UN Photo/Jean Marc Ferré Wole Soyinka addresses a lecture series marking the 60th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 2008. (file) This #ThrowbackThursday, when the world celebrates the Day for Countering Hate Speech, we are looking back at how Nobel Laureate for Literature Wole Soyinka wielded powerful words to clobber…
“We must feel that we are all citizens of this one planet because unless we do, we won’t solve the problems,” Mr. Attenborough said in an interview with the UN. Over the course of his more than 70-year-long career at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the legendary natural history broadcaster, who turned 98 last month,…
Some missions were accomplished. Others continue today. Since the Organization’s inception at the end of the Second World War, UN Member States have scrambled to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war” by deploying their collective efforts to prevent the kind of utter devastation that global conflict brought to Europe, Africa, Asia and beyond,…
On the International Day to End Obstetric Fistula, marked annually on 23 May, we are taking a look at the important role of midwives and tuning in to UN Radio’s featurette from 1963, The Magic Suitcase, narrated by Hollywood star Jack Benny. The radio and television entertainer joined the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in the 1960s…
The crisis began when Egypt nationalised the Suez Canal Company in July 1956, and France and the United Kingdom protested. By October of that year, Israeli forces launched an attack on Egypt and occupied Sinai, with British and French troops landing soon after in the Suez Canal Zone. The UN was unable to resolve the…
UN Photo/Allan Tannenbaum A segregated beach at Stranofontein near Cape Town, South Africa, in 1985. (file) The music legend held a press conference following an epic performance at a meeting of the UN Special Committee against Apartheid to honour him on his 35th birthday. “All people are created equal, not created to take care of another race of…
To mark the International Year of Camelids in 2024 and on the heels of World Immunisation Week, celebrated annually in the last week of April, we took a look at how caravans of these hardy dromedaries played a key role. From transporting peacekeepers to polio vaccines, camels have helped the UN in its broad range of mandates…
That’s when environmental protection was not yet a priority of national political agendas, but a growing movement took hold across the planet. In 1971, UN Secretary-General U Thant held a special ceremony at UN Headquarters in New York, proclaiming 22 April the world’s first Earth Day. A team prepares posters and signs to be used…
1948: UN invention records multiple languages Precision, speed and accuracy were the hallmark of a brand-new machine the UN developed and deployed in 1948 to record multilingual meetings. At the time, note takers hired to cover the meetings had to pass a 200-words-a-minute test. Alas, human beings are only human and could suddenly become ill…
UN tops NASA’s interstellar playlist Before launching into space in 1977, the United States space agency, NASA, asked the UN to provide materials for a playlist to record an album – the “Golden Record” – to be sent to the stars. In fact, the first words on the vinyl record itself are those of the…
