West Bank annexation pledge would be serious violation of international law: Guterres
Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu’s election promise to annex the Jordan Valley and Northern Dead Sea “would constitute a serious violation of international law” if carried out, UN Secretary-General António Guterres has said.
In a statement issued by his office, the UN chief also noted that he was concerned by Mr. Netanyahu’s description of the move as “a first step to applying Israeli sovereignty over all settlements and other areas in the occupied West Bank”.
Such a development “would be devastating” to reviving negotiations and to regional peace, Mr. Guterres said, and it risked severely undermining the viability of the two-State solution, which the UN remains committed to achieving.
One in 10 children miss out on essential vaccines, warns WHO in bid to address immunization gap
The UN health agency has joined forces with the European Union to tackle the spread of vaccine-preventable diseases - and confront the spread of misinformation about inoculations.
Speaking at the first Global Vaccination Summit in Brussels on Thursday, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that one in 10 children fails to get the essential jabs they need.
Together with EU President Jean-Claude Juncker, Tedros called for governments and partners to invest in immunization “as a right for all”.
The initiative comes amid a resurgence of preventable diseases, notably measles, which has seen infection rates surge above levels not seen since 2006.
In the past three years, seven countries have lost their measles elimination status, including four in the European region, according to WHO.
The agency has declared people’s hesitancy about vaccines, one of the 10 key threats to global health.
According to a Eurobarometer survey in April, almost one in two people in the EU believe that some jabs “often produce serious side effects”.
China/Hong Kong: UN independent experts urge China to respect protesters’ rights
And finally, as protests in Hong Kong enter their third month, UN-appointed independent rights experts have called on the territory’s authorities and the Chinese Government in Beijing to ensure the full protection of individuals engaged in peaceful assembly.
Issuing their appeal on Thursday, the four rights experts said that they were concerned by “credible” reports of attacks on demonstrators, arrests of activists and human rights defenders, and threats to communications.
The development follows months of sometimes violent clashes over a planned bill allowing extradition to mainland China.
Although the authorities have fully withdrawn the legislation, indicating a willingness to address “some” grievances, demonstrations have continued, the rights experts said,
At the same time, they also expressed concern at reports of sporadic violence among a “small segment of demonstrators” and urged both sides to find a peaceful way to address tensions.
Daniel Johnson, UN News.
