“Gamechanging Team,” image of an artwork donated by Carling Jackson, a humanitarian and artist in Vancouver, Canada, to the UN Refugee Agency. The imagined team features a lineup of soccer/football professional players and their younger selves, “each with a personal or family history impacted by forced displacement,” the agency says. The mural is displayed in the Visitors Lobby of UN headquarters in New York City. DEVAN HEAD/UNHCR
This Week @UN : Restarting multilateralism; fact-checking a SecGgen debate; fighting child labor.
Plus: Gaza crossings blocked; disability-rights progress; women’s-rights protests in Afghanistan; Oman tackles hate speech; this filthy-rich guy just got richer.
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• Our #1 story: Five New Countries Elected to the UN Security Council’s 2027-28 Term , by Damilola Banjo
• Breaking news: Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett , Guyana’s ambassador to the UN, has been nominated by her country as a candidate for UN secretary-general.
PassBlue this week:
• How the Next UN Chief Can End the Era of Stalled Multilateralism , by Jérôme Bellion-Jourdan & Hayley Walker
• Fact-Checking a UN Secretary-General Candidates’ Debate in Geneva , by Damilola Banjo
• Free Education Is Crucial to Combating Child Labor , op-ed by Jo Becker
US-UN Tracker: In a recent interview on Fox News , Jeff Bartos , the US representative for UN management and reform, said that “UN reform is no longer an oxymoron,” noting $570 million in cuts in the organization’s budget and 2,900 positions eliminated. Bartos points to the cuts as “evidence that the Trump Administration is successfully reshaping a bloated and inefficient system detached from its core mission,” according to a statement from the US mission to the UN. Yet the interview does not mention that the US owes approximately $4 billion in mandatory dues to the UN regular and peacekeeping budgets, much of it in arrears.
On June 8, Farhan Haq, UN deputy spokesperson, took exception with Bartos contending the reforms were orchestrated by the US, saying: “You’re aware of the UN80 initiative and the role the Secretary-General has played, both in terms of streamlining the Secretariat under his own authority and proposing to the Member States steps that they can take. The steps, by the way, to make the UN more efficient that are undertaken by bodies like the General Assembly are to the credit of all the Member States, not any individual one. And we certainly appreciate the work that all States, including the United States, have played in the reform process.”
Top UN news:
Monday, June 8
• Spokesperson’s briefing : The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs ( OCHA ), said the Israeli government closed the Kerem Shalom crossing, the only crossing into Gaza that had been operational for cargo over the past two weeks, and the Rafah crossing on June 8, with Israel citing the recent Iranian strikes fired toward Israel for the closures, said the UN deputy spokesperson, Farhan Haq. [Update, June 9-11] : Israel reopened Kerem Shalom crossing, which remains the only point for approved cargo to enter Gaza, but on June 11, its crossings were reduced. The Rafah crossing was reopened for a limited number of people in both directions.
• Tressa Rae Finerty of the US is named deputy high commissioner for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), succeeding Kelly Clements of the US .
Tuesday, June 9
• Spokesperson’s briefing : Speaking at the 19th session of the Conference of States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities ( CRPD ), Secretary-General António Guterres celebrated the Convention’s ratification by 193 countries and one regional organization as major progress, highlighting that over 90 percent of countries have laws protecting the rights of persons with disabilities and almost 80 percent “prohibit discrimination in hiring.” Although the achievements have helped millions of people gain access to education and employment, Guterres urged governments to “empower persons with disabilities as full partners in policymaking and decision-making,” adding that the latest UN Disability and Development Report finds that “almost all disability-related Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicators are off track.”
Wednesday, June 10
• Spokesperson’s briefing : OCHA notes with concern violence and human rights violations amid “increasing restrictions against women and girls” as well as rising hostilities between Pakistan and Afghanistan , as the Taliban in Afghanistan reported “multiple airstrikes attributed to Pakistan” in the Kunar, Khost and Paktika provinces. (Pakistan denies the accusations.) Dozens of women and girls were reportedly detained across Herat City, after the Taliban government decreed that women must “observe the existing strict dress code requirements in public areas,” and…
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