UN envoy calls again for removal of restrictions on Afghan women

UN envoy calls again for removal of restrictions on Afghan women

Briefing ambassadors in the Security Council, Roza Otunbayeva, Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG), said that recent arbitrary arrest of Afghan women for alleged Islamic dress code violations was having a chilling effect among the wider female population, “many of whom are now afraid to move in public,” she said. “The denial of women and…

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Coasts and sea life facing major threat due to massive sand removal

Coasts and sea life facing major threat due to massive sand removal

This is equivalent to over one million dump trucks every day – placing immense pressure on marine biodiversity and the well-being of coastal communities. Marine Sand Watch, a platform developed by UN Environment Programme (UNEP)’s analytical centre, GRID-Geneva, uses artificial intelligence and automatic signals from ships to track and monitor sand, clay, silt, gravel, and…

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Vessel to remove oil from stricken Yemen tanker could arrive by May

Yemen: UN concludes removal of one million barrels of oil from decaying tanker

UN Secretary-General António Guterres welcomed the news of the successful transfer of oil aboard the FSO Safer to a replacement vessel, thus “avoiding what could have been a monumental environmental and humanitarian catastrophe.” The FSO Safer was built as a supertanker in 1976 and converted a decade later into what is in effect a floating…

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