Tag Archives: United Nations

CNN reports: Almost a third of the Earth will need to be protected by 2030 and pollution cut by half to save our remaining wildlife, as we enter the planet’s sixth era of mass extinction, according to a United Nations agency. The UN Convention on Biological Diversity released a draft plan on Monday, which sets global goals to combat the …

The Associated Press reports: The past decade has seen a backlash against human rights on every front, especially the rights of women and the LGBT communities, according to a top U.N. human rights official. Andrew Gilmour, the outgoing assistant secretary-general for human rights, said the regression of the past 10 years hasn’t equaled the advances that began in the late …

Politico reports: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sought to assure nations at the U.N. conference in Madrid today that the U.S. would join its efforts to fight climate change despite President Donald Trump’s move to pull the U.S. out the Paris agreement. “By coming here we want to say to everyone, we’re still in,” Pelosi said at a press conference in …

USA Today reports: The world’s oceans and mountains are in peril, and so are we, according to a major new report from United Nations climate scientists released early Wednesday. The “Special Report on Oceans and the Cryosphere” offers a bleak picture. It warns that the world’s oceans have reached or are nearing critical tipping points: Oceans have gotten warmer, more …

The Associated Press reports: U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned global leaders Tuesday of the looming risk of the world splitting in two, with the United States and China creating rival internets, currency, trade, financial rules “and their own zero sum geopolitical and military strategies.” In his annual “state of the world address” to the General Assembly’s gathering of heads of …

CNN reports: He mocked their marble. They laughed in his face. The United Nations and President Donald Trump are not, by most measures, easy friends. Nevertheless, Trump traveled for the third time this week to the UN General Assembly more intent than ever on promoting his America First agenda in the place that appreciates it least. It’s one presidential tradition …

The Daily Beast reports: Greta Thunberg shocked the United Nations Climate Action Summit on Monday with an angry, accusatory tone and direct, frank talk. “This is all wrong,” said the 16-year-old climate activist from Sweden, fighting back tears. “I shouldn’t be up here – I should be in school, across the ocean.” Taking an angry tone, she continued, “You come …

McClatchy reports: The United Nations General Assembly opens next month with a major summit on climate change – but at least one head of state will be absent from the global stage. Three senior administration officials told McClatchy that President Donald Trump plans to skip the U.N. Climate Action Summit on Sept. 23 hosted by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres. Environmental …

Just in from the United Nations: “The World Population Prospects 2019: Highlights” estimates that the next 30 years will see the global population add an extra 2 billion people to today’s figure of 7.7 billion, and, by the end of the century, the planet will have to sustain around 11 billion. India is expected to show the highest population increase …

NBC News reports: Julian Assange has been left in a state of “extreme stress, chronic anxiety” and “constant panic” after spending seven years holed up in London’s Ecuadorian Embassy, a leading United Nations expert who visited the WikiLeaks co-founder in prison said Thursday. Nils Melzer, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture, told NBC News he blames the United States, United …

The Associated Press reports: Almost every country in the world has agreed on a legally binding framework for reducing polluting plastic waste, with the United States a notable exception, United Nations environmental officials said Friday. An agreement on tracking thousands of types of plastic waste emerged at the end of a two-week meeting of U.N.-backed conventions on plastic waste and …

ABC News reports: President Trump speaking to the National Rifle Association, a group that made a multimillion investment in his campaign, declared his administration will not ratify the UN Arms Trade Treaty – an Obama-era measure aimed at regulating the arms industry and that was intended to help keep such weapons away from human rights violators. The treaty was not …

Finland’s YLE reports: Finland has once again been ranked as the happiest country in the world. The Nordic nation received the accolade for the second year in succession in the annual survey of global happiness from the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network. Finland beat out 155 other countries for the title in the 2019 report, released Wednesday. The report …

From a Fortune report posted earlier today: U.S. Ambassador to Canada Kelly Craft is emerging as the frontrunner to replace U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, who resigned in December. Craft as a UN contender comes after State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert withdrew her name over the weekend as Haley’s successor. A Kentucky native, Craft is backed by …

Bloomberg reports: President Donald Trump is considering four people to be his next UN ambassador: Goldman Sachs Group Inc. partner Dina Powell, the current ambassadors to Canada and Germany, Kelly Craft and Richard Grenell, and John James, a former Republican U.S. Senate candidate from Michigan, according to people familiar with the matter. The people asked not to be identified because …

The Washington Post reports: President Trump’s pick to be the next United Nations ambassador withdrew from consideration Saturday, the State Department said. The department’s spokeswoman, Heather Nauert, had been tapped to succeed Nikki Haley at the United Nations, but her name was never formally sent to the Senate for confirmation. The withdrawal is related to the employment of a nanny …

The Guardian reports: The Trump administration has stopped cooperating with UN investigators over potential human rights violations occurring inside America, in a move that delivers a major blow to vulnerable US communities and sends a dangerous signal to authoritarian regimes around the world. Quietly and unnoticed, the state department has ceased to respond to official complaints from UN special rapporteurs, …

Politico reports: The President of the United States is the “worst” perpetrator of misinformation on the internet, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Opinion David Kaye said in an interview published today. “Governments are real offenders when it comes to disinformation,” said Kaye. “In my own country, the United States, the worst perpetrator of false information is …

Bloomberg reports: As Nikki Haley finishes her tenure this month, the woman who has spent the last two years representing the U.S. at the United Nations has a question for the American public: Should the U.S. remain a member? “The American people need to decide if it’s worth it,” she said in an interview with a small group of journalists …

Bloomberg reports: President Donald Trump has decided to nominate State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert to replace departing United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, according to three people familiar with the decision, Bloomberg News reports. Nauert, 48, is an unorthodox choice for the UN role given that she had little experience in government or foreign policy before joining the administration in April …