As we observe International Women’s Day, 8 March 2023, and CSW67 (Commission on the Status of Women, Session 67) is taking place, with UN Women continuing to run local programs worldwide, one crucial question remains: What women? To whom is the UN talking? The UN’s theme for 2023 is “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender…
September 2023 is forecast to be heavy in summiteering, as already two summits and a ministerial meeting are scheduled to take place in the space of a few days, around the high-level “UN Week”, namely: an SDG Summit, another Climate Summit, and a Ministerial Meeting in preparation of the September 2024 Summit of the Future….
On this commemoration of Armistice Day, 11 November 1918, Marking the silencing of weapons at the end of World War I, We, the undersigned concerned citizens of the world, Call for a ceasefire in all conflicts currently raging on our planet, between and within countries, on all continents. How many more millions of dead human…
This essay is written to distance proper understanding of the Russian war against Ukraine from any false equivalence that this is a conflict between two belligerents, whose perspectives deserve equal recognition as a prelude to a negotiated outcome. Attempts to explore alternative avenues to peace, and identify differentiated messages and appropriate envoys and institutions should…
Seventy-seven years ago today, on 6 August 1945, the United States Airforce dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, instantly killing an estimated 70,000 people – a number that would grow to about 140,000 over the coming year as radiation sickness took its toll. The bomb dropped on Nagasaki only three days later raised the total…
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UCNFCC), the world’s first climate change treaty, is 30 years old. It was adopted on 9 May 1992 and opened for signature at the Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro on 4 June 1992. Should the world be celebrating? Looking back Personally, I take…
*This tribune was originally published in French in Le Monde dated 30/3/2022 After unsuccessfully and repeatedly calling on Russian President Putin to end this deadly conflict and respect the United Nations Charter, Antonio Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations (SG), seems to have disappeared from the radar. Heads of State talk to Putin, heads…
Over the weekend of 28 January 2022, Russia moved blood supplies close to its border with Ukraine, where tens of thousands of Russian troops have been amassing, further adding to US concern of the imminency of invasion. When stored at 6ºC, donated blood can last up to approximately six weeks. The clock is ticking as the…
The Glasgow Climate Pact, taken together with other decisions adopted at the close of COP 26, constitute an impressive step forward in multilateral climate policy. The true measure of success of “Glasgow”, however, will lie not in the words uttered or committed to paper but in the lasting impact of the full array of Glasgow’s…
This is a republished version of the original article published on EuroNews, which you can access here. As we slowly exit pandemic lockdown mode – at least those of us who are fully vaccinated and till the Delta and/or other COVID-19 variant submerge our health systems with new cases – it is good to take…
