The Australian Government temporarily suspended processing of asylum claims from Afghan and Sri Lankan nationals earlier this month, claiming the situations in those countries had sufficiently improved.
The video opens with footage from a "juvenile rehabilitation facility" for Afghan girls doing time for "moral crimes" -- you can only guess what those might be. It is good to see UNICEF pushing back against this sort of thing.
In the midst of researching this post, I came across news that AVATAR director James Cameron will host a screening of the film at the UN on Saturday, to coincide with an annual meeting of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.
I guess I should be getting used to this by now, but here you have Susan Rice being interrupted with applause as she announces an American policy shift toward a UN body. Rice is speaking at a meeting of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, which is an entity that supports the interests of historically marginalized indigenous populations.
Stat-heads perk up. The World Bank just released its 2010 World Development Indicators in a format that will surely please. Or, rather, they released it in any format you please.
For instance, in honor of Earth Day, you might want to check out CO2 emissions in pure kilotons per country. Table or map? Map? Ok.
Ed. note. To honor Earth Day, we are highlighting some of our more poingnent climate change posts over the past year. Here's UN Dispatch publisher Peter Daou exploring the morally bankrupt worldview of climate-deniers
I feel like I have written a variation of this post a half dozen times since Christmas. Here we go again. Via Laura Rozen, I see that the Pentagon has moved forward with its plans to double military assistance to Yemen to $150 million. Says Laura:
Urbanization is going to be the next great challenge of international development. Over a billion people now live in cities, and most of those people live in slums. City dwellers face higher rates of obesity, malnutrition, communicable diseases, and chronic illness like high blood pressure and diabetes. Moving from a rural area to a city puts the migrant at an increased risk of violent crime and poverty.
I love the UNFPA Technical Division. They consistently produce fascinating, under-reported documents on women and women’s health. Most recently, they have developed an up-to-date cost estimate for implementation of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). These numbers were actually presented to the UN in March 2009, but the comprehensive report that explains methodology was just released.