Tag: United Nations

Taliban bars Afghan women from working for U.N. in latest blow to women’s rights and vital humanitarian work

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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.

Taliban bans women in Afghanistan from university education

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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

— Mariam Solaimankhil (@Mariamistan) April 4, 2023

“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.

Afghanistan: The New Reality

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April 5, 2023
Green transition won’t be perfect and we’ll need natural gas, World Energy Council CEO says

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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.

Is hydrogen the answer?

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.”

IPCC concerns

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.

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April 2, 2023
Picking up the pieces after twin cyclones hit Vanuatu

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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.

But few in this archipelago nation of more than 80 islands were prepared for two Category 4 cyclones hitting the country within 72 hours in early March.

“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.

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March 26, 2023
John’s Crazy Socks founders speak at UN | Long Island Business News

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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.”

“

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March 23, 2023
UN rights chief urges Uganda’s president to block “deeply troubling” anti-LGBTQ bill

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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.

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March 22, 2023
UN and US join chorus of condemnation against Uganda’s hardline anti-LGBT bill | CNN

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CNN
—

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.

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March 22, 2023
Global cocaine production hits

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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.

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Haley Ott

Haley Ott is a digital reporter/producer for CBS News based in London.

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March 16, 2023
Nancy Pelosi: ‘Follow the Money’

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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

March 12, 2023, 2:28 PM ET

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.

Franklin Foer: You’ll miss gerontocracy when it’s gone

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.”

David From: No tears for Kevin McCarthy

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.”

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John Hendrickson

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March 12, 2023
Nations reach accord to protect marine life on high seas

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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.

___

Associated Press writer Frank Jordans contributed to this report from Berlin.

___

Follow Larson on Twitter at @larsonchristina and Whittle at @pxwhittle

___

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.

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March 5, 2023
Historic treaty reached to protect marine life on high seas

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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.

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March 5, 2023
Iran to allow more inspections at nuclear sites, U.N. says

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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.

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March 4, 2023
UNESCO chief urges tougher regulation of social media

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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.”

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Nicholas Garriga in Paris contributed

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February 22, 2023
US ambassador to the UN says China would cross ‘red line’ by providing lethal aid to Russia | CNN Politics

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CNN
—

The US ambassador to the United Nations said Sunday that China would cross a “red line” if the country decided to provide lethal military aid to Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.

“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.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken raised the issue when he met with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, on Saturday on the sidelines of the conference, officials said.

“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.

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February 19, 2023
Turkey rescuers say voices are still being heard under the rubble | CNN

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CNN
—

Rescue teams in southern Turkey say they are still hearing voices from under the rubble more than a week after a devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake, offering a glimmer of hope of finding more survivors.

Live images broadcast on CNN affiliate CNN Turk showed rescuers working in two areas of the Kahramanmaras region, where they were trying to save three sisters believed to be buried under the debris.

In the same region, emergency workers saved a 35-year-old woman who was believed to have been buried for around 205 hours, according to state broadcaster TRT Haber.

Two brothers – 17-year-old Muhammed Enes Yeninar and 21-year-old brother Abdulbaki Yennir – were also pulled from collapsed buildings on Tuesday, the broadcaster also reported. Further east, in the city of Adiyaman, rescuers pulled an 18-year-old boy and a man alive from the rubble, while Ukraine’s rescue team pulled a woman alive out of the rubble in the southern province of Hatay, according to CNN Turk.

Eight days after the tremor and its violent aftershocks, more than 41,200 people have been confirmed dead across Turkey and Syria, and survival stories are becoming few and far between.

UNICEF said it fears that even without verified numbers, it is “tragically clear” that the number of children killed following the quake “will continue to grow.”

James Elder, a spokesman for the United Nations children’s agency, said 4.6 million children live in the 10 Turkish provinces hit by the disaster, while in Syria, 2.5 million children have been affected.

As rescue operations start to shift to recovery efforts, UN workers are racing to funnel aid to survivors in Syria through two new border crossings approved by the government in Damascus.

The United Nations welcomed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s decision on Monday to open “the two crossing points of Bab Al-Salam and Al Ra’ee” between Turkey and northwest Syria “for an initial period of three months to allow for the timely delivery of humanitarian aid.”

Eleven trucks with UN aid crossed into northwest Syria via the Bab Al-Salam passage on Tuesday, UN aid chief Martin Griffiths tweeted, adding that 26 more trucks passed into the region via the Bab Al-Hawa crossing.

The news came after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Tuesday the two new border crossings that will take aid inside Syria from Turkey “are open and goods are flowing.”

Guterres emphasized that human suffering from this natural disaster should not be made worse by manmade obstacles such as access, funding and supplies.

The UN is launching a $397 million humanitarian appeal for victims of the earthquake in Syria for three months and finalizing a similar appeal for survivors in Turkey, Guterres announced.

International aid has been slow to arrive in rebel-held areas in northern and northwestern Syria. The situation has been complicated by years of conflict and an already existing humanitarian crisis that has led to further difficulties for survivors who lack food, shelter and medicine as they battle freezing winter conditions.

Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said last week that any aid the country receives must go through the capital Damascus. But many Western nations have been reluctant to lift sanctions despite requests from Assad, as the measures were placed on his regime after it led a brutal campaign in which hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed during the years-long civil war.

Also on Tuesday, a Saudi Arabian plane carrying 35 tons of food, medical aid and shelter landed at Aleppo International Airport, in what is the first shipment of aid from the kingdom to government-held territory since the February 6 earthquake, Syrian state media reported.

Two more planes of aid are scheduled to arrive in Syria on Wednesday and Thursday, according to Faleh al-Subei, the head of the aid department at the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center.

Meanwhile, Turkey’s Vice President Fuat Oktay has denied reports of food and aid shortages. There were “no problems with feeding the public” and “millions of blankets are being sent to all areas,” he said on live television.

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said more than 9,200 foreign personnel are taking part in the country’s search and rescue operations, while 100 countries have offered help so far.

On Monday, UN aid chief Griffiths said the rescue phase of the response was “coming to a close” during a visit to the northern Syrian city of Aleppo.

“And now the humanitarian phase, the urgency of providing shelter, psychosocial care, food, schooling, and a sense of the future for these people, that’s our obligation now,” he said.

After announcing an end to their search and rescue operation last week, the “White Helmets” group, officially known as Syria Civil Defense, on Monday declared a seven-day mourning period in rebel-controlled areas in the north of the country.

The World Health Organization (WHO) stressed the need to “focus on trauma rehabilitation” when treating populations stricken by the devastating disaster.

The WHO’s Turkey Representative Batyr Berdyklychev highlighted the “growing problem” of a “traumatized population,” forecasting the need for psychological and mental health services in the affected regions.

“People only now start realizing what happened to them after this shock period,” Berdyklychev said while speaking at a media briefing from the Turkish city of Adana on Tuesday.

The WHO is negotiating with Turkish authorities to make sure quake survivors can access mental health services, Berdyklychev added, noting that many people displaced by the quake to other areas of Turkey “will also need to be reached.”

WHO Regional Director for Europe, Hans Kluge told the briefing that the “immediate priority” for the 22 emergency medical teams deployed by the WHO to Turkey is “working particularly to deal with the high number of trauma patients and catastrophic injuries.”

CORRECTION: This story has been updated to clarify where the 18-year-old boy and a man were rescued, which was in the city of Adiyaman.

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February 14, 2023
Several rescue operations suspended in Syria and Turkey as chances of survival diminish | CNN

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CNN
—

Security risks put a handful of search and rescue operations on hold on Saturday, as the death toll of the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Syria and Turkey surpassed 25,000.

Germany and Austria have suspended rescue operations in Turkey, citing security concerns.

Meanwhile, rescue efforts in the rebel-controlled areas in north and northwest Syria have ended, announced volunteer organization Syria Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, on Friday.

After searching for 108 hours, the group said it believes no one trapped under the rubble is still alive.

Syria has been ravaged by civil war since 2011, and 4 million people were already reliant on humanitarian aid in the worst-affected parts of rebel-controlled country before Monday’s disaster.

As many as 5.3 million people in Syria could have been affected by the quake and be in need of shelter support, according to preliminary data from the UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, which has been trying to distribute supplies to vulnerable populations.

However, the country’s political set-up complicated rescue efforts, with some of its most impacted areas controlled by the internationally-sidelined, heavily-sanctioned regime, others by Turkish-backed and US-backed opposition forces, Kurdish rebels and Sunni Islamist fighters.

It took three days after the quake struck for the first UN convoy to cross through the Bab al-Hawa crossing, which is the only humanitarian aid corridor between Turkey and Syria.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma visited rescue teams and civilians in affected regions on Saturday, including injured survivors in a hospital in the city of Latakia.

On Friday, he had criticized the lack of humanitarian aid from Western countries, stating that they “have no regard for the human condition.” The Syrian government approved sending aid into the rebel-held territories Friday but did not provide a specific timeline.

Rescue work could take two to three years to complete in Turkey, but five to 10 years to just get underway in Syria, according to Caroline Holt, director of disasters, climate and crises at the International Federation of the Red Cross.

Syrian-American actor Jay Abdo expressed frustration on Saturday, telling CNN: “Earthquakes, they have no borders. So why do borders and politics deprive Syrian civilians in the northwest of the country from their human rights to be rescued?”

He called on the international community to “act immediately” as “there’s no time” and “civilians are not receiving any support, aid or attention.”

The World Health Organization’s director-general arrived in Syria’s earthquake-hit Aleppo city on Saturday on a plane carrying more than $290,000 worth of trauma emergency and surgical kits.

The extent of devastation is “unprecedented,” according to Belit Tasdemir, UN liaison officer at AKUT Search and Rescue Association, who was working in Turkey.

He told CNN on Saturday that “freezing” temperatures and “extreme fatigue” was beginning to affect rescue workers as they approach the end of the rescue window and the probability of finding survivors becomes lower.

Some astonishing rescues still provide a glimmer of hope, however.

Sezai Karabas and his young daughter were found alive in Gaziantep, southern Turkey, 132 hours after the earthquake struck.

A 70-year-old survivor, a woman named Menekse Tabak, was pulled out from the rubble in the Turkish city of Kahramanmaras, 121 hours after the quake hit.

Yet attempts at search and rescue have also been hampered in Turkey.

The German Federal Agency for Technical Relief stopped its rescue and relief work due to security concerns in the Hatay region, the organization said in a statement Saturday.

German rescue operators, who had been working in coordination with Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Agency (AFAD), said they “will resume their work as soon as AFAD deems the situation to be safe.”

The Austrian Army made a similar decision, citing “increasing aggression between groups in Turkey,” but said they will “keep our rescue and recovery forces ready.”

Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned that those looting and committing other crimes would be punished, and that university dorms would be used to house victims made homeless, with classes going online.

United Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths described the earthquake in southern Turkey and northwestern Syria as the “worst event in 100 years” to hit the regions, and said that a “clear plan” to give “an appeal for a three-month operation” would be set out on either Sunday or Monday.

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February 11, 2023
Turkey-Syria earthquake 2023: How to help the victims

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Foreign nations and non-governmental organizations have promised assistance and started mobilizing supplies and rescue teams to help authorities in Turkey and Syria cope with the thousands of people injured and displaced by the massive earthquakes that struck on Monday.

The United Nations’ refugee and children’s agencies and its World Food Program were among the agencies rushing to respond to the disaster.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said it could launch a new earthquake appeal, but noted that it was still in the early stages of determining what and how much help was required in the quake zone. The agency has long-standing appeals already out to support its work with refugees in both Turkey and Syria, and those appeals remain significantly under-funded.

You can click here to support UNHCR’s work.

UNHCR was already seeking $348 million to help refugees in Turkey alone, but says so far, international donors have pledged only 11% of that figure. In Syria, the agency’s appeal is for $465 million, and only 7% of that funding has been promised.

Turkish ambassador on earthquake crisis: “We need a lot of rescue teams”

05:41

The U.N.’s World Food Program has also worked for years to help refugees and others displaced by conflict in the earthquake zone, and it said resources were already being mobilized for quake survivors in Syria. You can support WFP’s work by clicking here.

The U.N.’s children’s agency, UNICEF, also has staff on the ground in Turkey and Syria helping people after the earthquakes. You can support that agency’s work here.

The Syrian American Medical Society, a charity based in the U.S., said it was also helping earthquake victims on the ground inside war-torn Syria.

“Hospitals are overwhelmed with patients filling the hallways,” the organization said in an appeal for donations. “There is an immediate need for trauma supplies and a comprehensive emergency response to save lives and treat the injured.”

“Across our operational facilities, we’ve been receiving victims of the quake as they come into our hospitals while simultaneously working to guarantee the wellbeing of our over 1,700 staff in Syria, and 90 at the epicenter near Gaziantep, Turkey,” said SAMS’ President Dr. Amjad Rass.

With winter conditions making rescue and relief efforts all the more difficult and urgent across the earthquake zone, aid agencies stressed the importance of a unified international response.

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February 7, 2023
Survivors are still being pulled from the rubble more than 24 hours after Turkey earthquake | CNN

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Istanbul, Turkey
CNN
—

Survivors are still being pulled from the rubble in Turkey and Syria, more than 24 hours after a powerful earthquake toppled thousands of homes, killing more than 5,000 people.

Among the survivors was a 14-year-old boy with a black eye who appeared to be conscious as rescuers carried him on a stretcher to a waiting ambulance in the southern Turkish city of Kahramanmaras.

“Finally! He has been rescued,” said a reporter with CNN affiliate CNN Turk, which broadcast the rescue live.

While the boy’s rescue offers a glimmer of hope that others will survive the freezing conditions, the death toll continues to climb as search terms navigate blocked roads, damaged infrastructure and violent aftershocks to reach the affected area.

The 7.8-magnitude quake hit just after 4 a.m. local time Monday, sending tremors hundreds of miles and creating disaster zones on both sides of the Turkey-Syria border, including areas home to millions of people already displaced by the civil war in Syria.

Up to 23 million people, including 1.4 million children, could be affected by the quake, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), with director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus calling efforts to help them a “race against time.”

Here’s what we know:

In Turkey, the death toll has risen to 3,549, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday afternoon, bringing the total deaths across Turkey and Syria to at least 5,151. Erdogan also declared a state of emergency in 10 provinces for three months.

The region has experienced several aftershocks, creating treacherous conditions for rescuers and survivors – dramatic video showed buildings collapsing hours after the initial quake, sending dust piles into the air as people ran away screaming.

The weather and the scale of the disaster were making it challenging for aid teams to reach the affected area, Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said, adding that helicopters were unable to take off on Monday due to the poor weather.

Heavy snowstorms have recently hit parts of Syria and Turkey, according to CNN meteorologist Haley Brink, and by Wednesday already cold temperatures are expected to plummet several degrees below zero.

Photos taken in earthquake-hit cities in southeastern Turkey show families huddling around fires to keep warm. Some sought shelter in buses, sports centers, mosques and underneath temporary tarpaulin tents – structures sturdy enough to withstand further aftershocks or flimsy enough not to cause severe injury should they collapse.

At least 5,606 structures crumbled during the quake and in the hours after, Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Agency (AFAD) said. Iskenderun State Hospital in the city of the same name was among them, Koca, the health minister said.

“We are trying to save the medical workers and patients there,” he added. “These sorts of disasters can only be overcome with solidarity.”

Authorities in Turkey have advised drivers to stay off the roads to leave them clear for rescue operations. Broken concrete, scraps of metal, and overturned cars remain strewn across many roads and streets, making it difficult for rescuers to reach some areas.

By late Monday, at least 300,000 blankets, 24,712 beds, and 19,722 tents had been sent to the quake-affected areas, AFAD said.

In neighboring Syria, a country already suffering the effects of civil war, the devastation is widespread. At least 1,602 were killed across government-controlled areas and opposition-controlled areas, officials said.

The “White Helmets” group, officially known as the Syria Civil Defense, which operates in opposition-controlled areas, said Tuesday “the numbers are expected to rise significantly because hundreds of families are still under the rubble.”

Much of northwestern Syria, which borders Turkey, is controlled by anti-government forces, and aid agencies warn of an acute humanitarian crisis that is likely to be felt for months to come.

Dr. Bachir Tajaldin, Turkey country director at the Syrian American Medical Society, told CNN’s “This Morning” that the situation in Syria is complicated by political instability.

“The situation in Turkey is coordinated through a very well developed government. They have infrastructure, they have rescue teams,” Tajaldin said.

“In northern Syria, most of the services are provided by NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and through humanitarian aid. There is no central government to take care of the multi-sectoral response,” he said.

El-Mostafa Benlamlih, the United Nations’ Humanitarian Coordinator in Syria, told CNN the search and rescue mission was being hampered by the lack of heavy equipment and machinery.

He said the UN’s supply of stock has been distributed and more medicine and medical equipment is needed, and especially fresh water or tools to repair damaged water tanks.

“Most of the communities depend on elevated tanks of water. Most of these elevated tanks of water were the first ones to fall, or to fall into disrepair. They need replacements or they need repair. We need all of this,” he said.

Around 4 million people in northern Syria were already displaced and relying on humanitarian support as a result of war, according to James Elder, spokesman for UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund. This winter had been particularly tough due to the freezing conditions and a cholera outbreak.

“Everyone is overstretched in that part of the world … there is an enormous amount do,” he said. “People have fled their homes often standing around in bitterly cold conditions really without access to safe water. So water is key. Blankets, food, psychological support.”

In photos: Deadly quake strikes Turkey and Syria

Hospitals in the country are overwhelmed as victims seek help, with some facilities damaged by the quake. And there is particular concern about the spread of illness, especially among children, who were already living in extreme hardship.

A volunteer with the “White Helmets” said the organization does not have enough help to handle this disaster.

“Our teams are working around the clock to help to save the injured people. But our capabilities, our powers are not enough to handle this disaster. This disaster is bigger than any organization in northwest Syria,” Ismail Alabdullah told CNN. “This disaster needs international efforts to handle.”

The international community has been quick to offer assistance to Turkey and Syria as the full scale of the disaster becomes clear.

By Tuesday morning, planes carrying aid from Iraq and Iran, including food, medicines and blankets, arrived at Damascus International Airport in Syria, Syrian state media SANA reported.

Japan announced it would send the country’s Disaster Relief Rescue team to Turkey, and on Monday night, the first of two Indian disaster relief teams left for Turkey with dog squads and medical supplies. Pakistan has also dispatched two search and rescue teams to the ravaged country, while Australia and New Zealand committed funds for humanitarian assistance.

The European Union activated its crisis response mechanism, while the United States said it would send two search and rescue units to Turkey. Palestinian civil defense and medical teams will also be sent to Turkey and Syria to help in rescue operations.

Meanwhile, 10 units of the Russian army with more than 300 soldiers are clearing debris and helping in search and rescue operations in Syria, Russia’s Defense Ministry said. Russia is the strongest foreign power operating in Syria, and Russian President Vladimir Putin has long allied with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said emergency response teams from the United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC), the International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG) and the WHO’s Emergency Medical Teams (EMT) are being mobilized to Turkey to assist in the humanitarian response.

“The UN and partners are closely monitoring the situation on the ground and are looking to mobilize emergency funds in the region,” the UNOCHA said in a report Monday.

But on Tuesday, UNOCHA spokesperson Madevi Sun-Suon told CNN that aid shipments from Turkey to Syria have been “temporarily disrupted due to road challenges.”

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February 7, 2023
Ukraine’s Odesa city put on UNESCO heritage in danger list

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PARIS (AP) — The United Nations’ cultural agency decided Wednesday to add the historic center of Ukraine’s Black Sea port city of Odesa to its list of endangered World Heritage sites, recognizing “the outstanding universal value of the site and the duty of all humanity to protect it.”

The decision was made at an extraordinary session of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee in Paris.

UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay praised the move, saying the “legendary port that has left its mark in cinema, literature and the arts” was “thus placed under the reinforced protection of the international community.”

“While the war is going on, this inscription embodies our collective determination to ensure that this city … is preserved from further destruction,” Azoulay added in a statement.

Russian forces have launched multiple artillery attacks and airstrikes on Odesa since invading Ukraine 11 months ago.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on UNESCO in October to put Odesa on its World Heritage List, which recognizes places of “outstanding universal value.” The World Heritage Committee agreed Wednesday while also adding the city’s historic center to its list of endangered sites.

Changes to the text proposed by Russia delayed the 21-member committee’s vote. In the end, six delegates voted in favor, one voted no and 14 abstained.

Russian delegate Tatiana Dovgalenko lambasted the decision, asserting that local citizens had destroyed some Odesa monuments that were cited to justify the endangered designation.

“Today, we witnessed the funeral of the World Heritage Convention,” she said, adding that pressure prevailed and scientific objectivity “was shamefully violated.”

Ukrainian Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko welcomed the vote’s outcome, saying it would protect Odesa’s multicultural history.

“It’s a great historic day,” he told reporters. “Definitively, Odesa is under danger due to Russia’s full- scale invasion. … I have very much hope that the umbrella of UNESCO can protect at least Odesa skies and Odesa itself from this barbaric attack of Russians.”

Ukraine is not a member of the UNESCO committee.

Under the 1972 UNESCO convention, ratified by both Ukraine and Russia, signatories undertake to “assist in the protection of the listed sites” and are “obliged to refrain from taking any deliberate measures” which might damage World Heritage sites.

Inclusion on the List of World Heritage in Danger is meant to “open access to emergency international assistance mechanisms, both technical and financial, to strengthen the protection of the property and help its rehabilitation,” according to UNESCO.

Before Wednesday’s vote, Ukraine was home to seven World Heritage sites, including the St. Sophia Cathedral and related monastic buildings in the capital, Kyiv. To date, none were damaged by the war, although UNESCO noted damage to more than 230 cultural buildings in Ukraine.

Azoulay told reporters that Odesa’s status was examined under an “emergency procedure” amid the ongoing fighting. She said “precise satellite surveillance” was being used for the first time to monitor Ukraine’s World Heritage sites.

On its website, UNESCO describes Odesa as the only city in Ukraine that has entirely preserved the urban structure of a multinational southern port town typical of the late 18th and-19th centuries.

Two other sites were Wednesday to the List of World Heritage in Danger: the Ancient Yemenite Kingdom of Saba and the Rachid Karami International Fair in Tripoli, Lebanon.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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January 27, 2023
UNICEF urges release of 13 kidnapped children in eastern DRC

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The ADF, a central African affiliate of ISIL, is one of the deadliest armed groups in eastern DRC.

The United Nations children’s agency UNICEF urged on Friday for the release of 13 children who were abducted during a deadly attack in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s eastern region this month.

In a statement, the agency said 11 boys and two girls were believed to have been kidnapped by an armed group during an attack on a village in North Kivu province.

“UNICEF which condemns the abduction, is concerned that the abducted children are being inhumanely treated and is calling for them to be released immediately,” it said.

On January 22, suspected Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) members killed at least 23 people during an attack on the village of Makugwe and kidnapped several people, sources previously told AFP.

The ADF is one of the deadliest armed groups in eastern DRC, a volatile region that has been plagued by violence for decades.

The armed group – which the ISIL (ISIS) group has claimed as its central African affiliate – has been accused of slaughtering thousands of Congolese civilians and carrying out bomb attacks in Uganda.

There are more than 120 other armed groups in eastern DRC, including the M23 rebels, which Kinshasa, the EU and UN have said are being backed by Rwanda. Kigali has continued to deny the allegations.

In 2021, the United States officially linked the ADF to ISIL and added it to its list of foreign “terrorist” organisations.

On January 15, suspected ADF operatives also detonated a bomb in a church in North Kivu, killing at least 14 people and injuring another 63.

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January 27, 2023
UN condemns M23 rebel offensive on DRC town as hundreds flee

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The M23 rebels have seized areas of eastern DRC’s North Kivu province in a rapid onslaught since May.

The United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has condemned an offensive by M23 rebels in the east of the country that forced 450 people, including women and children, to seek refuge around its base in Kitshanga town.

“The M23 must cease all hostility and withdraw from occupied areas, in accordance with the roadmap set out in the Luanda mini-summit,” the mission, known by its acronym MONUSCO, said on Twitter on Thursday.

The Kitshanga attack is a new offensive by rebels who have seized areas of eastern DRC’s North Kivu province in a rapid onslaught since May that threatened the provincial capital, Goma.

The armed uprising has inflamed regional tensions, with DRC accusing neighbour Rwanda of backing and sponsoring the Tutsi-led rebellion. United Nations experts and the European Union have accused Rwanda of backing the M23.

The government of Rwanda has denied any involvement.

Regional leaders brokered an agreement in November under which the rebels were meant to withdraw from recently seized positions by January 15 as part of attempts to end the fighting that has displaced at least 450,000 people.

But a UN internal report said the rebels were flouting the ceasefire.

Two witnesses who fled Kitshanga and joined the throng of refugees at the MONUSCO base said the rebels had taken control of the town.

A spokesman for the DRC government and the army did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The M23 said in a statement that it was obliged to intervene to protect Tutsis in Kitshanga and other areas.

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January 27, 2023