The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has reiterated its call for the international community to seek solutions to the causes that force people into states of displacement. The UNHCR’s Global Trends report for 2017, released in June, affirmed the total number of displaced people around the world continued
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault celebrated its tenth birthday earlier this year. Significant milestones have been achieved over the decade, underpinned by successful global cooperation supporting the vault’s important objectives. At its heart, the seed vault aims to insure against natural and man-made disasters that may lead to food insecurity.
Japan, alongside the international community has welcomed North Korea’s announcement via Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) that its nuclear and missile testing program will be immediately suspended. Although Japan has expressed this represents a positive step towards improving the region’s acute insecurity, reservation has accompanied the news. As a major
March 8th marks International Women’s Day, a celebratory recognition of the positive contributions made by women across the world, to the development, prosperity and peace of their immediate and wider societies, through every level of their engagement. Contemporary observations seek to inspire respect and value for women; while also identifying
Strong and coercive language from United State’s envoy to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, following the General Assembly’s Emergency Session vote on the status of Jerusalem in late December, has been met with blowback. While Haley declared the “vote will be remembered” as a point of attack and acute “disrespect”
Fiji has stated its mission as President in the twenty third Conference of the Parties (COP23) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)—hosted in Bonn, Germany between November 6 -17—is to encourage the commitment, cooperative dialogue and affirmative action of members to the Paris Agreement to ensure
The time until midnight must now be perilously closer than the “two and a half minutes” declared by the Doomsday Clock at the start of 2017. Deteriorating dialogue and growing aggression between nuclear armed nations have alarmingly raised the possibility of nuclear conflict to its highest level in years, if
Nineteen member states to the United Nations’ Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) have supported a call to ban Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems (LAWS) in response to growing fears that the pace of technological advancement far exceeds discussion, consideration, and agreement on how these weapons should be managed in accordance
More than two years after the end of the United Nation’s (UN) Second International Decade of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, recognition of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Peoples of Australia remains un-satisfyingly unfulfilled. Momentum and aspirations to achieve recognition through increased cultural awareness and celebration
The memory of collective trauma is said to last far longer than its initial impact and is often carried across generations beyond those who lived through the immediate impact. This is certainly true of Chile’s national trauma, which continues to resonate nearly thirty years after the country ended General Pinochet’s
The flow of funds allocated by nations towards Official Development Assistance (ODA) depends on the commitment of state leaders and the political climate of cooperation. Participants to the UN Secretary General’s 2016 World Humanitarian Summit, held in Istanbul, Turkey, resolved to pursue a five-point ‘Agenda for Humanity’ to guide a
The number of asylum seekers and migrants journeying across the Mediterranean Sea in search of refuge in Europe continues to rise higher, reflecting the escalating crisis of displaced people across the world. Proportionately, as more people risk their lives on the sea, the numbers presumed to have disappeared and drowned
May 3rd marked World Press Freedom Day, as inaugurated by the UN General Assembly in 1993. This year’s theme, Critical Minds for Critical Times, will observe the pivotal role played by world media representatives in promoting informed, engaged, and developed societies. The day also remembers media workers, particularly journalists, who
World military spending in 2017 will likely rise faster than it has in several years, as it is being driven primarily by government commitments to invest more into state military budgets. Yet, while governments claim motives to raise military expenditure are in response to systemic shifts in the geopolitical system,
Australia’s independent Climate Council recently released a report titled “Angry Summer 2016/2017: Climate Change Super-Charging Extreme Weather.” The paper detailed key findings relating to Australia’s 2016/17 summer and the impact of intense heat waves across the majority of Australia’s east coast, contrasted with record summer rainfalls and flooding in the
Over the weekend, Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement to the UN Security Council (UNSC) accusing Russia of “yet again (having) violated Ukraine’s state sovereignty and territorial integrity.” Supporting the statement are observations made by the Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) in Ukraine, that heavy weapons fighting in eastern
Colombia’s High Commissioner for Peace, Sergio Jaramillo, recently stated that the country’s momentum towards securing peace is “irrepressible and unstoppable.” The peace accord between President Santos’s government and The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in November 2016, has raised optimism that peace pathways with the country’s second largest rebel
The situation in Yemen is rapidly spiraling into what an official from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) described in December 2016 as “ . . . one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.” Though foreign state and agency representatives seek to redraft a peace plan, efforts – or
