In Rome this month, Cindy McCain started her new job as executive director of the U.N. World Food Programme, an organization working in 123 countries with the ambitious goal of ending world hunger. She talks with correspondent Seth Doane about the increased political and logistical challenges of feeding the world’s neediest, a task made more critical by the pandemic and war in Ukraine; and about the advice she continues to carry with her from her husband, the late Sen. John McCain.
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United Nations – Fallout from the leaked trove of classified defense and intelligence documents continues, as some of the material purports to show possible surveillance by the U.S. of the United Nations secretary-general and a disagreement over the handling of a key initiative to help export grain from Ukraine amid Russia’s invasion.
Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old airman in the Massachusetts Air National Guard, has been arrested for his alleged connection to the leaked documents, some of which may have been doctored.
Leaked documents first reported by BBC focus in part on the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a series of agreements brokered by the U.N. and Turkey to move grain out of Ukraine’s ports and assist Russia in the export of fertilizers.
One of the documents appeared to reveal that the U.S. felt that U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ “actions are undermining broader efforts to hold Moscow accountable for its actions in Ukraine,” in order to protect the grain deal, which he considers key to addressing global food insecurity. Gutteres has gone so far as to tell Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that the U.N. will continue efforts to improve Russia’s ability to export, even if that involves sanctioned Russian entities or individuals, the documents showed.
Since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, Western governments have coordinated harsh sanctions against Russian officials and entities, aimed at crippling the nation’s economy and the ability of its citizens and companies to do business with the rest of the world.
But Ukraine’s U.N. ambassador pushed back on the characterization of Guterres as friendly to Moscow. “He made an important contribution to allow Ukraine and U.N. together with Turkey sign the Istanbul agreement within his Black Sea Grain Initiative,” Ukraine’s U.N. Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya told CBS News on Thursday.
The documents, if authentic, also reveal surveillance by the U.S. of the U.N. chief. In particular, the retelling of a discussion between Miguel Graca, the Director of the Executive Office of the U.N. Secretary-General, and Gutteres in which the U.N. chief appeared annoyed at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s request for Gutteres to travel to Kyiv. Guterres has made several trips to Ukraine since the start of the invasion, including his latest trip to Kyiv last month.
“The secretary-general has been at this job, and in the public eye, for a long time. He’s not surprised by the fact that people are spying on him and listening in to his private conversations,” U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told CBS News. “What is surprising is the malfeasance or incompetence that allows that such private conversations to be distorted and become public.”
Dujarric on Thursday told reporters, “We take whatever measures we can, but the need to respect the viability of U.N. communications applies to every member state.”
Ukraine also dismissed the insinuation that the U.N. sides with Russia in the conflict.
“Secretary-General Guterres made his position on the full-scale aggression of Russia against Ukraine very clear on the night of the invasion, a position now guided by several U.N. General Assembly resolutions supported by the overwhelming majority of the member states,” Kyslytsya said.
“The secretary-general has never misled me. He is very attentive to the issues I bring to his attention. He follows on my requests even when he travels,” Kyslytsya said, adding, “I think that Antonio Guterres is a world-class statesman with many decades of experience of dealing with many dramatic challenges.”
Guterres has shuttled back and forth between U.N. Headquarters, Moscow and Kyiv since the war began last February. He has known Russian President Vladimir Putin for many years, having first met him in 2000 when Guterres was prime minister of Portugal. Guterres in 2016 visited the Kremlin as one of his first foreign trips after he was elected to steer the U.N.
“Guterres has been commendably frank in criticizing Russia, but the Black Sea deal was a big win for him and he is locked into defending it,” Richard Gowan, an expert on the global body and director of the U.N. International Crisis Group, told CBS News.
It was still unclear as of Thursday how much of the information in the leaked documents, some of which officials have said are from late February and early March, is accurate. Some of the images appeared to have been manipulated.
Sources told CBS News that the Department of Defense and the intelligence community are actively reviewing and assessing the validity of the photographed documents that are circulating on social media.
— Eleanor Watson and Camilla Schickcontributed to reporting
The number of migrant deaths in the Central Mediterranean in the first three months of 2023 reached their highest point in six years, according to a new report Wednesday from the United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM).
In the first quarter of the year, the IOM documented 441 deaths of migrants attempting to cross what the agency calls “the world’s most dangerous maritime crossing.” It’s the highest fatality count for a three-month period since the first quarter of 2017, when 742 deaths were recorded, according to IOM numbers.
Every year thousands of migrants, in sometimes rickety and overcrowded smuggler boats, attempt to reach Europe’s southern shores from North Africa.
A ship carrying some 700 migrants enters the Sicilian port of Catania on April 12, 2023.
Salvatore Cavalli / AP
Last weekend, 3,000 migrants reached Italy, bringing the total number of migrant arrivals to Europe through the Central Mediterranean so far this year to 31,192, the IOM said.
The report seeks to serve as a wake-up call that food insecurity, the COVID-19 pandemic and violent conflicts worldwide have dramatically increased the movement of both migrants and refugees around the world.
“The persisting humanitarian crisis in the Central Mediterranean is intolerable,” said IOM Director General António Vitorino in a statement. “With more than 20,000 deaths recorded on this route since 2014, I fear that these deaths have been normalized.”
“States must respond,” Vitorino said, adding that delays and gaps in search and rescue operations “are costing human lives.”
The IOM noted in its report that the number of recorded deaths was “likely an undercount of the true number of lives lost in the Central Mediterranean.”
“Saving lives at sea is a legal obligation for states,” the IOM chief said, adding that action was needed to dismantle the criminal smuggling networks “responsible for profiting from the desperation of migrants and refugees by facilitating dangerous journeys.”
The delays in government-led rescues on this route were a factor in hundreds of deaths, the report noted.
The report is part of the IOM’s Missing Migrants Project, which documents the Central Mediterranean route taken by migrants from the North Africa and Turkish coasts, often departing Libya, Tunisia, Egypt and Algeria for Italy and Malta. Those nations serve as a transit point from all parts of the world, and have done so for many years.
Last November, Italy announced that it would close its ports to migrant ships run by non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
The report noted a February shipwreck off Italy’s Calabrian coast in which at least 64 migrants died.
It also mentioned a boat carrying about 400 migrants that went adrift this past weekend, between Italy and Malta, before it was reached by the Italian Coast Guard after two days in distress. In a video posted to social media Wednesday, a spokesperson for Sea-Watch International, an NGO, criticized Malta for not assisting the ship, saying that Malta did not send a rescue ship “because they want to avoid” migrants “reaching their country.”
“So far this year, Malta did not rescue any person in distress,” the spokesperson alleged.
Italy, for its part, on Tuesday declared a state of emergency over the migrant crisis, pressing the European Union for help.
An attempted crackdown on smuggler ships has pushed migrants to take a longer and more dangerous Atlantic route to Europe from northwest Africa, resulting in what an Associated Press investigation dubbed “ghost boats” that have washed up with dead bodies, sometimes abandoned by their captains.
“Every person searching for a better life deserves safety and dignity,” U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres, a former refugee chief, said in February when the death toll spiked. “We need safe, legal routes for migrants and refugees.”
The United Nations said Tuesday it is reviewing its presence in Afghanistan after the Taliban barred Afghan women from working for the world organization — a veiled suggestion the U.N. could move to suspend its mission and operations in the embattled country.
Last week, Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers took a step further in the restrictive measures they have imposed on women and said that Afghan women employed with the U.N. mission could no longer report for work. They did not further comment on the ban.
The U.N. said it cannot accept the decision, calling it an unparalleled violation of women’s rights. It was the latest in sweeping restrictions imposed by the Taliban since they seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021 as U.S. and NATO troops were withdrawing from the country after 20 years of war.
The 3,300 Afghans employed by the U.N. — 2,700 men and 600 women — have stayed home since last Wednesday but continue to work and will be paid, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. The U.N.’s 600-strong international staff, including 200 women, is not affected by the Taliban ban.
The majority of aid distributed to Afghans is done through national and international non-governmental organizations, with the U.N. playing more of a monitoring role, and some assistance is continuing to be delivered, Dujarric said. There are some carve-outs for women staff, but the situation various province by province and is confusing.
“What we’re hoping to achieve is to be able to fulfill our mandate to help more than 24 million Afghan men, women, and children who desperately need humanitarian help without violating basic international humanitarian principles,” Dujarric told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York.
In a statement, the U.N. said it “will endeavor to continue lifesaving, time-critical humanitarian activities” but “will assess the scope, parameters and consequences of the ban, and pause activities where impeded.”
Regional political analyst Torek Farhadi told CBS News earlier this month that the ban on women working for the U.N. likely came straight from the Taliban’s supreme leader, who “wants to concentrate power and weaken elements of the Taliban which would want to get closer to the world community.”
“This particular decision hurts the poor the most in Afghanistan; those who have no voice and have the most to lose.”
The circumstances in Afghanistan have been called the world’s most severe humanitarian crisis, and three-quarters of those in need are women or children. Female aid workers have played a crucial role in reaching vulnerable, female-headed households.
The Taliban have banned girls from going to school beyond the sixth grade and women from most public life and work. In December, they banned Afghan women from working at local and nongovernmental groups — a measure that at the time did not extend to U.N. offices.
Tuesday’s statement by the U.N. said its head of mission in Afghanistan, Roza Otunbayeva, has “initiated an operational review period” that would last until May 5.
During this time, the U.N. will “conduct the necessary consultations, make required operational adjustments, and accelerate contingency planning for all possible outcomes,” the statement said.
It also accused the Taliban of trying to force the U.N. into making an “appalling choice” between helping Afghans and standing by the norms and principles it is duty-bound to uphold.
“It should be clear that any negative consequences of this crisis for the Afghan people will be the responsibility of the de facto authorities,” it warned.
Aid agencies have been providing food, education and health care support to Afghans in the wake of the Taliban takeover and the economic collapse that followed it. But distribution has been severely affected by the Taliban edict banning women from working at NGOs — and, now, also at the U.N.
The U.N. described the measure as an extension of the already unacceptable Taliban restrictions that deliberately discriminate against women and undermine the ability of Afghans to access lifesaving and sustaining assistance and services.
“The Taliban is placing medieval misogyny above humanitarian need,” the U.K.’s U.N. Ambassador Barbara Woodward told diplomats last week after a closed Security Council meeting.
–Ahmad Mukhtar and Pamela Falk contributed reporting.
The United Nations has instructed all of its personnel in Afghanistan to stay away from its offices in the country, after the Taliban banned Afghan women from working with the organization.
“UN national personnel – women and men – have been instructed not to report to UN offices, with only limited and calibrated exceptions made for critical tasks,” the organization said in a statement.
It comes after Afghan men working for the UN in Kabul stayed home last week in solidarity with their female colleagues.
The UN said the Taliban’s move was an extension of a previous ban, enforced last December, that prohibited Afghan women from working for national and international non-governmental organizations.
The organization said the ban is “the latest in a series of discriminatory measures implemented by the Taliban de facto authorities with the goal of severely restricting women and girls’ participation in most areas of public and daily life in Afghanistan.”
It will continue to “assess the scope, parameters and consequences of the ban, and pause activities where impeded,” the statement said, adding that the “matter will be under constant review.”
Several female UN staff in the country had already experienced restrictions on their movements since the Taliban seized power in 2021, including harassment and detention.
Ramiz Alakbarov, the UN Deputy Special Representative, Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Afghanistan, called the Taliban’s decision an “unparalleled violation of human rights” last week.
“The lives of Afghanistan women are at stake,” he said, adding, “It is not possible to reach women without women.”
The UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, Roza Otunbayeva, is engaging with the Taliban at the highest level to “seek an immediate reversal of the order,” the UN said last week.
“In the history of the United Nations, no other regime has ever tried to ban women from working for the Organization just because they are women. This decision represents an assault against women, the fundamental principles of the UN, and on international law,” Otunbayeva said.
Other figures within the organization also condemned the move, with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights calling it “utterly despicable.”
After the Taliban banned female aid workers in December, at least half a dozen major foreign aid groups temporarily suspended their operations in Afghanistan – diminishing the already scarce resources available to a country in dire need of them.
The Taliban’s return to power preceded a deepening humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, worsening issues that had long plagued the country. After the takeover, the US and its allies froze about $7 billion of the country’s foreign reserves and cut off international funding – crippling an economy heavily dependent on overseas aid.
The United Nations General Assembly president discusses whether reform is required for the UN to make progress.
The United Nations has faced criticism for decades over its effectiveness, especially its means to resolve conflicts and ease the suffering of the most vulnerable.
Many argue that veto powers held by its Security Council permanent members, China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States, create an uneven balance of power.
Delegates from 46 of the poorest nations have come together in Doha for the fifth conference of the UN’s least developed countries.
But does the UN need to be reformed first, as critics say, to make progress?
The UN General Assembly President, Csaba Korosi, talks to Al Jazeera.
United Nations – At an informal meeting boycotted by the U.S. and Britain’s ambassadors and labelled an abuse of Russia’s power as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council by over four dozen countries, Moscow’s Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights asserted Wednesday that Russia’s only motivation in removing children from Ukraine was to evacuate them from a dangerous war zone.
Maria Lvova-Belova, who gave the briefing remotely, is among the Russian officials, along with President Vladimir Putin, for whom an international court issued arrest warrants last month over the alleged forced deportation of Ukrainian children.
She told the Security Council members who did attend the meeting that there had been an “emergency character” to Russia’s actions, claiming it was necessary to “move these children from under shelling and move them to safe areas.”
Her claims contrasted starkly with evidence the International Criminal Court has received about the forced removal of children and infants from Ukraine. CBS News correspondent Chris Livesay spoke with Ukrainian children last year who were among the thousands allegedly taken from their country into Russia or Russian-occupied territory.
The boys CBS News met were rescued and had made their way back to Ukraine, but many others remain separated from their families. Livesay presented his report to the U.N. as it heard evidence.
“If she wants to give an account of her actions, she can do so in the Hague,” the U.K. Mission to the U.N. said in a statement, adding that “their briefer, Maria Lvova-Belova, is subject to an international arrest warrant from the ICC for her alleged responsibility in the war crimes of unlawful deportation and unlawful transfer of these children.”
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield told reporters before the meeting that Washington was firmly opposed to “a woman who has been charged with war crimes, who has been involved in deporting and removal of children from their homes to Russia,” being given any platform to defend the actions.
Russia convened the meeting just days after it took over the rotating monthly presidency of the Security Council.
Ukraine and the U.S. had warned that handing Russia the gavel to chair the council, the U.N.’s most powerful body, would provide President Vladimir Putin’s regime a greater platform to spread disinformation at a pivotal moment in his war against civilians in Ukraine.
“We strongly are opposed to that,” said Thomas-Greenfield. “And that’s why we’ve joined the U.K. in blocking UN WebTV from being used to allow her to have an international podium to spread disinformation and to try to defend her horrible actions that are taking place in Ukraine.”
Thomas-Greenfield, who did not attend the meeting, said, “We will have an expert sitting in the chair who has been instructed to walk out when the briefer that we’ve objected to is speaking.”
The ICC has received evidence that at least 6,000 Ukrainian children have been taken to camps and other facilities in Russia and Russian-occupied territory and subjected to pro-Russian re-education. They have in many cases been denied any contact with their families, according to a report from the Conflict Observatory, a research group that monitors alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s government puts the figure much higher, claiming to have documented 14,700 cases of children being deported, among some 100,000 who have been moved into Russia or Russian-occupied territory.
The ICC said in a statement in March, when it announced an international arrest warrant for Putin, that the Russian leader was “allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of (children) and that of unlawful transfer of (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”
Russia’s U.N Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia complained about the U.S. and other nations boycotting the meeting on Wednesday, saying: “You know you’re not interested. Of course, it’s not very pleasant for you to hear this and compromise your narrative. You don’t need the truth.”
Britain’s ambassador James Kariuki said the fact that Russia had invited someone to address the council who had been indicted by the ICC, “speaks for itself.”
Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers banned female Afghan employees of the United Nations from working in the country Tuesday, putting millions of vulnerable households that rely on the global body’s humanitarian operations at additional risk as the hardliners continue their systematic obliteration of women’s rights.
“Our colleagues on the ground at the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA, received word of an order by the de facto authorities that bans female national staff members of the United Nations from working,” Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for the U.N. Secretary-General, said Tuesday. “We are still looking into how this development would affect our operations in the country and we expect more meetings with the de facto authorities tomorrow in Kabul in which we are trying to seek some clarity.”
The Reuters news agency, citing U.N. sources, said the global body had told all Afghan staff to halt work for two days while it sought clarity about the new edict from the Taliban.
Reuters quoted Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as saying the U.N. would consider such a ban “unacceptable and inconceivable.”
Taliban representatives did not immediately respond to CBS News’ request for comment on the matter.
Barring women from working for the United Nations was just the latest move by the Taliban undermining humanitarian organizations’ capacity to carry out vital aid work in the country, which was plunged into a grave humanitarian crisis after the Islamic extremist group retook control in the summer of 2021. It will also have a significant impact on the U.N. staff themselves, who are part of the dwindling female workforce in the country.
The circumstances in Afghanistan have been called the world’s most severe humanitarian crisis, with 28.3 million people in need of aid to survive. But the U.N. Office for Coordination of humanitarian affairs says less than 5% of the funding required to meet the immediate needs of Afghans has been donated, making it the world’s lowest-funded aid operation.
Of the 28.3 million people in need, 23% are women and 54 % are children, and given the strict rules under the Taliban on gender segregation, female aid workers have played a crucial role in reaching vulnerable, female-headed households.
Internally displaced Afghan women stand in line to identify themselves and get cash as they return home, at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) camp on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, in a July 28, 2022 file photo.
WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP/Getty
The “Taliban decision to ban Afghan women U.N. staff from working is another gross violation of their fundamental rights to non-disc, is against UN Charter & will seriously impact essential services for Afghans. I urge Taliban to reserve the decision immediately.”
U.N. Special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan Richard Bennett urged the Taliban to “reverse the decision immediately,” saying in a tweet that the move was a violation of the U.N. charter and would “seriously impact essential services for Afghans.”
TB decision to ban #Afghanwomen UN staff from working is another gross violation of their fundamental right to non-disc, is against UN Charter & will seriously impact essential services for#Afghans. Women staff are essential. I urge #Taliban to reverse the decision immediately.
— UN Special Rapporteur Richard Bennett (@SR_Afghanistan) April 4, 2023
Since taking power back in August 2021, the Taliban government has methodically reimposed the severe restrictions on women and girls that it enforced during its previous reign, which ended with the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.
Last year the Taliban banned women from working in non-governmental organizations and barred girls from attending universities and even secondary schools after the age of about 12.
Regional political analyst Torek Farhadi told CBS News on Wednesday that the ban on women working for the U.N. likely came straight from the Taliban’s supreme leader, who “wants to concentrate power and weaken elements of the Taliban which would want to get closer to the world community.”
“The Taliban is becoming a reclusive and dictatorial movement as time passes – exactly the opposite of what they had promised the world” when it signed the political agreement with the U.S. that led to American forces pulling out of the country, Farhadi said. “The most extreme elements, including its top leadership, are not interested in connecting with the world community. This particular decision hurts the poor the most in Afghanistan; those who have no voice and have the most to lose.”
Activists and politicians called Wednesday on the U.N. Secretary-General to do more than issue further statements condemning the Taliban’s crackdown on women’s rights.
The crisis in Afghanistan is among the world’s worst, and the Taliban’s actions repeatedly violate UN mandates on human rights, gender equality, and access to education (Res. 1325, 1820, 1889). As UN Secretary-General, you have the power to make a real difference beyond words &… https://t.co/BauthP0TLf
“The crisis in Afghanistan is among the world’s worst… as U.N. Secretary-General, you have the power to make real difference beyond words & condemnation. We urge you to take decisive action,” said Mariam Solimankhail, a former member of Afghanistan’s parliament who was forced out of the job under the Taliban.
“Mr. Secretary General, it is time that the U.N. Security Council unites under your leadership & look at the Human Rights crisis beyond just statements. I urge you to convene a meeting and listen to the women as they have specific recommendations about their country,” said Fawzia Koofi, another female former parliamentarian.
The planet appears to be at a major crossroads when it comes to meeting climate-related goals.
Discussions about how to mitigate the effects of climate change are closely tied to the energy transition, which can broadly be seen as a plan to shift away from fossil fuels to a system in which renewables dominate.
It’s difficult to predict how the transition will pan out, given that it depends on a complex combination of factors, such as technology, finance and international cooperation.
The topic was covered in detail during a recent panel discussion moderated by CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick.
“We need to get electrification going faster,” said Angela Wilkinson, the secretary general and CEO of the London-based World Energy Council.
“We want it to be more renewable-powered electrification,” she added, before acknowledging that a huge amount of work will be needed.
Read more about energy from CNBC Pro
“We can’t let perfection be the enemy of the good in this, right? The reality is, to get renewables to scale we’re going to have to have other clean energy friends in the mix, we’re going to have to build multiple clean energy bridges.”
“We’re going to have to have hydrogen [doing the] lifting, we’re going to have to have gas with CCUS [carbon capture, utilization and storage] lifting, we’re going to have to have grid strengthening going on,” Wilkinson said.
The idea of using gas as a “transition” fuel that would bridge the gap between a world dominated by fossil fuels to one where renewables are in the majority is not a new one and has been the source of heated debate for a while now.
In recent years, hydrogen has been touted as a potentially crucial tool in the shift to a net-zero future.
Described by the International Energy Agency as a “versatile energy carrier,” hydrogen has a diverse range of applications and can be used in a wide range of industries.
One method of producing hydrogen involves electrolysis, a process through which an electric current splits water into oxygen and hydrogen.
Some call the resulting hydrogen “green” or “renewable” if the electricity used in the electrolysis process comes from renewable energy installations like wind or solar farms.
Over the past few years, major economies and businesses have looked to the emerging green hydrogen sector to decarbonize industries integral to modern life, although the vast majority of hydrogen generation today is still based on fossil fuels.
In looking at the overall picture, the World Energy Council’s Wilkinson stressed there are no easy answers.
“It’s not that it’s a simple issue of just swapping out one technology for another technology,” she said. “It’s a much more complex challenge than that.”
In March, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published a major report stressing the need for urgent action, with the U.N. secretary general describing it as a “survival guide for humanity.”
In a statement, Antonio Guterres said the report represented a “clarion call to massively fast-track climate efforts by every country and every sector and on every timeframe.”
Those findings loomed large over CNBC’s discussion. As the CEO of an organization established in 1923, the World Energy Council’s Wilkinson sought to contextualize the current debate.
“We started up in an era of energy for peace, we’ve worked through an era of energy for prosperity, and now we’re in this era of energy for people and planet,” she said.
“And it requires not just a change in thinking about what we need to do, it requires a change in thinking about who we need to do it with.”
“So if we’re really going to achieve what the IPCC is asking for, we’ve got to remember the energy transition is happening alongside industrial transitions, it’s happening alongside political transitions.”
Wilkinson also argued that the current era would require collaboration across borders, sectors and generations.
Port Vila, Vanuatu – Vanuatu is one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world and it is regularly affected by cyclones during the wet season from November to April.
“The cyclone kept changing direction and the winds were coming from different directions,” said Cathy Hivo, recounting the fearful hours as the second of the two cyclones churned across Port Vila, Vanuatu’s capital, on March 3.
“The roofing iron on the house next door tore off and hit one of our windows,” she told Al Jazeera.
Cyclone Judy had just passed over the archipelago on March 1 when Cathy and her husband Ken endured the second bout of extreme weather, battened down inside their home for more than six hours as the strong winds and driving rain of Cyclone Kevin raged from late afternoon until about 11pm.
“It got stronger and stronger,” said Ken Hivo, who is the chief of the Freswota settlements in Port Vila.
“We were told it was a Category 3 cyclone, but it then became Category 4. We have been experiencing stronger cyclones, so we knew what to do,” he said, recounting methods to secure windows and roofs so they do not get ripped off by cyclones.
Not everyone was so fortunate. Many homes could not withstand the cyclonic winds and lost their roofs and walls. Some structures collapsed entirely.
“Thankfully, no lives were lost,” Chief Hivo said, adding that many had lost their homes or sustained storm damage.
While post-cyclone recovery for people in Port Vila will take time, it will be counted in years for the less fortunate residents of the city’s informal settlements like Freswota.
Children at an informal settlement on the outskirts of Port Vila. These precarious communities are located on land vulnerable to climate disasters, such as cyclones and floods [Catherine Wilson/Al Jazeera]
‘Swept out to Sea’
It takes a ride in a local minibus to reach the sprawling Freswota settlements that are home to more than 12,000 people on the outskirts of Port Vila, and Freswota is just one of more than 20 informal settlements on the outskirts of the capital.
Visiting on a recent morning, the area’s unpaved streets had turned to mud after a heavy downpour of rain.
The rapid growth of informal settlements in Pacific Island cities such as Port Vila has been driven by Islanders drawn to the prospect of jobs and better access to education and public services in capitals and major towns. For decades, the growth of settlements in Vanuatu and other island nations has outpaced the capacities of their governments to respond with urban planning, infrastructure and services.
Settlements have mushroomed — often on flood-prone land where tenure rights are uncertain — and so have unsafe, informal housing and overcrowded living conditions that are particularly vulnerable to the more extreme consequence of climate change.
Residents of Freswota range from those in permanent employment to the jobless, but what they all have in common is their low incomes. The recent pair of cyclones have only added to the residents’ hardships.
Cyclones Judy and Kevin, which hit Port Vila during the first week of March, destroyed homes in the Freswota settlement [Photo courtesy of Cathy Hivo]
There was no power for a week and a half after Cyclone Kevin, and it is still down in some parts of the community.
“You’re looking at houses that have been damaged and some just totally destroyed”, said Soneel Ram, a Pacific country communications manager for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
“The urgent needs here are shelter and clean, safe drinking water, because most of these communities rely on rivers and streams as their water source, but the debris have polluted these water sources,” Ram told Al Jazeera.
The Red Cross has provided tarpaulin to make temporary shelters, and water and hygiene kits, Ram added.
The morning after Cyclone Kevin hit, Chief Hivo recalled, he met with other community leaders to prepare a recovery plan and to organise residents, including young people, to start the cleanup and assess local needs.
“We depend on our local foods. People usually have market stalls selling fresh produce on the sides of the roads in the settlement. But now there isn’t much food to sell,” he said.
“The most vulnerable people in the settlements when we have a cyclone are the elderly, those in poor health or with medical conditions and people who are without relatives here to support them,” Hivo said.
“But we share everything together, we help each other,” he added.
Chief Ken Hivo witnessed the path of destruction wrought by Cyclones Judy and Kevin in the informal Freswota settlement of Port Vila, Vanuatu [Catherine Wilson/Al Jazeera]
Two cyclones, one earthquake, and a tsunami warning
The severe winds and torrential rain unleashed by the cyclones also destroyed crops and household food gardens throughout the country.
More than 80 percent of Vanuatu’s population of about 320,000 people were affected by the back-to-back cyclones, and Shefa province, which includes the coastal city of Port Vila on Efate Island, was one of the worst-affected areas.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said there was widespread destruction of homes, buildings, food gardens, as well as water, power and telecommunication services.
While official assessments of the scale of the loss and damage throughout the islands are still being finalised, a UN spokesperson told Al Jazeera that rebuilding homes could take anywhere from a few months to several years.
Restoration of major infrastructure could take more than three years, according to the UN, and the recovery bill is initially estimated at about $50m.
Map of Vanuatu (Al Jazeera)
Located in the tropical Pacific, Vanuatu experiences about two to three cyclones per year. Also located within the ‘Pacific Ring of Fire’ of seismic activity, Vanuatu faces a high risk of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis.
And as Cyclone Kevin was wreaking havoc in Port Vila earlier this month, a magnitude 6.5 earthquake shook Vanuatu’s Espiritu Santo island in the north of the archipelago.
For small island developing states, climate change is the single most significant threat to sustainable development. Now, three weeks after the dual natural disasters, the Vanuatu Government is pushing to achieve climate justice at the UN.
Vanuatu hopes the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) will this week adopt its push for greater priority to be given to the human rights implications of changing climates and for the International Court of Justice to protect vulnerable nations from climate change.
Vanuatu’s Minister of Climate Change, Ralph Regenvanu, reported that 119 governments have cosponsored Vanuatu’s UN resolution, which seeks clarity on the legal obligation of states to tackle climate change action, according to the Reuters news agency.
Vanuatu hopes more nations will sign on to the resolution before the UNGA debate begins this week and a vote on the resolution takes place.
While the post-disaster clean up and restoration in the central business district of Port Vila has paved the way for the resumption of public transport, services and business, it will be a far longer road to recovery for the people living precariously in settlements such as Freswota.
“There are people here who have not recovered from Cyclone Pam,” Chief Hivo said, referring to the cyclone that hit in 2015.
“It will take longer for the most vulnerable people,” he adds.
The father and son team behind Farmingdale-based John’s Crazy Socks spoke at the United Nations Tuesday on World Down Syndrome Day.
Serving as speakers and moderators at conference at the UN, John Cronin and his father Mark Cronin, shared insights about inclusion and highlighting what people with differing abilities can accomplish.
“I loved speaking at the United Nations,” John Cronin said in a statement about the conference. “I spoke to people from around the world and met many amazing self-advocates.”
The father-and-son duo spoke during 12th World Down Syndrome Day Conference sponsored by the United Nations and Down Syndrome International.
This was the second time that the father-and-son team have spoken at the UN. They previously spoke at a conference on entrepreneurism and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
During this week’s conference, John introduced a session about supported decision-making.
“Supported decision-making is when people with Down syndrome are helped in making decisions about their lives,” he said. “But I make my own decisions. It is my life.”
Mark Cronin spoke in a session about good communications.
“We shared our experiences from John’s Crazy Socks, where more than half our colleagues have a differing ability,” he said in a statement. “We showed how ensuring that we can communicate with our colleagues with differing abilities benefits our whole business. This is in keeping with the larger lesson that hiring people with differing abilities is not altruism, it is good business.”
The United Nations rights chief on Wednesday urged Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni to block an anti-LGBTQ bill passed this week that prescribes harsh penalties, including death and life imprisonment.
“The passing of this discriminatory bill — probably among the worst of its kind in the world — is a deeply troubling development,” Volker Turk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said in a statement.
Uganda’s legislature passed the bill late Tuesday in a protracted plenary session during which last-minute changes were made to the legislation that originally included penalties of up to 10 years in jail for homosexual offenses.
In the version approved by lawmakers, the offense of “aggravated homosexuality” now carries the death penalty. Aggravated homosexuality applies in cases of sex relations involving those infected with HIV, as well as minors.
According to the bill, a suspect convicted of “attempted aggravated homosexuality” can be jailed for 14 years, and the offense of “attempted homosexuality” is punishable by up to 10 years.
In Washington., National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said if the law were enacted, the U.S. would “have to take a look” at imposing economic sanctions on Uganda. He noted that this would be “really unfortunate” since most U.S. aid is in the form of health assistance, especially anti-AIDS assistance.
The bill was introduced last month by an opposition lawmaker who said his goal was to punish “promotion, recruitment and funding” related to LGBTQ activities in this East African country where homosexuals are widely disparaged.
The offense of “homosexuality” is punishable by life imprisonment, the same punishment prescribed in a colonial-era penal code criminalizing sex acts “against the order of nature.”
The bill now goes to Museveni, who can veto or sign it into law. He suggested in a recent speech that he supports the legislation, accusing unnamed Western nations of “trying to impose their practices on other people.”
“If signed into law by the president, it will render lesbian, gay and bisexual people in Uganda criminals simply for existing, for being who they are,” Turk, the U.N. rights chief, said in the statement. “It could provide carte blanche for the systematic violation of nearly all of their human rights and serve to incite people against each other.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday the United States had “grave concerns” about the bill, adding that it would hamper tourism and economic investment, and “damage Uganda’s reputation.”
Jean-Pierre added: “No one should be attacked, imprisoned, or killed simply because of who they are, or who they love.”
Anti-gay sentiment in Uganda has grown in recent weeks amid alleged reports of sodomy in boarding schools, including a prestigious one for boys where a parent accused a teacher of abusing her son. Authorities are investigating that case.
The recent decision of the Church of England to bless civil marriages of same-sex couples also has inflamed many, including some who see homosexuality as imported from abroad.
Uganda’s LGBTQ community in recent years has faced growing pressure from civilian authorities who wanted a tough new law punishing same-sex activities.
The Ugandan agency overseeing the work of nongovernmental organizations last year stopped the operations of Sexual Minorities Uganda, the most prominent LGBTQ organization in the country, accusing it of failing to register legally. But the group’s leader said his organization had been rejected by the registrar as undesirable.
Homosexuality is criminalized in more than 30 of Africa’s 54 countries.
The United Nations and United States on Wednesday added to international outrage over a hardline bill passed by Ugandan lawmakers that criminalizes simply identifying as LGBTQ+, prescribes a life sentence for convicted homosexuals and a death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality.”
The UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights asked Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni not to sign the bill passed by lawmakers on Tuesday. Volker Türk called the Anti Homosexuality Bill 2023 “draconian,” saying it would have negative repercussions on society as a whole and violates the nation’s constitution.
“The passing of this discriminatory bill – probably among the worst of its kind in the world – is a deeply troubling development,” said a statement from Türk’s office.
“If signed into law by the President, it will render lesbian, gay and bisexual people in Uganda criminals simply for existing, for being who they are. It could provide carte blanche for the systematic violation of nearly all of their human rights and serve to incite people against each other.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken slammed the bill, which would “undermine fundamental human rights of all Ugandans and could reverse gains in the fight against HIV/AIDS,” he tweeted on Wednesday. “We urge the Ugandan Government to strongly reconsider the implementation of this legislation.”
US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield spoke twice this week with Museveni to express “deep concern” about the legislation, a US official told CNN Wednesday.
The new legislation constitutes a further crackdown on LGBTQ+ people in a country where same-sex relations were already illegal – punishable by life imprisonment. It targets an array of activities, and includes a ban on promoting and abetting homosexuality as well as conspiracy to engage in homosexuality.
According to the bill, the death penalty can be invoked for cases involving “aggravated homosexuality” – a broad term used in the legislation to describe sex acts committed without consent or under duress, against children, people with mental or physical disabilities, by a “serial offender,” or involving incest.
The bill must now go to Museveni for assent. Last week he derided homosexuals as “deviants.”
Uganda made headlines in 2009 when it introduced an anti-homosexuality bill that included a death sentence for gay sex.
The country’s lawmakers passed a bill in 2014, but they replaced the death penalty clause with a proposal for life in prison. That law was ultimately struck down.
The new bill has wide public support in the highly conservative and religious East African nation, where anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment is deeply entrenched.
But it has drawn strong criticism from civil society groups and LGBTQ+ activists. “It is another way of using the law to punish people who cause no harm but for being who they are,” said a tweet from Pan Africa ILGA.
“As a community, partners and allies, we’ll do everything to ensure that the constitutional rights that are given to the LGBTI community are met and the legal provisions that are available for us will definitely be looked into if the president assents to this bill and it gets to be law,” activist Richard Lusimbo told CNN.
Pepe Onziema, a transgender LGBTQ rights activist and program director of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), a non-governmental organization for LGBTQ rights, whose operations were shut by authorities last year, told CNN members of the community were now living in fear.
“We’ve been having quite excruciating anxiety from the threats of the bill. And now that it has actually passed in Parliament, the (LGBTQ) community is quite in fear,” Onziema said. “There’s a large community of LGBTQ persons in the country, so we can’t just give up. We’ll find different ways of working. We might not be as visible as we’ve been because there are attacks online as well.”
African Rainbow Family, a UK-based charity that supports LGBTQ+ Africans seeking refuge in the UK, described the bill as an “assault” and “persecution” of Uganda’s LGBTQ community.
“African Rainbow Family condemns in its entirety, the passing of the Ugandan ‘Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2023’ into law. The law is a violation of the fundamental human rights of LGBTIQ people in Uganda.
“African Rainbow Family sees this law as again, an assault and added layer of State and non-State agents’ persecution of Ugandan LGBTIQ community,” it told CNN.
Feminist writer and Human Rights Activist Rosebell Kagumire told CNN the new legislation could have other consequences beyond human rights violation.
“Seeking to strip LGBTQIA persons of their whole humanity, it extends to deny them housing, education and health care. In a country where AIDS is still an epidemic and men who have sex with men and trans women (and) sex workers are still faced with higher incidence, this law will criminalize health care provision and defeat the whole struggle to end AIDS,” Kagumire said.
For human rights lawyer Sarah Kihika Kasande, “If President Museveni assents to the bill, it will authorize state-sanctioned attacks and persecution against LGBTQ persons.”
Seeking refuge elsewhere might be the “last resort” for some members of Uganda’s LGBTQ community, Onziema says.
“Asylum is sort of a last resort for us, but for people who are really under a lot of threat and feel that they can’t live here anymore, as a leader in this community, I would definitely support them to seek refuge elsewhere.
“But it’s difficult to seek asylum, especially as a Black queer person. Your chances are sort of narrowed down even further. But I believe that the few people who are looking at that as an option, we are hoping that the countries that they choose to go to for refuge will actually accept them and not further marginalize them,” he told CNN.
Global cocaine production has soared to record highs after declining during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a report from the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Between 2020 and 2021, cocaine production jumped 35%, the sharpest yearly increase since 2016, the report says.
The report came shortly after a submarine with two dead bodies and nearly three tons of cocaine on board was seized in the Pacific Ocean.
The increase is due to a combination of expansion in coca bush cultivation and improved techniques in making cocaine, the UNODC report said.
Suspected cocaine was seized by Canadian authorities at the Blue Water Bridge, which links Port Huron, Michigan, and Sarnia, Canada, December 14, 2022.
Canada Border Services Agency
Demand for cocaine across the world has grown over the past decade, and while the main markets remain in the Americas and Europe, there is a “strong potential” for expansion in Asia and Africa, according to UNODC.
“The surge in the global cocaine supply should put all of us on high alert,” UNODC Executive Director Ghada Waly said in a statement. “The potential for the cocaine market to expand in Africa and Asia is a dangerous reality. I urge governments and others to closely examine the report’s findings to determine how this transnational threat can be met with transnational responses based on awareness raising, prevention, and international and regional cooperation.”
New hubs for cocaine trafficking are emerging in Southeastern Europe and West and Central Africa, according to the report, with North Sea ports like Rotterdam, Antwerp and Hamburg overtaking traditional entryways to Europe in Spain and Portugal. Traffickers in Central America are also diversifying their routes by sending more cocaine to Europe.
A submarine with two dead bodies and nearly three tons of cocaine aboard was seized in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Colombia, officials said.
Colombian Navy handout
Alongside the rise in cocaine production, interceptions of the drug by law enforcement have also risen to record highs, the report notes, with a record 2,000 tons of cocaine seized in 2021.
“It is my hope that the report will support evidence-based strategies which stay ahead of future developments in cocaine production, trafficking, and use,” Angela Me, chief of the Research and Analysis Branch at UNODC, said in a statement.
The former speaker of the House discussed Silicon Valley Bank, January 6 revisionist history, the coming election, and more in a South by Southwest interview focused on money and greed.
Travis P Ball / Getty for SXSW
House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi’s message at the annual South by Southwest festival could be summarized in three words: Follow the money.
Pelosi uttered that specific phrase—and similar versions of it—several times during her interview with Evan Smith, a contributing writer at The Atlantic, as part of the magazine’s Future of Democracy summit this morning in Austin, Texas.
Pelosi, who represents California’s 11th congressional district, began by discussing the recent collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and the anxiety sweeping through not only her home district but the tech and financial industries as a whole. “I don’t think there’s any appetite in this country for bailing out a bank,” she said. “What we would hope to see by tomorrow morning is for some other bank to buy the bank.” She said there were multiple potential buyers, but she couldn’t reveal their names. Pelosi pointed out that former President Donald Trump had authorized the reduction of certain Dodd-Frank protections that had been instituted following the 2008 financial crash: “If they were still in place and the bank had to honor them, this might have been avoided,” she offered. Rather than repeating our recent history and using taxpayer money to rescue the failed institution, Pelosi said the focus should be on protecting depositors and small businesses at risk of closing or not making payroll. “We do not want contagion,” she said.
Pelosi pointed to money—the reckless use and exploitation of it—as the root of virtually every problem facing America and the world today. Whether the potential fallout of a failed bank like SVB or the rise of autocracy around the world, it all comes down to money, money, money, and little else. “Money buying Russian oil is paying for the assault on democracy in Ukraine,” Pelosi said. She accused China of “buying” votes from smaller countries at the United Nations, and said the U.S. must join with the European Union “in using the leverage of this big market to have the playing field be more even.”
Pelosi refused to say Trump’s name even once during her one-hour session, referring to the 45th president instead by “What’s his name” under her breath. Still, she condemned the extremism and anarchy that had overtaken American politics since Trump began his rise nearly eight years ago. Her husband, Paul Pelosi, who was struck in the head with a hammer by a home invader last fall, joined her on today’s trip to Texas, which was unusual, given that he’s still recovering from the attack. “I was the target,” she said. “He paid the price.”
She spoke of the January 6 insurrection with sadness and disgust—anarchists “making poo-poo on the floor of the Capitol”—and acknowledged the rioters’ goal to put a bullet in her head that day. Her successor, Speaker Kevin McCarthy, recently gave a trove of January 6 material to Fox News in the name of governmental transparency. Fox’s biggest star, Tucker Carlson, downplayed the severity of the Capitol storming in a broadcast last week. “Something must be wrong with Tucker Carlson,” Pelosi said. “There’s money that runs a lot of it.”
Taking a brief conciliatory note, she said she was hoping “for the best” for McCarthy as he continues his first year as House speaker. “We need to listen, and I hope that Kevin will listen to other than just the very radical, right-wing fringe of his party,” she said, apparently gesturing at Trump and other election deniers. When asked about the prospect of Trump again becoming the GOP nominee in 2024, she was ready with a canned line: “If he is, we impeached him twice, and he’s gonna lose twice.” (Left unsaid was that neither impeachment resulted in Trump’s removal from office.)
As for President Joe Biden, Pelosi called him a “magnificent leader” and said that she “certainly hopes” he will run again. (She joked that he’s younger than she is.) Nevertheless, Pelosi seemed slightly agitated that Biden had yet to formally declare his candidacy, leaving other potential candidates in the Democratic party with few options. “I think it would be efficient for us to have a president seek reelection, and we should be moving on with it when we can. Whatever decision he makes, we’d like to know.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — For the first time, United Nations members have agreed on a unified treaty to protect biodiversity in the high seas – representing a turning point for vast stretches of the planet where conservation has previously been hampered by a confusing patchwork of laws.
The U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea came into force in 1994, before marine biodiversity was a well-established concept. The treaty agreement concluded two weeks of talks in New York.
An updated framework to protect marine life in the regions outside national boundary waters, known as the high seas, had been in discussions for more than 20 years, but previous efforts to reach an agreement had repeatedly stalled. The unified agreement treaty, which applies to nearly half the planet’s surface, was reached late Saturday.
“We only really have two major global commons — the atmosphere and the oceans,” said Georgetown marine biologist Rebecca Helm. While the oceans may draw less attention, “protecting this half of earth’s surface is absolutely critical to the health of our planet.”
Nichola Clark, an oceans expert at the Pew Charitable Trusts who observed the talks in New York, called the long-awaited treaty text “a once-in-a-generation opportunity to protect the oceans — a major win for biodiversity.”
The treaty will create a new body to manage conservation of ocean life and establish marine protected areas in the high seas. And Clark said that’s critical to achieve the U.N. Biodiversity Conference’s recent pledge to protect 30% of the planet’s waters, as well as its land, for conservation.
Treaty negotiations initially were anticipated to conclude Friday, but stretched through the night and deep into Saturday. The crafting of the treaty, which at times looked in jeopardy, represents “a historic and overwhelming success for international marine protection,” said Steffi Lemke, Germany’s environment minister.
“For the first time, we are getting a binding agreement for the high seas, which until now have hardly been protected,” Lemke said. “Comprehensive protection of endangered species and habitats is now finally possible on more than 40% of the Earth’s surface.”
The treaty also establishes ground rules for conducting environmental impact assessments for commercial activities in the oceans.
“It means all activities planned for the high seas need to be looked at, though not all will go through a full assessment,” said Jessica Battle, an oceans governance expert at the Worldwide Fund for Nature.
Several marine species — including dolphins, whales, sea turtles and many fish — make long annual migrations, crossing national borders and the high seas. Efforts to protect them, along with human communities that rely on fishing or tourism related to marine life, have long proven difficult for international governing bodies.
“This treaty will help to knit together the different regional treaties to be able to address threats and concerns across species’ ranges,” Battle said.
That protection also helps coastal biodiversity and economies, said Gladys Martínez de Lemos, executive director of the nonprofit Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense focusing on environmental issues across Latin America.
“Governments have taken an important step that strengthens the legal protection of two-thirds of the ocean and with it marine biodiversity and the livelihoods of coastal communities,” she said.
The question now is how well the ambitious treaty will be implemented.
Formal adoption also remains outstanding, with numerous conservationists and environmental groups vowing to watch closely.
The high seas have long suffered exploitation due to commercial fishing and mining, as well as pollution from chemicals and plastics. The new agreement is about “acknowledging that the ocean is not a limitless resource, and it requires global cooperation to use the ocean sustainably,” Rutgers University biologist Malin Pinsky said.
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Associated Press writer Frank Jordans contributed to this report from Berlin.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
For the first time, United Nations members have agreed on a unified treaty to protect biodiversity in the high seas – representing a turning point for vast stretches of the planet where conservation has previously been hampered by a confusing patchwork of laws.
The U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea came into force in 1994, before marine biodiversity was a well-established concept. The treaty agreement concluded two weeks of talks in New York.
The last international agreement on ocean protection was signed 40 years ago in 1982 – the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, according to BBC News.
An updated framework to protect marine life in the regions outside national boundary waters, known as the high seas, had been in discussions for more than 20 years, but previous efforts to reach an agreement had repeatedly stalled. The unified agreement treaty, which applies to nearly half the planet’s surface, was reached late Saturday.
“We only really have two major global commons — the atmosphere and the oceans,” said Georgetown marine biologist Rebecca Helm. While the oceans may draw less attention, “protecting this half of earth’s surface is absolutely critical to the health of our planet.”
Fish swim near some bleached coral at Kisite Mpunguti Marine park, Kenya, June 11, 2022. For the first time, United Nations members have agreed on a unified treaty on Saturday, March 4, 2023, to protect biodiversity in the high seas — nearly half the planet’s surface.
Brian Inganga / AP
Nichola Clark, an oceans expert at the Pew Charitable Trusts who observed the talks in New York, called the long-awaited treaty text “a once-in-a-generation opportunity to protect the oceans — a major win for biodiversity.”
The treaty will create a new body to manage conservation of ocean life and establish marine protected areas in the high seas. And Clark said that’s critical to achieve the U.N. Biodiversity Conference’s recent pledge to protect 30% of the planet’s waters, as well as its land, for conservation.
Treaty negotiations initially were anticipated to conclude Friday, but stretched through the night and deep into Saturday. Rebecca Hubbard, the director of the High Seas Alliance, called it a “two week long rollercoaster ride of negotiations and super-hero efforts in the last 48 hours.”
The crafting of the treaty, which at times looked in jeopardy, represents “a historic and overwhelming success for international marine protection,” said Steffi Lemke, Germany’s environment minister.
“For the first time, we are getting a binding agreement for the high seas, which until now have hardly been protected,” Lemke said. “Comprehensive protection of endangered species and habitats is now finally possible on more than 40% of the Earth’s surface.”
The treaty also establishes ground rules for conducting environmental impact assessments for commercial activities in the oceans.
“It means all activities planned for the high seas need to be looked at, though not all will go through a full assessment,” said Jessica Battle, an oceans governance expert at the Worldwide Fund for Nature.
Several marine species — including dolphins, whales, sea turtles and many fish — make long annual migrations, crossing national borders and the high seas. Efforts to protect them, along with human communities that rely on fishing or tourism related to marine life, have long proven difficult for international governing bodies.
“This treaty will help to knit together the different regional treaties to be able to address threats and concerns across species’ ranges,” Battle said.
That protection also helps coastal biodiversity and economies, said Gladys Martínez de Lemos, executive director of the nonprofit Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense focusing on environmental issues across Latin America.
“Governments have taken an important step that strengthens the legal protection of two-thirds of the ocean and with it marine biodiversity and the livelihoods of coastal communities,” she said.
The question now is how well the ambitious treaty will be implemented.
Formal adoption also remains outstanding, with numerous conservationists and environmental groups vowing to watch closely.
The high seas have long suffered exploitation due to commercial fishing and mining, as well as pollution from chemicals and plastics. The new agreement is about “acknowledging that the ocean is not a limitless resource, and it requires global cooperation to use the ocean sustainably,” Rutgers University biologist Malin Pinsky said.
The head of the U.N.’s nuclear agency said Saturday that Iran pledged to restore cameras and other monitoring equipment at its nuclear sites and to allow more inspections at a facility where particles of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade were recently detected.
But a joint statement issued by the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran’s nuclear body only gave vague assurances that Tehran would address longstanding complaints about the access it gives the watchdog’s inspectors to its disputed nuclear program.
IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi met with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and other top officials in Tehran earlier Saturday.
Director general of International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi, and Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, minister of foreign affairs of Iran, meet in Tehran, Iran, on March 4, 2023.
Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
“Over the past few months, there was a reduction in some of the monitoring activities” related to cameras and other equipment “which were not operating,” Grossi told reporters upon his return to Vienna. “We have agreed that those will be operating again.”
He did not provide details about which equipment would be restored or how soon it would happen, but appeared to be referring to Iran’s removal of surveillance cameras from its nuclear sites in June 2022, during an earlier standoff with the IAEA.
“These are not words. This is very concrete,” Grossi said of the assurances he received in Tehran.
His first visit to Iran in a year came days after the IAEA reported that uranium particles enriched up to 83.7% — just short of weapons-grade — were found in Iran’s underground Fordo nuclear site.
The confidential quarterly report by the nuclear watchdog, which was distributed to member nations Tuesday, came as tensions were already high amid months of anti-government protests in Iran, and Western anger at its export of attack drones to Russian forces fighting in Ukraine.
The IAEA report said inspectors in January found that two cascades of IR-6 centrifuges at Fordo were configured in a way “substantially different” to what Iran had previously declared. That raised concerns that Iran was speeding up its enrichment.
Grossi said the Iranians had agreed to boost inspections at the facility by 50%. He also confirmed the agency’s findings that there has not been any “production or accumulation” of uranium at the higher enrichment level, “which is a very high level.”
Iran has sought to portray any highly enriched uranium particles as a minor byproduct of enriching uranium to 60% purity, which it has been doing openly for some time.
The chief of Iran’s nuclear program, Mohammad Eslami, acknowledged the findings of the IAEA report at a news conference with Grossi in Tehran, but said their “ambiguity” had been resolved.
Nonproliferation experts say Tehran has no civilian use for uranium enriched to even 60%. A stockpile of material enriched to 90%, the level needed for weapons, could quickly be used to produce an atomic bomb, if Iran chooses.
Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers limited Tehran’s uranium stockpile and capped enrichment at 3.67% — enough to fuel a nuclear power plant. It also barred nuclear enrichment at Fordo, which was built deep inside a mountain in order to withstand aerial attacks.
The U.S. unilaterally withdrew from the accord in 2018, reimposing crushing sanctions on Iran, which then began openly breaching the deal’s restrictions. Efforts by the Biden administration, European countries and Iran to negotiate a return to the deal reached an impasse last summer.
The joint statement issued Saturday said Iran “expressed its readiness to continue its cooperation and provide further information and access to address the outstanding safeguards issues.”
That was a reference to a separate set of issues from the highly enriched particles.
Over the past four years, the IAEA has accused Iran of stonewalling its investigation into traces of processed uranium found at three undeclared sites in the country. The agency’s 35-member board of governors censured Iran twice last year for failing to fully cooperate.
The board could do so again when it meets on Monday, depending in part on how Western officials perceive the results of Grossi’s visit.
PARIS (AP) — The United Nations’ educational, scientific and cultural agency chief on Wednesday called for a global dialogue to find ways to regulate social media companies and limit their role in the spreading of misinformation around the world.
Audrey Azoulay, the director general of UNESCO, addressed a gathering of lawmakers, journalists and civil societies from around the world to discuss ways to regulate social media platforms such as Twitter and others to help make the internet a safer, fact-based space.
The two-day conference in Paris aims to formulate guidelines that would help regulators, governments and businesses manage content that undermines democracy and human rights, while supporting freedom of expression and promoting access to accurate and reliable information.
The global dialogue should provide the legal tools and principles of accountability and responsibility for social media companies to contribute to the “public good,” Azoulay said in an interview with The Associated Press on the sidelines of the conference. She added: “It would limit the risks that we see today, that we live today, disinformation (and) conspiracy theories spreading faster than the truth.”
The European Union last year passed landmark legislation that will compel big tech companies like Google and Facebook parent Meta to police their platforms more strictly to protect European users from hate speech, disinformation and harmful content.
The Digital Services Act is one of the EU’s three significant laws targeting the tech industry.
In the United States, the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission have filed major antitrust actions against Google and Facebook, although Congress remains politically divided on efforts to address online disinformation, competition, privacy and more.
Filipino journalist and Nobel laureate Maria Ressa told participants in the Paris conference that putting laws into place that would prevent social media companies from “proliferating misinformation on their platforms” is long overdue.
Ressa is a longtime critic of social media platforms that she said have put “democracy at risk” and distracted societies from solving problems such climate change and the rise of authoritarianism around the world.
By “insidiously manipulating people at the scale that’s happening now, … (they have) changed our values and it has rippled to cascading failure,” Ressa told the AP in an interview on Wednesday.
“If you don’t have a set of shared facts, how do we deal with climate change?” Ressa said. “If everything is debatable, if trust is destroyed (there’s no) meaningful exchange.”
She added: “Just a reminder, democracy is not just about talking. It’s about listening. It’s about finding compromises that are impossible in the world of technology today.”
“We welcome the Chinese announcement that they want peace because that’s what we always want to pursue in situations like this. But we also have to be clear that if there are any thoughts and efforts by the Chinese and others to provide lethal support to the Russians in their brutal attack against Ukraine, that that is unacceptable,” Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told CNN’s Pamela Brown on “State of the Union.”
“That would be a red line,” she said.
As CNN previously reported, the US has begun seeing “disturbing” trendlines in China’s support for Russia’s military, and there are signs that Beijing wants to “creep up to the line” of providing lethal military aid to Russia without getting caught, US officials familiar with the intelligence told CNN.
The officials would not describe in detail what intelligence the US has seen suggesting a recent shift in China’s posture but said US officials have been concerned enough that they have shared the intelligence with allies and partners at the Munich Security Conference over the past several days.
“The secretary was quite blunt in warning about the implications and consequences of China providing material support to Russia or assisting Russia with systematic sanctions evasion,” a senior State Department official told reporters.
Thomas-Greenfield also reiterated Sunday that the US is prepared to “compete” with China.
“The president has said we see China as the adversary it is. We are prepared to compete with the Chinese, and we are [prepared], when necessary, to confront the Chinese. And that’s what we’re doing. And that’s what we will continue to do to ensure that our national interests are always at the forefront,” she said.
