Collage Photo: File Iran has officially invited Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz to visit Tehran. According to the report of the foreign news agency, the spokesman of the Iranian Foreign Office, Nasser Kanani, says that Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi has sent an invitation to Saudi King Salman. He said that the Iranian president has…
There are so many conflicts, humanitarian disasters, extreme weather events and economic upheavals taking place in the world, that a new word is being used to describe the current state of affairs: the “polycrisis”. The word appeared in 2022, a year that began with tentative hopes that the global economy would begin to recover from…
Dario Jose Mejia Montalvo, Chair of UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and Leader of the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia. Many indigenous peoples profess a deep respect for the planet and all forms of life, and an understanding that the health of the Earth goes hand in hand with the wellbeing of humankind. This…
“I strongly condemn the outbreak of fighting that is taking place in Sudan and appeal to the leaders of the Rapid Support Forces (RAF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) to immediately cease hostilities, restore calm, and begin a dialogue to resolve the crisis,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Monday. Following the deaths of…
The Secretary-General pointed to reports showing that, since the pandemic, the richest one percent of people around the world have captured nearly twice as much new wealth as the rest of the world combined. Inequalities within some countries, he said, are regressing towards early 20th Century levels, a time when women did not have the…
“One year on since the parties agreed to a truce under UN auspices, Yemen is again at a critical juncture,” he said, speaking via videoconference. “I believe we have not seen such a serious opportunity for making progress towards ending the conflict in eight years. But the tide could still turn unless the parties take…
Indigenous peoples “hold many of the solutions to the climate crisis and are guardians of the world’s biodiversity,” in places as varied as the Amazon, the Sahel, and the Himalayas, said Mr. Guterres. Exploitation, evictions The UN chief acknowledged that indigenous peoples struggle to adapt to the climate crisis, and face the exploitation of their…
“We are worried that despite positive reforms undertaken by the Government of Zambia, the delays in sovereign debt restructuring compromise its ability to mobilise and maximise resources for the full realisation of human rights, as per its obligations under international human rights law,” the independent human rights experts said. Roadblocks to economic reform In August 2022, Zambia secured…
“Diplomacy, not isolation, is the only way forward,” the senior official from the Department of Peace Operations said. “The lack of unity and action in the Security Council does little to slow the negative trajectory on the Korean Peninsula.” The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), more commonly known as North Korea, “is unconstrained, and…
Marginalized groups are disproportionately affected by the blood-borne disease, which can cause serious liver damage and cancer when left untreated, according to Unitaid, a global health agency hosted by the World Health Organization (WHO). The funding will support the integration of hepatitis C testing and treatment within harm reduction programmes in 10 countries and trial…
