Welcome to a brief overview of articles that appeared last week on our website. Please don't stop here - be sure to browse the full list of articles that appeared this week. xunicefnewsandviews.blogspot.com
Our Feature of the Week
Portraits from Ethiopia by George McBean
A recent trip to visit his son and his family in Ethiopia gave George an opportunity to paint portraits of many of the people he met along the way. Here he offers us a glimpse of the faces of local taxi drivers, security guards, street coffee sellers, gardeners, tour guides, wives and children he met. As George says, "all of whom responded with laughter when I showed them their portraits. (Even the tortoise seemed to chuckle)." Click here.
Our Columnists This Week
Ken Gibbs - That Pesky Learning Curve ---Again!
Fouad Kronfol - Soliloquy #79 UN Edifices
Detlef Palm - The UNICEF Virtual Reality
Ramesh Shrestha - Malala and Greta
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Iran - Social media criticism over what many perceive as UNICEF's silence on the deaths, injuries and arrests of children continued this week. Winner of the Nobel Prize and former close partner of UNICEF, Shirin Ebadi, joined in the criticism in a recent interview. Elsewhere, an apparently fake Instagram account claimed that Angelina Jolie had added her voice to efforts pressing UNICEF to speak out more forcefully. The claim proved to be false, but the fact that it was quickly amplified on social media showed the depth of concern felt by many in the public.
The SG's Office, UNICEF and other UN agencies have stayed relatively quiet lately over the situation in Iran (and in Tigray, Sudan and Myanmar). We wondered therefore whether the UN has made a corporate decision to shift attention away from agencies like UNICEF and to make the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights the sole UN voice on human Rights. The new UN High Commissioner, Volker Türk, pointed to over 300 deaths, including at least 40 children, so far. See his recent remarks. It may make good 'corporate' sense for the UN to use a single spokesperson (and spokes-agency), we worry that UNICEF and other agencies may be losing their voices on human rights issues relevant to their particular mandates - children, refugees, child labour, food, etc.
A special session of the UN Human Rights Council was the focus of international concern over violent suppression of demonstrations by Iranian authorities. Following a contentious debate and a surprising number of abstentions, the Council voted to send a fact-finding mission to investigate the situation.
Be sure to read the comments of Kul Gautam and Niloufar Pourzand below the article. What do you think the UN and UNICEF could or should do in the situation? Add your comments please to the articles we have posted, or send us your own 'op-Ed' .
Tigray - the first supplies sent by UNICEF and UNHCR reached Tigray this week - finally!! We hope that a regular flow of staff and supplies will allow essential services to resume quickly. At the same time we are concerned that we hear and read so little of the situation UNICEF is finding there and the work they are doing in response.
The World Cup - like much of the world, we suppose that you are following the Soccer World Cup games in Qatar. Take a moment out from the games to join Horst Cerni as he looks back to the World Cup in Mexico in 1986. Do you have memories of past World Cups?
Happy Thanksgiving - Thursday was Thanksgiving Day in the US. Whether you and your family celebrated Thanksgiving this week or at some other time of the year, we hope you had a wonderful celebration and found a time for gratitude for all of life's blessings.
Looking Back 4 Years to November 2028
XUNICEF Reunion Bangalore - 8 to 14 November 2018 - see the mega album of photos contributed by those who attended.
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Poetry of the Week
Music of the Week
Click here for comments we received over the past week. The most recent six comments also appear in the right sidebar. If you don't see them, click the 'hamburger symbol' in the upper right corner. That is also where you can find many other links (XUNICEF bibliography, list of members, photos, etc.). Take a look, as we add new links frequently.
Do you have an event or meeting you would like to add to the calendar? Let us know by writing to us at xunicef.news.views@gmail.com. Don't forget that we learn of many events after our Weekly Digest has gone out, so please check the calendar during the week to learn of last minute notices.
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