XUNICEF News and Views

Ken in Bam In the latest New Scientist magazine, there was a lot of loose advertising material. Normally, I bin what I see as junk mail but this time, one item caught my eye.

Author: The New Humanitarian staff  Publication: The New Humanitarian 

Law of (in)convenience The Strait of Hormuz, despite many Iranian threats over the decades, has never been closed until now

As our University academic year here in Toronto is coming to an end and my students (of 3 courses at York University and the University of Toronto - Munk School of Global Affairs) and I celebrated the successful culmination of our classes with reflections/feedback and drinks/snacks together and some quality/special moments together - the US/Israel have struck over 30 Iranian universities during this tragic/illegal war of aggression against Iranians and Iran.

Project Maven's Cheery Seal Features Smiling Robots of War* On 19 March I posted my article, How AI and Distance Killed the Children at Al Minab . My focus then was on the moral chasm that opens when killing is automated and carried out at a distance — the way technology allows those who give the orders, or push the button, to remain untouched by what happens at the other end.  I also wrote about the absence of the fail-safe systems of the past - human spotters who could halt attacks on civilians.

Note: This post expands on my previous article " Oil Crisis Today, Food Crisis Tomorrow "  See also ¨A War's Hidden Price" 'explainer video' at bottom of the article. A severely malnourished boy in Hajjah, Yemen. (Hani Mohammed/Associated Press) The Chain — gas, fertiliser, food prices, malnourished children The connection between a missile strike on a Qatari gas plant and a severely malnourished child may not be immediately obvious to many observers of the Iran war. Yet there is a direct chain of cause and effect that could lead, later this year, to a major crisis in child nutrition across Asia and Africa. To understand why the effective closure of a narrow strait threatens the food security of billions, it is necessary to understand the invisible architecture upon which modern agriculture depends — combining nitrogen from the atmosphere with hydrogen from natural gas to produce ammonia, the base from which all synthetic nitrogen fertilisers are created. Wit...

Atrocity at Minab On a Saturday morning in Minab, Iran, parents had just said goodbye at the school gate when a US Tomahawk missile destroyed the Shajareh Tayyebeh elementary school. Between 175 and 180 people died — girls, teachers, and the principal. Aerial footage released by the WANA News Agency shows the scale of the task in Minab: excavators preparing rows of fresh graves for the victims of the February 28 strike ©credit: WANA News Agency / via Indian Express The intended target was a nearby naval base. The school had been physically separate from it for more than a decade. Its website, archived by Reuters, carried photographs of girls in pink and white uniforms at their desks and at play — along with their drawings, their messages of hope, and a motto that now reads as an epitaph: "Today I learn; tomorrow we build."  Vibrant drawings and messages of hope from the Shajareh Tayyebeh website. The school maintained a robust digital presence that made its purpose—and its...

An interesting and gripping analysis by Shahrzad Amoli of how the war in Iran is ignoring International Humanitarian Law and why should we be concerned.

 

Rescue workers and residents search through the rubble after strike on a girls' elementary school in Iran. Overall Casualty figures from the US-Israeli assault on Iran and the Iranian response remain deeply uncertain and are rising by the hour.  Preliminary figures are 555 dead in Iran, at least 10 in Israel, five civilians killed in Gulf states. In addition, four US soldiers were killed in Kuwait.  Iran Iran's Health Ministry now reports approximately 180 children killed in the strike on Shajarah Tayyebeh girls' elementary school in Minab, where girls aged seven to twelve were in class when the missile hit. A second school in Tehran's Narmak district was also struck, killing two more students. Overall deaths across Iran have reached at least 555, with casualty figures from two   hospital strikes in Tehran still unconfirmed as rescue operations continue. Israel In Israel, an Iranian ballistic missile struck residential buildings and a synagogue shelter in Beit Sh...

Iran Strikes: Early Reports of Children Killed in Schools At least 85 girls aged seven to twelve were killed and 93 injured when a strike hit Shajareh Tayyebeh elementary school in the southern Iranian town of Minab as U.S. and Israeli warplanes attacked Iran on Saturday, the start of the local workweek. Many  parents had already dropped off their children at schools when the attacks began.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran (@iranrights)

A memorable evening as Keynote Speaker at the IWOO Gala on Women, Peace & Empowerment. Wonderful to see my accomplished dear second cousin @lily_pourzand and her amazing mother, dear Mehrangiz Kar, one of our foremost Women’s Right activists & lawyers. Mrs. Kar translated & analyzed CEDAW for us in UNICEF, Iran, some 30 years back. Tashakor to IWOO for inviting me @azadehmomeni26 @dr_bashiri . I spoke specifically about the UN SC Resolution on Women, Peace & Security as well as how it applies to Iran, Afghanistan, Palestine, Sudan…Canada.