United Nations

UN Official Decries "Reproductive Rights" Obstacles

March 17, 2017

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein devoted a substantial portion of his statement for International Women's Day to criticism of government policies he says violate women's "sexual and reproductive health rights" by limiting their access to abortion.
UN Seeks Continued Input on US Refugee Policy

March 17, 2017

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi warned that US President Donald Trump’s latest executive order on refugee resettlement and foreign travel would "compound the anguish" of refugees and signaled his desire for continued UN input on resettlement under a future US refugee policy.
UNESCO Pushes Global Sustainability Education

March 16, 2017

The UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recently held a conference in Ottawa, Canada, to train teachers to integrate UNESCO's Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship Education programs into their education systems and to release its publication on learning objectives for the UN's "sustainable development" agenda.
UNICEF: EU Migrant Return Policy May Violate Rights

March 16, 2017

The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) has warned the EU that its Recommendation and Renewed Action Plan on migration, encouraging EU members to provide for the "swift return" of some illegal migrants to their countries of origin, risks violating the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
UNICEF Collects "Big Data" for Disaster Relief

March 16, 2017

The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) has announced a "big data" partnership with European telecommunication company Telefonica as part of its "Magic Box" initiative to collect and analyze "real-time anonymized data such as mobile phone usage from private sector companies to better understand human activity."
EU Officials Agree to Ramp up Climate Outreach

March 16, 2017

Reuters reports that foreign ministers of EU member states have agreed to respond to a potential US decision to withdraw from the UN's Paris climate deal agreed in 2015 by devoting their diplomatic institutions to "aggressive outreach" in helping to preserve the deal and ensuring funding for "climate adaptation" efforts in poor countries.
US State Department Demands Reform at UNHRC

March 15, 2017

Foreign Policy reports that US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has written in a letter to a group of nongovernmental organizations that the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), due to its low bar for membership and disproportionate focus on Israel, "requires considerable reform in order for us to continue to participate."
Funding Gap Indicates Climate Agenda Obstacles

March 15, 2017

Findings from the International Institute for Environmental and Development that less than 10 percent of global "climate finance," aimed at combating global warming and reducing its impacts, reaches local projects shows the challenge involved in efforts of global governance institutions to redistribute funds to fulfill their agenda on climate change.
UN Ramps up Global SDG Communication Campaign

March 15, 2017

A Deutsche Welle interview with the Director of the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Action Campaign, Mitchell Toomey, indicates the sophisticated nature of the UN's effort to communicate the case for the comprehensive SDGs to a global audience, including by recruiting 700,000 "voluntary activists" to further the cause of "sustainability."
World Bank Funds Bhutan's "Climate Resilience"

March 15, 2017

An agreement between the World Bank and the Royal Government of Bhutan to provide $1.5 million to help the country develop a strategic plan to address its "climate resilience" demonstrates how the global financial institution redistributes money to developing countries as part of the UN's "climate finance" agenda.