Human Rights
U.S. President Barack Obama’s new strategy to “degrade, and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is being met with widespread scepticism among both hawks and doves, as well as regional specialists. While Congress is expected to acquiesce, if not formally authorise, the plans he outlined in his nationally televised prime-time speech […]
After four long years of protracted negotiations, a proposal for a nuclear weapons-free zone (NWFZ) in the strife-torn Middle East remains in limbo – and perhaps virtually dead. But United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, a relentless advocate of nuclear disarmament, is determined to resurrect the proposal. “I remain fully committed to convening a conference on […]
Somar Wijayadasa is a former representative of UNESCO and UNAIDS at the United Nations in New York
Bill Miller is the accredited Washington International journalist covering the U.N. and is the producer/moderator of Global Connections Television. The writer can be contacted at: millerkyun@aol.com
A United Nations panel reviewing the U.S. record on racial discrimination has expressed unusually pointed concern over a new pattern of laws it warns is criminalising homelessness. U.S. homelessness has increased substantially in the aftermath of the financial downturn, and with a disproportionate impact on minorities. Yet in many places officials have responded by cracking […]
Alice Slater is New York Director of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and serves on the Coordinating Committee of Abolition 2000
“Survival migration” is not a reality show, but an accurate description of human mobility fuelled by desperation and fear. How despairing are these migrant contingents? Look at the figures of Central American children travelling alone, which are growing. The painful journeys of children and teenagers from Central America to the United States border sounded alarms […]
Joe sits on newspapers spread on the sidewalk by the entrance to midtown’s Grand Central Station. His head rests in his hands, only looking up when coins from passersby clink into his paper cup. “A shelter is like a prison without guards,” he says, when asked why he was out on the street. “I’m done […]
This week’s video-taped beheading of a U.S. journalist by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) has spurred renewed calls for President Barack Obama to broaden Washington’s military efforts to strike the terrorist group, including in Syria. While Obama himself has long resisted pressure from neo-conservatives and other hawks to intervene more directly in […]
IPS Daily Report
