DR Congo court sentences 51 to death over killing of UN experts
A military court in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has sentenced 51 people to death, several in absentia, in a mass trial over the 2017 murder of two United Nations experts in a troubled central region
KATHMANDU: United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has posthumously honored Nepali peacekeeper Bhupajit Rai with the Dag Hammarskjold Medal. Rai had served in the UN Stabilization Mission in Congo. At a ceremony held at the UN Headquarters on Thursday to mark the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers, Secretary-General Guterres presented the honor to Lok […]
The UN Security Council is expected on Tuesday to accede to a demand from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and launch a gradual withdrawal of peacekeepers, starting later this month. The drawdown would come despite United Nations concern about violence in the eastern part of the country.
The protests were called by a faction of the ruling party’s youth wing, which has demanded the UN mission withdraw over what it describes as its ineffectiveness.
JULY 12: By this November, the planet will be home to 8bn.
But population growth is not as rapid as it used to be.
It is now at its slowest rate since 1950 and is set to peak, says the UN, around the 2080s at about 10.4bn though some demographers believe that could happen even sooner.
But the population of the world is expanding unevenly.
More than half the growth we will see in the next 30 years will happen in just eight countries - the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Tanzania.
At the same time, some of the world's most developed economies are already seeing population decline as fertility rates fall below 2.1 children per woman, which is known as the "replacement rate". In 61 countries, the report says, populations will decline by at least 1% by 2050.
With one of the lowest fertility rates in the world (at 1.15 children per woman), China has announced that its population is due to start declining next year - much earlier than previously thought. That is despite the country abandoning its one child policy in 2016 and introducing incentives for couples to have two or more children.
As India's population continues to grow it will almost certainly overtake China as the country with the biggest population in the world.
Fertility rates are falling globally - even in many of the countries where the population is expanding. That is because, as previous generations expand, there are more people having children, even if individually those people are having fewer children than their parents did.
Growth is also largely thanks to developments in medicine and science which mean that more children are surviving into adulthood and more adults into old age. That pattern is likely to continue, which means that by 2050 the global average life expectancy will be around 77.2 years.
But this pattern means that the share of the global population aged 65 years or above is projected to rise from 10% this year to 16% in 2050. Again the distribution will be unequal with some countries, in East Asia and Western Europe, already seeing more extremes in ageing.
The United Nations Department of Peace Operations announced that Superintendent of Police (SP) Sangya Malla of Nepal, currently serving in the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), will be awarded the 2021 United Nations Woman Police Officer of the Year.
Superintendent Malla will be presented the award by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres at a virtual ceremony on 9 November.
Superintendent Malla currently serves as the Chief of the MONUSCO Police Health and Environment Unit, which she helped establish in the country’s capital, Kinshasa. The unit is responsible for implementing policies and procedures concerning the health and well-being of personnel as well as United Nations Police environmental initiatives. Her contributions have added direct significance in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and past outbreaks of Ebola virus disease, as well as natural and humanitarian crises such as the volcanic eruption in Goma last May, during which her unit alerted the local population and UN staff of precautionary measures.
“She helped establish and now leads MONUSCO’s Health and Environment Unit, enhancing the safety and welfare of our peacekeepers by mitigating the risks from COVID-19 and other threats,” said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. “And she represents something far larger — the many contributions of women police officers in advancing peace and security around the world. Through her work, Superintendent Malla embodies the best of the United Nations.”
A medical professional by training, Superintendent Malla helped develop guidance for preventing and mitigating the spread of COVID-19. She has organized over 300 awareness sessions this year on COVID-19 prevention as well as environmental protection for the local population, Congolese authorities and UN staff. As the MONUSCO Police’s focal point on COVID-19, she also has been disseminating information about the vaccines and promoting vaccination efforts.
“I am honored to receive this award, and I hope it will encourage more young women in my country and around the world to pursue careers in policing, which is still too often viewed as man's work’,” said Superintendent Malla.
The United Nations Woman Police Officer of the Year award was established in 2011 to recognize the exceptional contributions of women police officers to UN peace operations and to promote the empowerment of women.
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