NEWSLETTER Week of March 08th 2017

02/20/2017 (By Richard Brody)
“We Were So Beloved” is Manfred Kirchheimer’s personal documentary about the German Jews who made it to the United States—and those who didn’t.

The dead are haunting “We Were So Beloved,” Manfred Kirchheimer’s personal documentary, from 1986, about the Washington Heights community of German Jewish people who escaped or survived Nazi Germany. It’s a film about Kirchheimer himself, who arrived in New York in 1936 with his parents, and about the new life that they built as refugees. It’s also a film about those who didn’t make it to the United States and were killed by the Nazis. Interviewed in his apartment, Kirchheimer’s father, Bert, states that forty-six members of his family were killed by the Nazi regime. A family friend, Mrs. Krakow, says that she lost more than twenty family members in the Holocaust. And virtually all the interviewees attest to the fact that many more European Jews could have been saved were it not for the United States’ stringent immigration quotas.

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02/21/2017. Noting that recent crises in Europe show that the continent remains at risk from new outbreaks of conflict, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called for reinforcing mutual trust and respect to strengthen stability and cooperation both within Europe and beyond.

The Security Council meeting at which the UN chief delivered this message started with a moment of silence in memory of the Permanent Representative of Russia to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, who passed away yesterday.

“I think [the Ambassador’s] passing represents a deep loss for all of us in the UN, including in this Council, where his distinctive voice was ever-present for the past decade, and where, I think, we will all miss that voice in the sessions to come,” said Mr. Guterres in his tribute.

Turning to the subject at hand, the Secretary-General, who briefed the Council alongside Lamberto Zannier, the Secretary-General of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and Helga Schmid, Secretary-General, European External Action Service of the European Union (EU), said crises in Europe could also adversely impact economic progress and sustainable development.

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02/27/2017. According to a new UNHCR study, most of the 3.2 million who were driven from their homes in the first half of 2016 found shelter in low or middle income countries.
Conflict, persecution and violence newly uprooted at least 3.2 million people in the first half of last year, and low- and middle-income countries played the greatest role in sheltering the world’s displaced, a new report by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, has found.
In the first half of last year, 1.7 million people were newly displaced within their own country, while 1.5 million had crossed an international border, UNHCR’s Mid-Year Trends 2016 report shows.
While the numbers of newly displaced were one third lower than during the same period in 2015, when 5 million people were newly displaced, the global total continued to rise. Prospects for displaced people to return to their homes remained slim while conflicts intensified.

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02/22/2017 (Tom Miles and Stephanie Nebehay)
U.N. mediator Staffan de Mistura said on Wednesday he did not expect an immediate breakthrough when Syria peace talks restart on Thursday but wanted productive talks that relaunch the process towards a political solution to end the six-year war.
They will be the first U.N.-mediated negotiations on Syria in almost a year, during which time the military and geopolitical context has changed massively. Even so, the same disagreements are likely to resurface.
De Mistura said Russia, which has supported President Bashar al-Assad’s military advances, had asked the Syrian government to “silence their own skies in the areas touched by the ceasefire” during the talks. Countries close to the opposition were also asked to urge them to lessen provocations, he said.
“Am I expecting a breakthrough? No, I’m not expecting a breakthrough,” de Mistura told a news conference. “But I am expecting and determined for keeping a very pro-active momentum,” he said.

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02/24/2017. The United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the National Episcopal Conference of Congo, known as CENCO have called for an immediate end to the spate of violent attacks against Catholic facilities in several parts of the country.

The UN Organization Stabilization Mission (MONUSCO) and CENCO, along with the Apostolic Nunciature said they are “deeply concerned” about recent attacks on parishes and other Catholic facilities. According to the Mission, the attacks were particularly violent in the provinces of Kinshasa, Haut-Katanga, Kasaï-Central and Kasaï-Oriental.

MONUSCO chief Maman Sidikou, Monsignor Marcel Utembi, Archbishop of Kisangani and President of CENCO, and Monsignor Luis Mariano Montemayor, Apostolic Nuncio in the DRC, “strongly condemned” the violence, which they noted are punishable in Congolese criminal law.

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02/18/2017. Secretary-General António Guterres called for a boost in preventive diplomacy and mediation efforts, as well as for a strategy to address root causes of such conflicts in the world.

“There are things that are obvious: the alignment of the sustainable and inclusive development with the sustaining peace agenda,” said Mr. Guterres in his remarks to the Munich Security Conference, noting also their importance in preventing conflicts.

He also drew attention to the need to address the fragility of states and to support states, institutions and civil societies to become stronger and more resilient to diminish the tendency for states to be involved in conflict situations.

Noting the centrality of climate change and strain on resources in increasing the probability of conflicts and dramatic humanitarian crises, Secretary-General Guterres called on the international community to rally behind the Paris Agreement on climate change as well as to focus attention on population growth, especially in Africa.

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21/02/2017. Geneva IV: Who is coming? What do they want? And will it matter?

Hopes are low for the Syrian peace talks set to begin on Thursday in Geneva, but that may not matter much. As the war in Syria moves towards a strategic endgame, the faltering peace process has begun to drift away from its past focus on a political transition, a shift that will ultimately have major ramifications for the country’s future.

The results of the two preceding rounds of talks in the Kazakh capital of Astana have been somewhat underwhelming. Conceived of as a political track to complement the ceasefire declared by Russia, Turkey, and Iran on 30 December, last week’s round failed to even adopt a closing statement. While Moscow trumpets the signing of a trilateral truce-monitoring agreement, it appears to be another hollow statement of intent without a credible enforcement mechanism.

Astana’s role in the peace process is separate, but not unimportant. American diplomats (who attended as observers along with Jordan and UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura) seem content with letting Russia lead the way. Like other Western and Arab nations, they remain unwilling to give their full blessing to the Astana track, fearing it will be used by Russia and Iran to displace de Mistura’s UN-led process in Geneva.

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01/02/2017. While 2016 taught us to expect the unexpected, IRIN’s eyes and ears on the ground have given us an idea of what to look out for in the new year.

We can’t promise everyone else will be covering these stories, but here are ten we’ll be watching:

The impact of Trump

Since Donald Trump’s election, speculation has been rife about what his presidency will mean for the wider world. His many statements and tweets on the campaign trail suggest that he intends to prioritise domestic and security interests over foreign aid spending and will roll back efforts made during the Obama administration to combat climate change.

But many in the humanitarian sector have been adopting a glass half full attitude, publicly at least, by pointing out that foreign aid has bipartisan support and Republicans in Congress will oppose any major cuts to foreign assistance. Others are predicting that even if the Trump administration doesn’t significantly cut overall aid spending, it will favour channelling aid through partnerships with the private sector and results-oriented initiatives like the Millennium Challenge Corporation, rather than through traditional recipients like the UN and international NGOs.

A Trump administration seems likely to allocate less aid to reproductive health and family planning programmes, and funding for initiatives relating to climate change will almost certainly be on the chopping block too. Trump has appointed a number of climate change sceptics to his cabinet, including Rick Perry, who will head the Department of Energy and Scott Pruitt, who will lead the Environmental Protection Agency.

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02/12/2017. Campaigners say tens of millions in urgent need in Yemen, South Sudan, Nigeria and Somalia are in hands of an overwhelmed, outdated humanitarian network

Famine is looming in four different countries, threatening unprecedented levels of hunger and a global crisis that is already stretching the aid and humanitarian system like never before, experts and insiders warn.

Tens of millions of people in need of food aid in Yemen, South Sudan, Nigeria and Somalia are at the mercy not only of an overwhelmed aid system but also the protracted, mainly conflict-driven crises in their own countries, the humanitarian leaders say.

While the generosity of donors has risen sixfold over the past 20 years, unprecedented levels of humanitarian suffering have overtaken financial support. Donor funding reached a record high last year but only half of the requirements were met, according to the UN’s humanitarian chief, Stephen O’Brien.

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02/14/2017. In 2015, the World Economic Forum began working with leaders from across sectors to develop a coherent conversation around humanitarian issues.

Since then, the Forum has brought together a select group of high-level representatives from governments, international organizations, private sector, civil society and media that are actively engaged in addressing humanitarian challenges.

The purpose of the group is to take the lead on shaping the humanitarian agenda by deepening and identifying new models of public-private collaboration, scale solutions, and build a common understanding on key challenges and opportunities that will disrupt the humanitarian system.

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