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Indonesia: Statement by the Spokesperson on the 15th anniversary of the signature of the Helsinki Peace Agreement for Aceh
15 August 2020 marks the fifteenth anniversary of the signature of the Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of Indonesia and the Free Aceh Movement. The peace agreement brought an end to 30 years of conflict. Aceh’s example serves as an inspiration of how, through negotiations and strong political will, peace can be achieved even…
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China Literature Loses Big During the Pandemic
China Literature, China’s top online publishing and bookselling platform, lost $465 million in the first six months of the year, prompting executives to say the company business model and culture needs to be fixed.
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German church leads crowd funding to buy vessel to aid stranded Mediterranean migrants
Germany’s main Protestant church led a crowdfunding effort that purchased the rescue ship Sea-Watch 4 that is ready for work in the Mediterranean Sea to help migrants trying to reach Europe from North Africa.
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Four Western Balkans’ fact-checking organisations join Facebook’s platform against disinformation
Disinformation and misinformation proliferated around the world including in the Western Balkans as the COVID-19 pandemic started. Western Balkans’ fact-checking organisations intensified their work on exposing and countering disinformation, raising the awareness and contributing to local public debates about the problem. As of 30 July, leading fact-checking organisations from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia…
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Revised COVID-19 case definitions
WHO has published revised interim guidance on public health surveillance for COVID-19 cases. This document includes revision of suspected and probable case definitions to integrate increased knowledge on the clinical spectrum of COVID-19 signs and symptoms. WHO has published revised interim guidance on public health surveillance for COVID-19 cases. This document provides guidance to Member…
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Measles and rubella elimination: verification process continues amid COVID-19 pandemic
Public health systems and independent national verification committees in countries of the WHO European Region have shown continued commitment to measles and rubella elimination even with the COVID-19 pandemic creating an extraordinary burden on health systems.
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Real Life Heroes: on a journey towards quality healthcare
In the remote Lamu region, on the northeast coast of Kenya, quality healthcare is hard to come by. Every month, medical staff from Safari Doctors, an NGO founded by Umra Omar, set sail on a boat filled with medicines, to provide free basic medicines to hundreds of marginalized inhabitants in several coastal villages.
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Coronavirus and schools: Access to handwashing facilities key for safe reopening
Handwashing facilities – “Access to water, sanitation and hygiene services is essential for effective infection prevention and control in all settings, including schools”, said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO Director-General. “It must be a major focus of government strategies for the safe reopening and operation of schools during the ongoing COVID-19 global pandemic.” Historic disruption…
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Belarus: UN rights chief condemns violence against protesters, calls for grievances to be heard
The flow of free information is “crucial” in a democratic society, the UN human rights chief said on Wednesday, spotlighting the landlocked eastern European nation of Belarus, “especially in a context of crisis and social unrest”.
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Amid COVID-19, UN commitment to peace ‘more urgent than ever’
COVID-19 threatens not only hard-won development and peacebuilding gains, but also “risks exacerbating conflicts or fomenting new ones”, the UN chief reminded the Security Council on Wednesday, during a briefing on the challenges to achieving sustainable peace, while pandemics ravage communities worldwide.