News headlines in April 2023, page 3

BRUSSELS, Apr 27 (IPS) - In today's world, human rights defenders face immense challenges, with threats, attacks, and repression being rampant in many countries. According to the latest report by Front Line Defenders, killings of rights defenders increased in 2022, with a total of 401 deaths across 26 different countries. Despite the adoption of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders 25 years ago, the threats faced by defenders persist globally.

In a landmark resolution, the UN Security Council on Thursday condemned the de facto rulers of Afghanistan’s decision to ban women nationals from working for the United Nations, calling for Taliban leaders to “swiftly reverse” their decision.

Renewed diplomatic attention on Syria in the aftermath of the recent devastating earthquakes that hit the country and neighbouring Türkiye could help to unlock stalled peace efforts, UN Special Envoy Geir Pedersen told the Security Council on Thursday.

The UN has been forced to essentially halt all aid operations across Sudan due to the continuing fighting between rival militaries, but humanitarians who have re-located to Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast are determined to return to Khartoum “as quickly as possible”, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator said on Thursday.

In a visit to Chile, Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed met with Chilean Government officials and other key actors and stressed in her other activities that we need transformative change – now, and from all countries – to achieve the UN 2030 Agenda.

Leaders in Albanian-majority Kosovo and the Serb minority there backed by Belgrade, need to take “courageous” action towards normalizing relations, or risk growing regional instability, the head of the UN mission there (UNMIK) told the Security Council on Thursday.

Activists striving to achieve a more just and equitable future for all people and the planet, are being encouraged to apply for a UN award that celebrates initiatives and individuals working to make the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) a reality.

A new UK law affecting people’s rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association, is “incompatible” with the country’s international obligations, the UN rights chief said on Thursday.

So-called “labour transfer” and “vocational training” programmes in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China, threaten Tibetan cultural identity and could lead to forced labour conditions, UN independent human rights experts warned on Thursday.

NEW YORK, Apr 26 (IPS) - For the last five years, the United Nations Development Programme has worked with some of the world’s biggest producers of commodities like beef, soy, palm oil, and cocoa to protect livelihoods and the planet.In 2015, just over 30 cocoa farmers from Padre Abad in Ucayali, a province in the lush and ecologically diverse Peruvian Amazon, formed an alliance to tackle long-standing concerns such as soil quality, access to markets, fair prices for their produce and a growing number of illegal plantations. The result was the Colpa de Loros Cooperative, and from the start, the goal was to produce the finest quality, export-ready cocoa.