red: UN calls for urgent shift to planet-friendly development

Code red: UN calls for urgent shift to planet-friendly development

MEGAN ROWLING UNDER huge pressure from COVID-19, climate change and natural destruction, warning lights for the planet and societies are "flashing red" - and now is the time to choose a safer, fairer path for human development, the United Nations said on Tuesday. "We are at an unprecedented moment in the history of humankind and in the history of our planet," it said in a report, urging efforts by governments, business and citizens to pursue a new kind of progress that protects the environment. "The COVID-19 pandemic is the latest harrowing consequence of imbalances writ large," said the Human Development Report…
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UN criticised for holding back review of troubled Congo Ebola response

UN criticised for holding back review of troubled Congo Ebola response

PHILIP KLEINFELD and BEN PARKER A review by leading aid agencies of Ebola operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo was not widely circulated to organisations involved in the response until several months after the epidemic was declared over, despite containing details of mismanagement, sexual abuse and exploitation, and coordination problems during the deadly outbreak. The internal report from the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), a grouping of major UN agencies and NGOs, is one of the clearest acknowledgements – by humanitarian agencies themselves – of mistakes made during the Ebola crisis, which claimed more than 2,200 lives between August 2018 and June 2020.…
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Ethiopia shifts focus from war to economy, U.N. worries about Tigray

Ethiopia shifts focus from war to economy, U.N. worries about Tigray

JACKSON NJEHIA and STEPHANIE NEBEHAY  ETHIOPIA’S prime minister has shifted his focus away from war, opening a cross-border highway to Kenya at the opposite end of his country, while the United Nations voiced alarm over ongoing fighting in the northern Tigray region. Abiy Ahmed cut the ribbon on a mega-highway linking south Ethiopia with Kenya's port of Mombasa, alongside Kenyan counterpart President Uhuru Kenyatta, as part of Ethiopia's aspirations to become a regional powerhouse. "Just like the infrastructure, we should work on peace and security," he said at the border town of Moyale, refraining from mentioning Tigray. "Peace is a…
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Protect Journalists, Protect the Truth

Protect Journalists, Protect the Truth

In the past fourteen years (2006-2019), close to 1,200 journalists have been killed for reporting the news and bringing information to the public. In nine out of ten cases the killers go unpunished. Impunity leads to more killings and is often a symptom of worsening conflict and the breakdown of law and judicial systems.  These figures do not include the many more journalists, who on a daily basis suffer from non-fatal attacks, including torture, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention, intimidation and harassment in both conflict and non-conflict situations. Furthermore, there are specific risks faced by women journalists, including sexual attacks. Worryingly, only one in…
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UN in New York cancels in-person meetings due to COVID-19 infections

UN in New York cancels in-person meetings due to COVID-19 infections

THE United Nations has cancelled all in-person meetings at its New York headquarters after five people in Niger's U.N. mission were infected with the coronavirus, diplomats said. After largely operating virtually since New York became a global COVID-19 hotspot in March, the 193-member world body had been holding some in-person gatherings again, with COVID-19 precautions such as requiring diplomats to wear masks, social distance and restricting the number of people at meetings. In a letter to member states late on Monday, U.N. General Assembly President Volkan Bozkir said the U.N. medical unit had recommended cancelling in-person meetings on Tuesday, pending…
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Child malnutrition reaches new highs in parts of Yemen – U.N. survey

Child malnutrition reaches new highs in parts of Yemen – U.N. survey

PARTS of Yemen are seeing their highest levels of acute malnutrition in children, heightening warnings that the country is approaching a dire food security crisis, according to a U.N. report. Drivers of malnutrition in Yemen worsened in 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic, economic decline, floods, escalating conflict and significant underfunding of this year's aid response have compounded an already bleak hunger situation after almost six years of war. "We've been warning since July that Yemen is on the brink of a catastrophic food security crisis. If the war doesn't end now, we are nearing an irreversible situation and risk losing…
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Why the UN must set up an independent body to tackle sexual abuse

Why the UN must set up an independent body to tackle sexual abuse

ANDERS KOMPASS SIX years ago, I became a UN whistleblower, intervening to stop the sexual abuse of children by soldiers in Central African Republic. The revelation led to an independent investigation into how the UN had handled the affair and, in 2015, to a damning report that identified severe structural and systemic weaknesses within the UN system. At the end of it, in 2016, I resigned from the United Nations, making a final call for structural change in the ethical standards of the organisation. Since then, I have looked from a distance as Sweden’s ambassador in Central America, still hoping…
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