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U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley declared victory after member nations agreed to a $600 million cut from the annual peacekeeping budget. Neglected in her Twitter declaration is that the cuts had already been planned, prior to Trump’s election. The UN peacekeeping budget declined from $7.87 billion to $7.3 billion with the U.S. contributing a smaller percentage as compared to last year.
Despite the record number of refugees and displaced people around the world today, rich countries appear to be increasingly reluctant to provide them safe haven. Many Westerners do think that most refugees and displaced people are ‘innocent victims,’ according to a new survey commissioned by humanitarian organization Islamic Relief Worldwide, yet only a minority thought their countries were morally or politically responsible for taking them in.
Acid attacks – a vindictive form of violence meant to disfigure and maim a person for life – are on the rise in most developing nations, particularly in South Asia. Bangladesh, for example, has for many years been notorious for this form of attack. But effective legislative reforms in Bangladesh are inspiring advocates in other countries, like Nepal, to pursue legal protections for future victims.
Today is, unfortunately, a World Refugee Day like no other. Never before in the history of the world have so many been on the run, more than 65 million people, most of them displaced from their homes due to conflict or other threats to their welfare.
At least 126 migrants were feared dead after their boat sank off the coast of Libya while trying to make the perilous crossing to Europe, the International Organization for Migration said. According to four survivors, the migrants left Thursday from Libya but their inflatable boat sank several hours into the journey. (AFP)
It is not quite time to declare it the ‘best of times and worst of times’ for the global effort to eradicate polio, but two new outbreaks of the infectious disease definitely puts a damper on the celebration regarding renewed international financial commitments.
When Aleppo resident Mariam Hammad’s internet connection went bust last October, her chest tightened with worry that she may not be able to continue her studies. Hammad is one of hundreds of Syrian students who are going to great lengths, amid shelling, hunger and brushes with death, to keep up with their university online.
The United Nations is urging countries around the Caribbean to view the recent surge in refugees, from near and far, as a long-term benefit and not just a short-term challenge. More than 5,000 people came to various Caribbean nations last year seeking asylum, representing a 257 percent increase in the number of asylum seekers between mid-2015 and mid-2016 for the region.
Humanitarian groups warned for weeks about the perils to civilians in the old city, where the United Nations believes up to 150,000 people are trapped, running low on food and water and held by Islamic State fighters as human shields in the face of advancing security forces. (NY Times)
For today’s Humanosphere podcast, we are talking with Rebecca J. Wolfe of Mercy Corps about how we talk about terrorism. No, that’s not a grammatical error. We wanted to ask Wolfe, an expert on violence prevention, about the standard narrative around terrorism and if it over-simplifies or disguises some of the less-appreciated root causes of violent extremism.
As the battle continues between Islamic State-affiliated militants and the Philippine military in the southern city of Marawi, humanitarian agencies are scrambling to care for the hundreds of thousands of evacuees who have fled the devastation. An estimated 300 to 500 civilians remain trapped in the city, held hostage as ‘human shields’ for the rebels.
The amount of money that migrants around the world send back home increased by more than 50 percent over the past decade, according to a new analysis. Technically known as ‘remittances,’ the total amount of these cash transfers grew from $296 billion dollars in 2007 to $445 billion in 2016 – triple what is spent by rich countries on foreign aid each year.
A recent study has found that Mexico is home to nearly half of all children and adolescents who are employed in Latin America. The study found that 3.6 million Mexican children and adolescents between five and 17 years old are employed and that six out of every 10 children in Mexico are looking for an “informal but honest” way to survive.