Global Issues

KABUL, March 30 (IPS) - It is almost unheard of for a student to deliberately fail final school exams for no apparent reason. Therefore, when 13-year old Sara (not her real name) from Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan took her school report home to her parents, they were shocked to learn that the top-performing student had failed her final exams and would not advance to the next level. But there was no longer a next level for Sara, even if she had passed. Read the full story, “Failing to Learn: Afghan Girls Repeat Grades to Avoid Exclusion”, on globalissues.org →

BRATISLAVA, March 30 (IPS) - Government and medical professionals must implement systematic changes to deal with a “crisis” of obstetric violence (OV) across Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA), experts and rights campaigners have said. Read the full story, “Experts, Rights Groups Warn of Crisis of Obstetric Violence”, on globalissues.org →

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay / BRUSSELS, Belgium, March 30 (IPS) - On 19 March, the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) did something unprecedented in its eight-decade history: it held a vote. The Trump administration, having spent two weeks attempting to defer, amend and ultimately block the session’s main outcome document, known as the agreed conclusions, cast the only vote against its adoption. That dissenting vote said a lot, as it came from the world’s most powerful government, backed by financial leverage, bilateral reach and a network of anti-rights states and organisations that are making inroads at many levels. Read the full story, “CSW70: Women’s Equality under Siege”, on globalissues.org →

Further attacks have been reported across the Middle East as the war enters a second month, with one UN peacekeeper killed in Lebanon on Sunday and another seriously injured. On the diplomatic front, the UN has announced a taskforce to restore the flow of fertilizer and aid through the Strait of Hormuz, while the UN's atomic watchdog confirms an attack on a heavy water facility at Khondab in Iran. Stay with us for live updates on this and UN agencies. App users can follow coverage here.Read the full story, “MIDDLE EAST LIVE 30 March: UN peacekeeper killed amid Israel-Hezbollah clashes”, on globalissues.org →

UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for accountability after a peacekeeper was killed in Lebanon on Sunday amid hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.Read the full story, “UN peacekeeper killed, another seriously injured, in southern Lebanon”, on globalissues.org →

An Ethiopian man describes how he was tortured by human traffickers as he went in search of his nephew on a now infamous migration route from the Horn of Africa through Yemen to Saudi Arabia.Read the full story, “Kidnapped and tortured on an infamous migration route to Saudi Arabia”, on globalissues.org →

Just hours after war broke out in the Middle East last month, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned the Security Council that the fighting risked “igniting a chain of events that no one can control in the most volatile region of the world.”Read the full story, “Middle East war: UN initiatives support mediation efforts, ‘lifesaving’ fertiliser shipments”, on globalissues.org →

UNITED NATIONS, March 27 (IPS) - In the month following the reopening of the Burundi-Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) border, the humanitarian crisis in the DRC has deteriorated considerably, recently marked by an influx of Congolese refugees returning home, where they face overcrowded conditions and a severe shortage of essential services. This comes in the midst of escalating clashes between rebel groups AFC and M23, and forces affiliated with the Kinshasa government, with drone strikes causing widespread destruction and pushing violence closer to Burundi’s borders, where conditions are most dire. Read the full story, “Escalating Violence and Influx of Returnees in DRC Fuel Regional Instability”, on globalissues.org →

GENEVA, March 27 (IPS) - More than three weeks after the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran, the conflict is spreading and intensifying in the region and beyond, with civilians bearing the brunt. Families across the region marked Eid and Nowruz under fire, in fear and uncertainty, and facing further hardship. Read the full story, “The “Extremely Dangerous and Unpredictable” situation in Middle East and Beyond”, on globalissues.org →

SAINT LUCIA, March 27 (IPS) - As the world edges closer to breaching key climate thresholds, Caribbean policymakers, scientists and civil society leaders gathered in Saint Lucia this month to coordinate the region’s position ahead of a landmark global meeting on transitioning away from fossil fuels. Read the full story, “Caribbean Leaders and Civil Society Prepare for Global Push on Fossil Fuel Phase-Out”, on globalissues.org →