Diplomacy & Crisis News

Between 2010 and 2017, an average of 21.1 million children missed their first dose of the measles vaccine, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) revealed on Wednesday, stressing its importance to creating “an umbrella of immunity for everyone.” 

The United States should be working to help negotiate peace rather than fanning the flames of another failed war. 

The UN Security Council was told on Wednesday that people with disabilities “can’t wait any longer” for more of a say in how the world’s top diplomatic forum for peace and security, factors their needs into its work. 

The battle for control over critical infrastructure shows who might win the civil war.

Under threat from Russia, national identity in Ukraine has overpowered religious and ethnic differences.

Top news for Wednesday includes: the first-ever International Day of Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace, the launch of World Immunization Week, civilians continuing to bear the brunt of ongoing violence in Afghanistan, the need for more regulation in the tech industry, a call for more exercise and less screen time for children, and a plea by the UN refugees High Commissioner not to let extremism divide us. 

The never-ending conversation about leaving the EU has stalled all other progress on economic policy.

The International Day of Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace “underscores the value of international cooperation for the common good”, according to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres marking its first-ever observance on Wednesday. 

In the new age of lies, law, not tech, is the answer.

Un million de morts en cent jours, et le monde n'en aurait rien su ? Depuis l'indépendance, en 1962 tous ceux qui s'intéressaient au Rwanda savaient que le feu couvait. En 1959 déjà, assistés par les Belges, qui avaient parié sur la majorité ethnique, les Hutus, ces derniers avaient chassé du pays (...) / Afrique, Rwanda, Droit international, Génocide, Justice - 2004/03 Tout insécuritaire

Toddlers should spend no more than 60 minutes passively watching a screen every day, while babies under 12 months should have none, to ensure that they grow up fit and well, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday, as part of a campaign to tackle the global obesity crisis. 

Despite repeated appeals by the United Nations human rights system, Saudi Arabia’s decision to go ahead with the beheading of 37 men, drew strong condemnation on Wednesday from UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet.

Changer la vie... Le projet a été jeté aux oubliettes par des hommes politiques qui, depuis dix ans, reniant leurs racines, considèrent la socioculture comme une sorte d'injure et ont mis l'espoir d'une prévention sociale par la culture au pilori. Dans les banlieues, cet espoir n'est pas mort, pas (...) / Culture, Théâtre, Ville - 1991/12

Washington’s extraordinary unilateralism is cracking the foundation of its global financial power.

Both Armenians and Jews have been the victims of premeditated mass murder. The Israeli government must put justice before political expediency and call the crime by its name.

The global wave of protest populism that began with Brexit and the election of U.S. President Donald Trump reached new heights in Ukraine this weekend. A comedian outsider whose campaign served as an echo chamber for public discontent in Europe’s most consistently corrupt nation has won a landslide victory in the presidential race. Ukraine’s new president-elect, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is in many ways the ideal poster boy for the antiestablishment trend currently sweeping world politics. A media-savvy TV celebrity who has never previously held political office, he has made a virtue of his inexperience by posing as an everyman candidate untainted by the rot within the system. Zelenskiy’s stunning success—he won the Ukrainian presidency by a record margin and triumphed in all but one of the country’s 24 administrative regions—amounted to a vote of no confidence in the entire Ukrainian political class.

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The series of suicide bombings at Christian churches and hotels in Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo, on Easter Sunday threatened to rip apart the country’s complex ethno-religious fabric. The government has blamed the attacks on two obscure Islamist groups called the Jammiyathul Millathu Ibrahim and the National Thawheed Jamaat (NTJ). It appears the latter has links to jihadists outside Sri Lanka, including the Islamic State, or ISIS. If that attribution bears out, the attacks are likely to inflame tensions between the country’s Buddhist majority and its Muslim minority—and to promote sectarianism in the wider region, too.

A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE

Sri Lanka is no stranger to terrorism, having lived through a nearly three-decade-long civil war that pitted the majority Sinhalese against minority Tamil separatist organizations, most notably the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. During the war, the LTTE carried out dozens of suicide attacks. But last weekend’s carnage was unprecedented. The bombs killed over 300 people and injured at least 500 more.

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Sunday’s attack in Sri Lanka is just the latest evidence of the group’s persistent influence.

The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization UNESCO has long celebrated the power of International Book and Copyright Day, marked on 23 April, but this year, special attention is being paid to the protection of indigenous languages, many of which are threatened with extinction.

Returning Islamic State fighters are spreading “a really viral ideology” and looking for vulnerable countries to target, says terrorism expert Anne Speckhard.