Seton Hall Graduate Degree in International Affairs
Seton Hall Graduate Degree in International Affairs

BLUE SMOKE: A new monthly newsletter, from PassBlue and UNA–UK, which shines a spotlight on senior appointments at the UN

Human Rights

This week, we focus on the rising number of armed children in conflicts in Africa’s Sahel region and how fake news, misinformation and disinformation are hurting peacekeeping worldwide. You are reading This Week @UN, summarizing the most pressing issues…
 
Amid mounting reports of Ukrainian children being forcibly deported to Russia during Moscow’s brutal war against the country and its culture, savvy Ukrainian technocrats are launching a tool to fight back in cyberspace. An interactive public website will soon…
 
LAGOS, Nigeria — Mauot Louis and his family ran out of their home in Sudan one day in the early 1990s, leaving their puppy behind. They were forced out by Nuer fighters, rebels from the second-largest ethnic group in…
 
Britain’s new five-year asylum partnership arrangement with Rwanda is showing the rest of Europe how countries can possibly lock refugees out of their borders. And Filippo Grandi, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, is worried about this precedent….
 
Over the last 20 years, the United States and other global powers pumped money and military aid into Afghanistan, only to see it disappear when militarism proved untenable and ineffective. Now, as Afghanistan endures a state of emergency, those…
 
The lack of accountability on a range of human-rights abuses and atrocities committed by countries and others across the world will be highlighted during Albania’s first open debate as rotating president of the United Nations Security Council this month….
 
This week, UN peacekeepers are commemorated, an ex-UN staff member is convicted for assault and lying to the FBI and the war in Ukraine enters its third month.  You are reading This Week @UN, summarizing the most pressing issues…
 
This week, we focus on how the UN is further rallying support to combat the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine and the widespread condemnation against the killing of Al Jazeera’s reporter in Palestine.  You are reading This Week @UN, summarizing…
 
The presence of the Russian state-linked Wagner Group mercenaries in the diamond-rich Central African Republic has been bloody. Now it seems that Russia has used its power in the United Nations Security Council to protect its exploits and geostrategic…
 
The Washington-based Feminist UN Campaign has been grading the performance of United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres since 2017. And he’s not exactly excelling. The group’s 2021 report card gave him a big B-. In 2020, he at least earned…
 
Two months since Russia’s current invasion of Ukraine, the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in the country has recorded at least 2,224 civilian deaths and 2,897 injuries, as of April 19. The numbers, however, are likely to be…
 
This week, we see how all the crises around the world have huge consequences on civilians, but we are also reminded of the resilient power of people who choose peace after a long, brutal war. You are reading This…
 
United Nations members voted on Thursday to strip Russia from its seat at the Human Rights Council, over alleged civilian killings in the region around Kyiv, Ukraine. The proposal, presented at a General Assembly emergency special session in New…
 
In 2019, the independent inquiry into the United Nations’ response to the Rohingya crisis, which drove 750,000 refugees from Myanmar’s Rakhine state into Bangladesh in 2017, found “systemic and structural failures.” UN Secretary-General António Guterres accepted all the findings…
 
The flying glass was the first thing I saw when the Port of Beirut exploded on Aug. 4, 2020. I was thrown to the ground, and my body, heavily pregnant, was riddled with shards from our shattered window. A…
 
The Women's History Month Quiz from PassBlue: A quiz about women and the UN
Seton Hall Graduate Degree in International Affairs

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