What does being a winner mean? For 12-year old Adrielle Alexandre, who is carrying the Olympic torch, it’s not only about becoming an Olympic rhythmic gymnast, but to make her community a place free of violence and full of respect. She is among 400 girls who are participating in a programme in Brazil that empowers girls through sport and by creating safe spaces.
NEW YORK (IDN-INPS) - “I’ve learned from sport that we have to make efforts to succeed. We get nowhere if we stay at the same place doing nothing,” says Adrielle Alexandre, a 12-year old young athlete from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
At least four times a week after school, Adrielle goes to an Olympic Villa – one of 22 public spaces with free sports facilities managed by the municipality – to take ballet, gymnastics and Pilates classes.
For Syrian refugees in Jordan, integration into the Jordanian society is fraught with challenges. Mistrust and rumours taint how each group perceives the other. A project by UN Women organized football camps for adolescent girls, where Jordanian and Syrian girls built friendships and social cohesion.
UN Women News Feature
NEW YORK (IDN-INPS) - Rawan and Samah have much in common. They are about the same age; they live in the same city – Mafraq, in northern Jordan – just a short drive from the Syrian border. They are loving, dedicated mothers to daughters who go to the same school. They share similar responsibilities, joys, and struggles in their daily lives. But one crucial difference sets them a world apart.
UN Women News Feature
NEW YORK (IDN-INPS) - Sport has the power to transcend boundaries of sex, race, religion and nationality. It promotes health and wellness, improves self-esteem, and teaches leadership, team skills and perseverance.
Women in sport defy gender stereotypes, make inspiring role models, and show men and women as equals. Seeing is one step closer to being.
Women are more visible in sport now than ever before: Of a total of 997 athletes, only 22 women competed, for the first time, at the 1900 Games in Paris. The London 2012 Olympics was the first Games in which women competed in every sport of the Olympic programme. In Rio, approximately 4,700 women – 45 per cent of all athletes – will represent their countries in 306 events.
Analysis by Jacques N. Couvas
ANKARA (IDN) – The fourth and latest military coup in the history of the Turkish Republic ended at 8:02 p.m. on Saturday, July 16, less than 24 hours after it had begun. It was bloody. And it failed.
Hardly a week later, the state of emergency has been declared, tens of thousands of state and military personnel have been dismissed and three million servants recalled from holidays.
As the Turkish people recover from the psychological shock following the events, questions and all kinds of theories fill the discussions in the squares, cafés and social media. They are wondering “why” and “why now”? And then, “what is next”? All this on the assumption that everyone agrees with the answer to the question “who did it”?
By Fernando Torres Morán
LIMA (IDN) – Oxapampa is a province in the Pasco Region, in the high jungle area of Peru, which is home to the Oxapampa-Asháninka-Yanesha Biosphere Reserve that was recognised by UNESCO in 2010.
The reserve houses a number of protected natural areas such as the Yanachaga Chemillen National Park, with an area of 122 thousand hectares (spread over the districts of Huancabamba, Oxapampa, Villa Rica and Pozuzo) and the San Matías-San Carlos Protection Forest, with an area of 145,818 hectares (spread over the districts of Palcazu, Puerto Bermudez and Villa Rica).
Over the decades, the area has suffered forest depredation, and Peru's non-governmental Pronaturaleza foundation for the conservation of nature has recently condemned the illegal felling of trees in the Yanachaga Chemillen National Park, including the extraction of one hundred thousand planks of wood from trees such as thyme, cedar and fig. (P22) JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | SPANISH
By J C Suresh
TORONTO (IDN) - Governments, civil society organisations and more than 65 million people who are uprooted from their homes are looking forward to the United Nations Summit on Refugees and Migrants on September 19 at UN headquarters in New York.
The high-level meeting being organised by the UN General Assembly will address large movements of refugees and migrants, with the aim of bringing countries together behind a more humane and coordinated approach.
Addressing an event at the world body’s headquarters on July 19 in New York, UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson stressed the need for “a discourse about making migration safe, orderly and responsible”, as spelled out in one of the Sustainable Development Goals under Agenda 2030.
By Rodney Reynolds
UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – The United Nations formally launched on July 11 its global campaign to help ensure the implementation of its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aimed at achieving social, economic and environmental advancement for over 7.0 billion people worldwide.
But the lingering question before the 10-day High Level Political Forum (HLPF) on SDGs was whether or not the international community will reach its targets, including the elimination of poverty and economic inequalities by 2030, as envisaged by world leaders in September 2015?
Reiterating the primary theme of the SDG Forum – “Ensuring that no one is left behind” – UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the successful implementation of SDGs will depend on its inclusiveness. (P21) JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | KOREAN TEXT VERSION PDF
By Ramesh Jaura
BERLIN | NEW YORK (IDN) - The Department of Political Affairs plays a central role in the United Nations efforts to prevent and resolve deadly conflicts around the world. But it will not be on the radar screen of the Security Council when it opens on July 21 the first round of unofficial ‘straw polls’ to agree on one of the 12 candidates for the post of the Secretary-General.
A candidate who is acceptable to the five permanent members – USA, Russia, China, Britain and France – and is elected later by the General Assembly to succeed Ban Ki-moon, whose second five-year term expires on December 31, 2016, will however have to pay heed to the Evaluation of the United Nations Department of Political Affairs (DPA). (P20) JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF
- Ramesh Jaura
- Goal 5
By Lisa Vives
NEW YORK (IDN | GIN) – On July 18, the international community will observe the ‘Nelson Mandela International Day’ – formalised by the UN General Assembly in November 2009 – to recall the former South African President’s contribution to the culture of peace and freedom.
For 67 years Nelson Mandela, who was born in a village named Mvezo of South Africa in 1918, devoted his life to the service of humanity – as a human rights lawyer, a prisoner of conscience, an international peacemaker and the first democratically elected president of a free South Africa, recalls the UN.
He was the first black South African president who reigned from 1994 to 1999. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 for his contribution to make South Africa free and bringing peace in and around Africa.
GENEVA (IDN | GIN) – The United Nations Human Rights Council has voted to appoint an independent monitor to help protect gay and transgender people around the world from violence and discrimination, but not without fierce resistance from African and Muslim countries.
The June 30 vote was called “a historic victory for the human rights of anyone at risk of discrimination and violence because of their sexual orientation or gender identity,” said Human Rights Watch and other rights groups in a coalition.
The independent monitor will report annually to the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly on best practices to minimise discrimination against sexual orientation and gender identity. It will work with states, UN agencies and other organizations.
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