Covid-19

Quarantined and Stalked by Covid-19, UN Field Staff Live With Fear and Anxiety

Barbara Crossette

• May 11, 2020

Far from United Nations headquarters in New York and its offices in other cities around the world, many thousands of UN staff members are adjusting to new, more disturbing and dangerous realities in the era of Covid-19. Daily life is taking a psychological toll in both humanitarian and peacekeeping operations, prompting more focus on …

Africa, Covid-19

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‘Pathetic’: The US Pulls the Plug on a UN Global Cease-Fire Resolution

• May 10, 2020

After six weeks of negotiations, the United States shot down hopes for a resolution to be approved in the United Nations Security Council on May 8, refusing to back worldwide cease-fires as the US continues to castigate China and the World Health Organization for the Covid-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, momentum behind tenuous cease-fires is vanishing, …

Covid-19, Security Council, US-UN Relations

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In the Pandemic, Millions of People Could Lose Their Homes

Juliana Nnoko-Mewanu

• May 8, 2020

For households around the world, soon it will be the time of the month to start thinking about next month’s rent, mortgage or housing loan payments. Billions of people have been directly or indirectly affected by Covid-19. This unprecedented public health and economic crisis could easily turn into a devastating housing crisis. Economies are …

Covid-19

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In Geneva’s Lockdown, Getting to Know Your Neighbors

• May 7, 2020

GENEVA — If your idea of normal is Glasgow or New York City, you might think, Geneva is in lockdown? How can they tell? In our building, a row of nine townhouses, it’s been sweet. Here’s an odd stat: three of the families have three daughters, no sons. There’s just one little boy, suitably timid, …

Covid-19

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Trump Disses the UN’s 75th Birthday

Stephen Schlesinger

• May 6, 2020

This fall, the United Nations will celebrate its 75th anniversary. This is a notable occasion. Most global security bodies have had short shelf lives. But the UN has shown an extraordinary durability — a tribute to how this body was conceived and fashioned during World War II by one of America’s great presidents, Franklin …

Child Soldiers, Covid-19, Secretary-General, Security Council, US-UN Relations

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E-Learning Is Nothing New for UN Peacekeepers, but Demand Is Up

• May 5, 2020

Covid-19 has forced educators from preschools to universities to create digital classrooms overnight. But at least one global community has been using e-learning for more than a decade. Tens of thousands of United Nations peacekeepers from Chile to Bangladesh to South Africa have long been using online courses to prepare for deployment to the …

Covid-19, UN Peacekeeping

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Canada, Ireland and Norway Wrap Up Their Campaigns for Security Council Seats as New Voting Methods Are Proposed

Stéphanie Fillion

• May 4, 2020

CHICOUTIMI, Canada — The Canadian ambassador to the United Nations, Marc-André Blanchard, told a Canadian newspaper in March “now is not the time to campaign for a Security Council seat,” as world diplomacy is being disrupted by the coronavirus and the United Nations headquarters remains physically closed for now. But the reality is there …

Covid-19, General Assembly, Security Council

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Dire Times in Beirut as Lebanon Faces Possible Collapse

• May 2, 2020

BEIRUT — In these dire times of the Covid-19 crisis, I am quarantined at home in the hills overlooking Beirut and the Mediterranean. I take comfort in the prospects of clear, clean skies, no longer tainted by the brown nitrogen-dioxide inversion on the horizon. I can finally breathe fresh air. The crowded protests of …

Covid-19, Health and Population

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Trump’s Break-Up With the WHO and the US Push for a Vaccine

• May 1, 2020

Just how crazy is Donald Trump’s campaign to punish the World Health Organization over its apparent “China-centric” bias in the midst of a deadly pandemic? Let us count the ways. At the top of the list: It may contribute to a big setback for Trump himself. When the United States president announced on April …

Covid-19, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations

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Why the Head of the UN Pension Fund Resigned

George G. Irving and Sugiyama Iutaka

• April 28, 2020

In the middle of the coronavirus epidemic, the United Nations spokesperson announced that Sudhir Rajkumar resigned from his job as representative of the secretary-general for investment of the assets of the UN Joint Staff Pension Fund, effective March 31, 2020. The abruptness and lack of explanation in the March 29th announcement came as a surprise …

Covid-19, UN pension fund

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In Spain, a Strong Sense of Solidarity Drives Endurance in the Pandemic

Susana Malcorra

• April 27, 2020

MADRID — The first two cases of Covid-19 infections here were identified on Feb. 26, 2020. That day, 23 people had become infected in Spain in less than 24 hours. Three days later, the number was 80. From then on, Madrid rapidly became the city with the most cases in the country, and by …

Covid-19, Health and Population

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Is It a Crime to Mishandle a Public Health Response?

David J. Scheffer

• April 26, 2020

As the new coronavirus disease, Covid-19, continues to threaten lives and livelihoods around the world, many people are seeking to hold government and corporate leaders to account for their blunders during the pandemic. But in the United States and many other countries, public health malpractice is a relatively underdeveloped area of the law, and …

Covid-19, International Justice

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Suddenly, Singapore’s Coronavirus Cases Skyrocketed: Here’s Why

• April 23, 2020

SINGAPORE — Singapore now has the highest number of Covid-19 cases in Southeast Asia, at 11,178, as of April 23. The daily coronavirus infection rate reached a new high of 1,426 as I write. Just over a month ago, Singapore, with 5.7 million people living in the limited space of 720 square kilometers (278 square …

Asia, Covid-19, Health and Population

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Where the Pandemic, the Environment and Gender Equality Meet: In Inger Andersen’s Home Office

• April 22, 2020

Inger Andersen is closing in on her first year as executive director of the United Nations Environment Program just as the Covid-19 crisis upends her agency’s work while also underscoring its critical need. “Never before have the mandate, mission and objectives of UNEP been more in focus,” she said in a recent interview, adding, …

Climate and Environment, Covid-19

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UN at 75: The Security Council Must Remember Why It Exists

Mona Ali Khalil and Fred Carver

• April 21, 2020

The United Nations is turning 75 this year. While the UN has so far successfully averted a third world war, the aggressions in Iraq, Ukraine and Syria remind us that interstate conflicts remain a real and present danger. The Security Council’s failure to resolve intrastate conflicts, from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to …

Covid-19, Secretary-General, Security Council, UN75

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