UN Catch-Up Dateline Geneva

In this week’s 15-minute podcast, we enter the murky world of so-called intelligent drone strike technology and concerns about their proliferation in an interview with the UN Institute for Disarmament Research. Also, an alert over Africa’s third COVID wave, a new UN report likening drought to a new pandemic and a warning over the plight of millions of domestic workers, from the UN labour agency ILO. Also, we’ll have closing comments from regular guest, Solange Behoteguy Cortes.

In this week’s UN Catch-Up, we’re getting in touch with the natural world – a photo contest showing what animals make of COVID lockdowns…Plus, the week’s top news stories from UN News, including likely famine in Ethiopia’s Tigray and alarming coronavirus vaccine shortfalls in nearly all African nations. I’m your host in Geneva, Daniel Johnson, and regular guest Solange Behoteguy-Cortes is with us too for closing comments. Thanks for listening.

In this week’s 15-minute UN Catch-Up podcast, we hear from the UN aid team that’s been caught up in the terrifying volcanic eruption in DR Congo’s Goma city. Plus, the week’s top news stories from UN News, covering Ethiopia’s Tigray, COVID in Africa and a global biodiversity regeneration call. With Daniel Johnson and Solange Behoteguy-Cortes. Thanks for listening.

In this week’s 15-minute podcast we hear about a bold new exhibition at the Red Cross Museum in Geneva that’s looking to shake up preconceptions about what humanitarians do and should be doing, plus coverage of the week’s top stories, including the latest on the Mount Nyiragongo volcanic eruption in eastern DR Congo, a new warning about global warming, and the Human Rights Council’s vote to launch a high-level inquiry into ‘systematic’ abuses in Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel. With Daniel Johnson and Solange Behoteguy-Cortes, from the Information Service at UN Geneva.

In this week’s UN Catch-Up podcast, we hear about the pressures facing aid workers and people on the front line in Gaza, an appeal for help for almost 900,000 Rohingya refugees, an alert that Mozambicans fleeing violence to Tanzania have been forcibly returned, and guidance from the WHO on genetically modified mosquitoes to overcome deadly malaria. As ever, there’ll be insight from regular guest, Solange Behoteguy-Cortes.

In this week’s UN Catch-Up: would you return to your war-shattered country to help rebuild it? That’s exactly what one Somali doctor did - she tells us her inspiring story. We’ll have news on the serious escalation in Middle East and the Myanmar crisis – it’s passed the 100-day mark – a call for International Criminal Court proceedings for genocide against Iraq’s Yazidis, and former Liberia President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s appeal for bold WHO reforms, to prevent another devastating pandemic from happening again. With comment from regular guest Solange Behoteguy Cortes from UN Geneva.

In this week’s UN Catch-Up: a veteran aid worker’s take on the distressing scale of the humanitarian crisis in Southern Madagascar – it’s on the “periphery of famine”, he tells us, and not for the first time.

UN Catch-Up takes us from talks over the divided eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus, to the deadly stretch of water that separates North Africa from Europe, scene of a particularly disturbing migrant shipwreck this week.

We’ll also hear an alert from UNICEF in the Central African Republic over ongoing violence that’s leaving youngsters vulnerable to exploitation – and a warning from the UN agency for sexual and reproductive health, over the devastating consequences for women, girls and their families from the UK’s $180 million funding cut.

In this week’s UN Catch-Up, first-hand information on the continuing humanitarian and security crisis in Ethiopia’s Tigray – from the UN Children’s Fund UNICEF; an alert from the Central African Republic where fighting between Government forces and rebels in the north of the country has forced thousands to flee.

And, a warning from UN Secretary-General that the world is on the edge of an abyss from climate change, at the White House’s Climate Leaders’ Summit – as UNHCR unveils new data showing that climate shocks has displaced twice as many people as conflict in the last decade.

In this week’s UN Catch-Up, a chilling warning from the UN rights chief who’s likened the spiralling violence in Myanmar to Syria at the start of its decade-long war - and some welcome news about the rebuilding of Mosul’s great Al-Nouri Mosque, that suffered such terrible damage in the fight to clear ISIL extremists from the Iraqi city…