President Obama, in his annual address to the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday, cited "the cancer of violent extremism" in the Middle East as the single issue that could derail future global progress, and said six years into his presidency that the world is at a crossroads. He specifically called on Muslim communities in the region to confront the threat of extremism and reject such ideology.
The U.N. on Wednesday called its highest level of emergency for the humanitarian crisis in Iraq, where hundreds of thousands have been driven from their homes and tens of thousands have been trapped in a desert mountain by the advance of Islamic militants across the north of the country. The declaration of a "Level 3 Emergency" will trigger additional goods, funds and assets to respond to the needs of those displaced, said U.N. special representative Nickolay Mladenov, who pointed to the "scale and complexity of the current humanitarian catastrophe."
A leading physician in Sierra Leone's fight against Ebola has died from the disease, an official said Wednesday, as it emerged that another top doctor last month was considered for an experimental treatment. There was very little of the experimental treatment available, which has stoked debate about ethics on who should get it even though it hasn't been tested in humans. There is no way of knowing if the drug, known as ZMapp, made a difference in the few people who have gotten the now-exhausted supply of the drug.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned attacks and discrimination against homosexuals on Thursday, touching on the gay rights issue in Russia that has overshadowed preparations for the Sochi Olympics.
Scarlett Johansson chose her lucrative endorsement deal with SodaStream – roundly criticized for producing its wares in an illegal settlement in occupied Palestine – over her position on the board of the charity OxFam. OxFam gave her an ultimatum, firmly believing one could not both support human rights within the charity and receive payment from a company against whom that charity is fighting.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has finalized its plan for the destruction of Syria's stockpile of weapons and precursor chemicals, with the most toxic material to be destroyed at sea aboard a U.S. ship. But factors beyond the Nobel Peace Prize-winning watchdog's control could lead to delays.
Syria's government and opposition will meet for the first time in an attempt to halt the nearly 3-year-old civil war that has killed more than 100,000 people, the United Nations said Monday. Previous attempts to bring the two sides together have failed, mainly because of disputes over who should represent the opposition and the government, Syrian President Bashar Assad's future role in the country, and whether Iran, Saudi Arabia and other regional powers should be at the table.
The Obama administration is pushing for ratification of a U.N. accord on the rights of the disabled less than a year after Senate Republicans rejected pleas for its passage from two former GOP presidential nominees and delivered a stinging rebuke to a global treaty modeled largely on American law.
A new study released today at the UN climate conference underway in Warsaw, Poland, finds that new coal plants cannot be built if we are to keep global warming below the 2° Celsius threshold. That is, unless the coal industry can deploy commercial-scale carbon capture and storage. That is, in and of itself, a near impossibility.
Inspectors entrusted with the enormous task of overseeing the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles began their mission Monday, flying to Lebanon en route to Syria, where their first priority will be to help the country scrap its ability to manufacture such arms by a Nov. 1 deadline. Syria's Foreign Minister said the government refuses to sit down for talks with members of the main Western-backed opposition groups, putting a damper on U.S.-Russian efforts to hold a peace conference with the two sides by mid-November.
