UNESCO

Saving Scholars Who Become Victimized in the Middle East

• August 20, 2015

Khalid al-Asaad, an internationally recognized Syrian scholar of antiquities, was beheaded by ISIS on Aug. 18 for refusing to disclose the location of archeological treasures apparently removed for safekeeping from Palmyra, one of the Middle East’s most important archeological landmarks and a Unesco World Heritage Site in Syria. This latest tragedy inflicted by ISIS highlights …

Education, Middle East, Unesco

Leave a Comment

A Peruvian Paradise, Sensitive to El Niño and Other Climate Effects

Rhona Scullion

• August 15, 2015

ICA, Peru — Located in the Pisco Province of the southern Ica region of Peru, the Paracas National Reserve is a Unesco World Heritage Site because of its rare natural diversity. Rich in marine life and wildlife, its unique ecosystem is one of the most biologically productive on the planet. Encompassing the Atacama Desert, the …

Climate and Environment, Unesco

Leave a Comment

Eastern Europe Presses Its Claim to the Secretary-General’s Office

Barbara Crossette

• April 13, 2015

In 70 years of United Nations history, Eastern Europe has been the only regional group in the organization that has never filled the position of secretary-general. Western Europe has had three secretaries-general; Asia and Africa, two each; and Latin America and the Caribbean, one. The 23 nations of the Eastern European region, determined to …

Secretary-General, Security Council, Unesco, US-UN Relations, Women

One Comment

WORLDVIEWS

Netanyahu’s Scorched-Earth Campaign Destroys US Plea for Bilateralism

Irwin Arieff

• March 19, 2015

Benjamin Netanyahu’s desperate 11th-hour election strategy has left in tatters the main United States argument for aggressively protecting Israeli interests in the Middle East peace process, a development that will most likely weaken the Obama administration’s already strained fervor for shielding Israel in international diplomatic battles. A new dynamic will surely surface in the …

WORLDVIEWS

Leave a Comment

Caribbean Nations Preserve a Complicated Heritage

Barbara Crossette

• March 1, 2015

DORADO, Puerto Rico — When Europeans first invaded the Caribbean beginning in the late-15th century — more by chance than by design — devastation soon followed. Local populations were decimated by diseases from another world, and native people’s doomed attempts to repel the fearsome strangers met with only more death. Within two centuries, the slave …

Caribbean, UN Agencies, Unesco

Leave a Comment

The Noose Tightens on Money Flows to Jihadists in Iraq and Syria

Dulcie Leimbach

• February 12, 2015

The Russian-sponsored resolution to fight more precisely the financing of the Islamic jihadists who control swaths of Iraq and Syria passed unanimously in the United Nations Security Council recently, expressing the entire council’s dread, at least for now, of the two main protagonists terrorizing the region — Islamic State (ISIS) and Al Nusra Front. …

Gender Violence, Human Trafficking, Middle East, Security Council

Leave a Comment

Favela Girls Pirouette Out of Poverty in Brazil

Kamayani Bali-Mahabal

• January 27, 2015

FORTALEZA, Brazil — Bom Jardim, home to some 200,000 people, is one of the poorest and most violent neighborhoods in this city. Located at the southwestern tip of the metropolis, with long streets laid in a grid, the signs of poverty appear everywhere: cracked cement or none at all, half-built houses and other makeshift …

Education, Poverty

Leave a Comment

Islamists Systematically Destroying World Heritage Sites in Syria and Iraq

Barbara Crossette

• October 29, 2014

Beyond the horrific executions, the deadly assaults on Christian and Yazidi communities and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people fleeing towns to avoid their terror, fighters of the Islamic State movement sweeping through Syria and Iraq are deliberately demolishing or damaging ancient historical sites in some of the world’s oldest towns and …

Middle East, UN Agencies

Leave a Comment

Saving Timbuktu’s Manuscripts, One Ancient Page at a Time

Dulcie Leimbach

• August 25, 2014

BAMAKO, Mali — The deliberate burning of thousands of ancient manuscripts by the Islamic jihadists who seized Timbuktu and other parts of northern Mali in 2012 dealt an emotional blow to the culture and scholars there and far beyond. To add insult to injury, some of the manuscripts, which were destroyed in the Ahmed …

Africa, Security Council, UN Peacekeeping

Leave a Comment

Millions of Children Remain Out of School, Many of Them Girls

Danielle M. Bennett

• August 13, 2014

Positive trends in education have been achieved in 17 countries, where out-of-school populations, one-quarter of the global total, have been reduced by nearly 90 percent since 2000, says a new report from Unesco. But with progress comes a sobering reality: the goal of universal primary education by 2015 will not be reached. Millions of …

Education, Women

Leave a Comment

It’s Time to Pay Teachers Better, Unesco Emphasizes

Danielle M. Bennett

• February 23, 2014

What can be done to educate the 250 million children, mostly in South Asia, West Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, who lack basic reading and math skills by the time they reach adulthood? The answer to this global learning crisis, a new United Nations report says, is that governments must spend more money to provide quality …

Africa, Asia, Education

Leave a Comment

The US, as Predicted, Loses a Valuable Vote at Unesco

Dulcie Leimbach

• November 10, 2013

As predicted by PassBlue, the United States has lost its voting rights in Unesco, since it stopped paying its dues almost exactly two years ago because of a Congressional ban on support for any UN agency that gives full membership to the Palestinians. Unesco suspended American voting rights on Nov. 8, as well as …

Education, UN Agencies, US-UN Relations

Leave a Comment

The US Could Soon Lose Its Voting Ability at Unesco

Dulcie Leimbach

• October 17, 2013

The United States may be ineligible to vote in Unesco’s November elections to choose members of the agency’s executive board and the next director-general, among other major matters, because the US stopped paying its dues as a member in October 2011. Unesco, formally called the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, is known for …

UN Agencies, US-UN Relations

Leave a Comment

For UN Member Nations, ‘Vulnerability Is a Global Phenomenon’

Dulcie Leimbach

• September 24, 2013

The annual United Nations debate of the 68th General Assembly got off to a contentious start on Sept. 24 with pointedly worded but divergent speeches by Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff, and Barack Obama, the president of the United States. The two countries traditionally kick off the annual debate, held every September in New York …

General Assembly

Leave a Comment

WORLDVIEWS

From Students, a Plea to Strengthen Unesco

Adam Burgdorf, Keenan Lewis and Mason Scott

• July 30, 2013

After witnessing devastation to cultural heritage sites during World War II, Unesco took it upon itself to protect such structures during conflict based on the idea that “damage to cultural property” means damage to the cultural heritage of everyone. So far, Unesco has largely failed at this goal. The Taliban in Afghanistan blew up …