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United Nations (UN)

Global North Has Nine Times More Voting Power At The International Monetary Fund Than Global South

March 7, 2025 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. , , , , , , , , ,
As far as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is concerned, each person in the Global North is worth nine people in the Global South. We get that calculation from IMF data on voting power in the organisation relative to the population of the Global North and Global South states. Each country, based on its ‘relative economic position’, as the IMF suggests, is given voting rights to elect delegates to the IMF’s executive board, which makes all of the organisation’s important decisions. A brief glance at the board shows that the Global North is vastly overrepresented in this crucial multilateral institution for indebted countries.

United Nations Censures United Kingdom’s Abuse Of Terrorism Act

February 7, 2025 Craig Murray, Consortium News. , , , , ,
Four U.N. special rapporteurs have written jointly to the U.K. government demanding explanation of its inappropriate persecution of journalists and political activists under the Terrorism Act. They state that those persecuted: appear to have no credible connection to ‘terrorist’ or ‘hostile’ activity. The cases taken up by the United Nations are those of Johanna Ross (Ganyukova), John Laughland, Kit Klarenberg, Craig Murray (yes, me), Richard Barnard and Richard Medhurst. Under this U.N. special procedure, the letter is sent to the government in question which has 60 days to respond. This letter was sent by the U.N. to Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government on Dec. 4. No reply having been received, it has now been published.

United Nations Demands Israeli Withdrawal From Golan Heights

December 4, 2024 News Desk, The Cradle. , , , , ,
The UN General Assembly adopted on 3 December a resolution demanding Israel’s withdrawal from Syria’s illegally occupied Golan Heights, which the Israeli army captured during the 1967 war. The resolution demanded “once more” that Israel withdraw from the occupied Golan Heights “to the line of 4 June 1967" while stressing the illegality of settlement building and other activities in the territory. “The continued occupation of the Syrian Golan and its de facto annexation constitute a stumbling block in the way of achieving a just, comprehensive, and lasting peace in the region,” it added. Any decision imposing laws or jurisdiction in the region is “null and void and has no validity whatsoever.”

No More ‘Deals’: What Palestinians Want And Will Fight To Achieve

November 30, 2024 Ramzy Baroud, Counter Punch. , , , , , ,
A major problem in American thinking in the Middle East is the utter rejection of the notion that Palestinian rights are fundamental, if at all relevant, to the coveted peace and stability. Long before Donald Trump’s first ‘Deal of the Century’ was officially revealed on January 28, 2020, successive US administrations attempted to ‘stabilize’ the Middle East at the expense of Palestinians. Earlier plans, or deals, rested on the premise of total marginalization of the Palestinian people and their cause. They included the Roger Plan of 1969 and Roger Plan II in the early 70s, which culminated in the Camp David Accords later that same decade.

La Via Campesina Gives Input To First In-Person Meeting Of UN Working Group On Rights Of Peasants

November 18, 2024 La Via Campesina. , , ,
From the 21st to the 25th of October 2024, the United Nations Working Group on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (the Working Group) held its second session in Geneva. The Working Group on peasants was established in October last year when the member states of the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution tabled by Bolivia and a core group of states agreeing to further implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP). La Via Campesina (LVC) delegates from Asia, Europe and Latin America together with their allies, CETIM and FIAN International, attended and participated in this first in-person historic meeting of the UNDROP Working Group in Geneva.

End Of Empathy: Did The Gaza Genocide Render The UN Irrelevant?

November 15, 2024 Ramzy Baroud, Scheer Post. , , , ,
Francesca Albanese did not mince her words. In a strongly worded speech at the United Nations General Assembly Third Committee on 29 October, the UN Special Rapporteur deviated from the typical line of other UN officials. She directed her statements to those in attendance. “Is it possible that after 42,000 people killed, you cannot empathise with the Palestinians?” Albanese said in her statement about the need to “recognise (Israel’s war on Gaza) as a genocide”. “Those of you who have not uttered a word about what is happening in Gaza demonstrate that empathy has evaporated from this room,” she added.

Business Lobby Reached Record High At UN Biodiversity Talks

November 13, 2024 Rachel Sherrington, Claire Carlile and Hazel Healy, DeSmog. , , , , ,
Representatives of business and industry groups more than doubled at the UN’s latest biodiversity summit, DeSmog has found, sparking fears over the growing influence of powerful private sector bodies. Despite some important breakthroughs, talks at this year’s COP16 summit in Cali, Colombia – which aimed to reverse the drastic global decline in plant and animal life – ended in disarray on 2 November, with Greenpeace’s An Lambrechts complaining that progress to protect the world’s dangerously depleted ecosystems had stalled after “unprecedented corporate lobbying”.

United Nations Finds 70 Percent Of Gaza Deaths Women And Children

November 9, 2024 News Desk, The Cradle. , , , , , , , , , ,
The majority of the casualties in Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip have been women and children, according to a report released on 8 November by the UN Human Rights Office. According to the report, nearly 70 percent of the confirmed number of dead are women and children, which “demonstrates an apparent indifference to the death of civilians and the impact of the means and methods of warfare selected.” It also marks a “a systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law,” the report said. It notes that 80 percent of the deaths took place in residential buildings or in homes.

Criminalizing UNRWA: How Israel Is Delegitimizing The United Nations

November 7, 2024 Ramzy Baroud, Counter Punch. , , , , ,
On October 28, the Israeli Knesset passed a second reading of two bills that effectively ban the United Nations agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) from carrying out “any activity” in Israel and occupied Palestine. Simply put, the decision is catastrophic, because UNRWA is the main international body responsible for the welfare of millions of Palestinians throughout the occupied territories, and throughout much of the region. Israel followed its decision by attacking and damaging an UNRWA office in the Nur Shams refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. It was the Israeli government’s way of demonstrating its seriousness regarding the matter.

Fifty Two Nations Call For Global Arms Embargo On Israel

November 4, 2024 News Desk, The Cradle. , , , , , , , ,
The Foreign Ministry of Turkiye sent the UN a letter signed by 52 nations and two organizations calling for a halt in military transfers to Israel, stating the Israeli army is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan called for the arms embargo on Israel while speaking at a news conference in Djibouti on 1 November. While attending the Turkiye–Africa collaboration meeting, Fidan announced that the group letter was sent to the UN and that it must be "repeated at every opportunity that selling arms to Israel means participating in its genocide."

The World Once Again Votes To End The US Blockade Against Cuba

October 31, 2024 People's Dispatch. , , , , , ,
On October 30, the UN General Assembly once again convened to debate and vote on a non-binding resolution to end the US blockade against Cuba. This year, 187 countries voted in favor of the resolution. The United States and Israel were the only countries to vote against it, and only one country, Moldova, abstained. Cuba has presented the resolution “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba” every year since 1992 (except 2020), to the UNGA. Every year it passes in an almost unanimous vote, showcasing the international consensus against the US policy.

Mapped: How Big Industries Hope To Sway The UN Biodiversity Talks

October 30, 2024 Hazel Healy and Rachel Sherrington, DeSmog. , , , , , , , , , , ,
Under thundery tropical skies, and amid ever more dire warnings on the precarious state of the world’s ecosystems, the United Nations Biodiversity Conference is unfolding in Colombia. This year’s summit, known as COP16, follows on from the last biodiversity conference held in Montréal in 2022, when negotiators struck an historic deal – the equivalent of the Paris Agreement on climate change – to “halt and reverse” nature loss. Now, government representatives from nearly 200 countries, along with scientists, Indigenous groups, and environmental activists, are gathered in the southern city of Cali to negotiate how to put this plan into action: protect earth’s habitats and the people who depend on them.

Israeli Lawmakers Vote To Ban UN Agency For Palestinian Refugees

October 29, 2024 News Desk, The Cradle. , , ,
The Israeli Knesset on 28 October passed two laws banning the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) from operating inside Israel, Gaza, the occupied West Bank, and occupied East Jerusalem. In a 92-10 vote, the Knesset approved the first law, which says that the UN agency cannot “operate any institution, provide any service, or conduct any activity, whether directly or indirectly.” Moments later, lawmakers voted 87-9 for the second law, which states that no Israeli government official or agency may contact UNRWA, effectively prohibiting Israeli officials from providing services or dealing with UN employees.

United Nations Releases New Report On Death Of Dag Hammarskjold In 1961

October 25, 2024 Abayomi Azikiwe, Black Agenda Report. , , , , , ,
September 18, 1961, was a significant day in the struggle surrounding the African liberation movements aimed at ending colonialism on the continent. United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold and the entire crew and passengers aboard his plane went down in Ndola located in the then British colony of Northern Rhodesia, now known as Zambia. Although the colonial authorities claimed that the crash and subsequent deaths were the result of “pilot error”, ever since this time questions have been raised over whether the crash was a deliberate act of sabotage designed to prevent a political solution to the crisis in the former Belgian Congo.

UN Troops To ‘Stay In All Positions’ Inside Lebanon Despite Israeli Threats

October 15, 2024 News Desk, The Cradle. , , , , , , ,
The UN Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, confirmed on 14 October that the UN Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) would “stay in all its positions” inside Lebanon after Israeli attacks injured at least five blue helmets. “The decision was made that UNIFIL would currently stay in all its positions in spite of the calls that were made by the Israel Defense Forces to vacate the positions that are in the vicinity of the Blue Line,” Lacroix told reporters on Monday. “I want to emphasize that this decision still remains,” he stressed, adding that the plan was confirmed earlier in the day by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
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