News headlines in March 2023, page 22

NAIROBI, Mar 08 (IPS) - Low literacy levels, a high prevalence of outlawed Female Genital Mutilation, early marriages, forced marriages, low contraceptive usage, multiple births, as well as high maternal, infant and child deaths, define the life of a woman in Kenya’s vast North Eastern region.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 08 (IPS) - Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the tremendous power of technology and innovation has become clear to the world. However, it has also increased exclusion, discrimination, and inequalities -- especially for women and girls.

NEW YORK, Mar 08 (IPS) - On International Women’s Day, let us remind ourselves of the power of education. We have all benefited from an education that less than a century ago was not a given for a girl and which still remains a distant utopia for millions of young girls.

A proposed new global online university “has enormous potential to lend hope, learning and access to marginalized groups who presently could not reach higher education.” This is the message of Rabab Fatima, Secretary-General of the Fifth UN Conference on the Least Developed Countries, known as LDC5. 

In response to the latest violent unrest in the West Bank, the UN Middle East envoy has underlined the need for Israelis and Palestinians to exercise restraint to avoid further escalation. 

Afghanistan under the Taliban remains the “most repressive country in the world [for] women’s rights”, the senior UN official in Kabul told the Security Council on Wednesday, while nevertheless voicing a nuanced position on the importance of continuing to engage with the group.

The UN General Assembly was awash in a sea of blue on Wednesday as some 1,800 people gathered to mark International Women’s Daywhich this year focused on the need for inclusive and transformative technology and digital education. 

The Fifth UN Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDC5) joined the world in marking International Women’s Day, celebrating the achievements of women and girls everywhere. Strong calls for empowerment rang out in the massive convention center, with young women scientists and innovators, like the Afghan Girl’s Robotics Team, urging: “Never give up!” 

The Syrian conflict will only be resolved if all parties involved in it are prepared to make the kind of compromises on humanitarian grounds that followed last month’s earthquake disaster, UN negotiator Geir Pedersen said on Wednesday.

Speaking in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv on Wednesday, the Secretary-General assured President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that the United Nations “will continue to seek solutions and a just peace for the people of Ukraine, and the world.”