culture

For ages masculinity has been equated with power, toughness and the suppression of one’s emotions, according to the UN Population Fund.

The notion of what it means to be a “man” may have contributed to risky behaviours, sometimes deepening gender inequities, the agency adds.

But a new initiative led by the Institute of Development Studies in Sussex, Britain, is helping men change these harmful social norms to become staunch allies of women’s rights.

Preparations are underway for a first ever summit in South Africa in June to create partnerships between the various nations and the diaspora communities around the world.

As part of these efforts, the African Union recently organized a gathering of lawmakers from Africa and the diaspora in New York.

The meeting, which was facilitated by the Office of the United Nations Special Adviser on Africa, brought together lawmakers, experts and scholars from Africa and the African diaspora.

Forget dot com (.com) soon it will be dot anything you can think of and with that will come a lot of cybersquatting and other domain name disputes.

The UN’s World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is already responsible for the protection of intellectual property throughout the world. WIPO will now resolve disputes involving rights to a domain name.

It was given this new role by The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which is allowing the new array of Internet domain endings.

Uzbekistan is adopting a child-friendly approach to increase the number of children attending pre-school, according to UNICEF.

The schools are trying to create a safe, inclusive, engaging environment that operates in the best interest of every child.

Pre-school enrolment remains low, with less than 20 per cent of children between the ages of 3 and 5 attending pre-school.

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For the past 66 years, UN Radio has stayed true to its mission of informing the world’s populations.

It has come a long way from the days when it started in 1945, in a makeshift studio in Lake Success, a village outside New York City.

While the technology UN Radio is using has changed, its goals have not.

It continues to promote the universal ideals of the United Nations including peace, respect for human rights, gender equality and international law.

Somalia remains one of the most dangerous places in the world to work as a reporter.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), at least 37 journalists have been killed in the line of duty in Somali since 1992.

The latest victim was Hassan Osman Abdi, the Director of Radio Shebelle who was gunned down outside his home in Mogadishu on 28 January.

His murder has been condemned by the UN cultural agency, UNESCO and the top United Nations envoy in Somalia.

Women at the grassroots in Nepal are being empowered to address all forms of violence against them and their children.

Community-based Paralegal Committee programmes, supported by UNICEF, were created initially to stop the trafficking of persons.

But more recently, the committees are settling domestic disputes, matters relating to property rights, fighting discrimination and also promoting family health rights.

John Britte UNICEF’s Chief Communications officer described to Dianne Penn how these paralegal committees work.

A documentary film celebrating the life of the late Jewish prodigy, Petr Ginz, murdered during the Holocaust, will soon go global.

Using Petr’s art and writings, The Last Flight of Petr Ginz will help teach teenagers worldwide about how destructive hatred and prejudice are.

Nazism led to the extermination of 6 million Jews in concentration camps between 1933 and 1945.

More than a million and a half were children. The film highlights a novel Petr wrote at 12, an allegory about the Nazi party.

Over the past six years there has been a rise in the number of think tanks in developing countries, including some African nations. And although their number is still relatively small, the analysis and research they provide on key issues, including national security, help governments and civil society in formulating policies.

James G. McGann heads the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program at the University of Pennsylvania in the USA. It compiles an annual report ranking thousands of think tanks globally, the latest of which was launched on Wednesday at the United Nations.