Sanitation crisis in Gaza. Top news of the day | Monday: Ukraine-RF, Africa, youth, Gaza UN
Top news of the day in the UN and in the world: developments in the Kursk region, strengthening of Africa’s representation in the UN Security Council, youth unemployment falls to a 15-year low, lack of clean water in Gaza.
Military action in Kursk region
The UN continues to monitor developments and reports of attacks near the Ukrainian-Russian border, including in the Kursk region of Russia. This was stated by UN Deputy Press Secretary Farhan Haq, answering a journalist’s question. The UN opposes the spread of hostilities to new areas, Haq said, calling on all parties to act responsibly and ensure the protection of civilians. He reiterated the UN Secretary General’s call to prevent further escalation. Meanwhile, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said that the strike on the cooling tower of the Zaporizhzhya NPP on Sunday did not affect the nuclear safety of the plant.
Africa in the Security Council
“We cannot accept the fact that the UN Security Council does not have a permanent representative from a continent with a population of more than a billion people ” This statement was made by the UN Secretary General, speaking at a Security Council meeting dedicated to strengthening the representation of Africa. Africa, according to Antonio Guterres, is not well represented in global governance structures, but suffers disproportionately from the problems that these structures are designed to solve. Ensuring confidence in the activities of the Security Council means that it is necessary to heed the calls of the UN General Assembly and the Security Council itself and correct the existing injustice by including a representative from Africa among its permanent members, the Secretary-General concluded.
Youth Labor Market
The number of unemployed young people worldwide is at its lowest level in 15 years, but the post-pandemic economic recovery has not borne fruit for people in the Asia-Pacific and Arab States, especially for young women, according to experts from the International Labor Organization (ILO), who presented new data on the global labor market in a report released on Monday, International Youth Day. Last year, the youth unemployment rate was 13 percent. Another trend in the youth labour market is that it is harder than ever to find decent and stable work, according to the ILO.
Gaza crisis
UN Secretary-General António Guterres has condemned the deaths of people, including women and children, in Gaza as a result of an Israeli strike on the Al-Tabaeen school where hundreds of families were sheltering. Meanwhile, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warns that untreated sewage has formed entire ponds near camps for internally displaced people in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza. UN aid agencies are calling for a ceasefire to allow the delivery of oral polio vaccines after the virus was found in the enclave’s wastewater.