Before this year ends, the United Nations will have committed itself and its 193 member governments to a new 15-year development strategy to be hailed as a blueprint for ending poverty, expanding social justice and strengthening equality. Equality for whom is the question. Missing by deliberate design from the new plan, called the Sustainable Development … Read more
Samantha Power, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, has made herself scarce in answering direct, spontaneous questions from the press corps based at the UN, to the chagrin of many reporters. The press corps is international by nature and not affiliated with the UN but housed in UN headquarters, where reporters can ask … Read more
Misao Okama celebrated her 117th birthday on March 5 surrounded by her family, which included great-grandchildren, and congratulatory government officials. This milestone made Okama the world’s oldest woman. She died on April 1. Based on the most recent population forecast and data from the United Nations, it comes as little surprise that the world’s oldest woman … Read more
On the eve of a speech Ruchira Gupta was to give on International Women’s Day in New York as the recipient of a Woman of Distinction award, she got a strange email. Gupta, who has collected numerous awards for her work against sex slavery in India — including an Emmy for her 1996 documentary, “The … Read more
HARARE, Zimbabwe — Elephants across the African continent face poaching, loss of habitable land and food supplies and culling. When World Wildlife Day was marked this month, the United Nations General Assembly discussed wildlife crime across the globe, including the threat to elephants, which are declining in number throughout Africa. Here in Zimbabwe, they face … Read more
There are three things you need to know about the negotiations over the United Nations’ next set of global development goals, which will be adopted by world leaders at the General Assembly this September and remain in effect for the next 15 years: Almost everybody agrees that the proposed 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and … Read more
