UN maritime agency condemns deadly attack on Red Sea ship
A new strike on a merchant ship off the southern coast of Yemen that reportedly killed several seafarers has reignited deep concerns about global trade, amid the ongoing Iran-US war.
In a statement condemning Tuesday’s attack, the head of the UN maritime agency Arsenio Dominguez expressed his sadness that “innocent seafarers” had died in an “indefensible attack on international shipping”.
Mr. Dominguez warned the assaults there and in the Strait of Hormuz in recent months “only serve to escalate tensions and threaten global supply chains on which everyone depends”.
The strike on the deck cargo ship Tihamah has been attributed to Yemen’s Houthi fighters.
The non-State armed group is formally known as Ansar Allah; it receives backing from Iran and is at war with Yemeni Government forces, who are supported by a Saudi Arabia-led coalition.
The group has also threatened to blockade the Bab al-Mandab Strait, a key shipping route to the Red Sea.
On 23 July, they claimed to have struck two Saudi oil tankers, according to media reports.
Afghanistan: Harsh reality of five years of Taliban rule
Five years since Afghanistan’s de-facto rulers seized power, the exclusion of women and girls has become normalised.
That’s according to analysis from gender equality agency UN Women showing that one in two women interviewed leave home only once or twice a month, because of the severe restrictions on their movement and access to public spaces.
“Afghanistan has systematically dismantled the rights of half its population, making it a global outlier with no parallel in the modern world,” the agency said.
In the past year alone, the exclusion of women and girls from accessing key services has intensified; from education, employment, public life, courts and healthcare, UN Women said.
Key Taliban proclamations negatively impacting women issued this year include Decree no. 12 which gives husbands legal authority over their wives and limits their ability to seek justice.
UN Women also pointed to Decree no. 18 which makes it significantly harder for a woman to leave a marriage, while preserving men’s right to divorce. It also implicitly permits child marriage.
WHO’s Tedros defends scientifically-backed line on vaccines
The head of the World Health Organization, WHO, has pushed back at proposed changes to vaccinating children in the United States against a range of preventable diseases.
In a statement on Wednesday, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stood by immunity-boosting vaccines, describing them as “among the most powerful tools” parents had to keep their children safe.
His comments come after an executive order by President Trump directed federal agencies to reduce the number of recommended vaccines children receive.
Tedros insisted that these changes “are not aligned with decades of evidence” on when best to immunize children and with how many doses.
Scientific research has also provided clear evidence on which vaccines can be given together safely, the WHO Director-General stressed.
“The current evidence is unequivocal: vaccines – including the MMR vaccine – are safe do not cause autism,” Tedros insisted, adding that delaying vaccines or separating doses “can leave children unprotected”.
Daniel Johnson, UN News.
Source of original article: United Nations (news.un.org). Photo credit: UN. The content of this article does not necessarily reflect the views or opinion of Global Diaspora News (www.globaldiasporanews.com).
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