UN to Investigate Sex-for-Food-Aid Allegations after Cyclone: Daily Brief

UN to investigate sex-for-food-aid allegations after cyclone; helping to evade justice in South Sudan; growing anti-death penalty movement in Iran; a historic journey in a wheelchair from Syria to the UN; 130,000 march against China's extradition law in Hong Kong; attack on freedom of the press in Austria; Pakistan should heed alarm bells over ‘bride’ trafficking; Ecuador's indigenous Waorani win landmark legal case to protect their lands; and UN chief remains silent on Xinjiang.

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Some good news to start the week. The UN will investigate our accounts that survivors of a deadly cyclone in Mozambique are being forced to trade sex for food.

The government of South Sudan is hiring consultants, including a former US ambassador, to help improve relationships between both countries and also, “delay and ultimately block establishment of the hybrid court” mandated by a peace deal to bring justice to victims of the conflict.

With 253 executions in 2018, Iran is still among the world’s leading executioners. Yet, executions in Iran dropped by half last year, from 507 in 2017.  

“It was surreal.” That’s how 20-year-old Nujeen Mustafa described the experience of being the first person with a disability to brief the United Nations Security Council in New York last week.

130,000 people took to the streets in Hong Kong on Sunday to oppose China's extradition law and the jailing of leaders of the Umbrella Movement. The demonstration was one of the biggest ones since the 2014 Umbrella Movement.

Austria suffers an attack on freedom of the press: the governor of the public broadcaster has asked a critical journalist to stop appearing on TV.

Pakistan’s government should be alarmed by recent reports of trafficking of women and girls to China. These allegations are disturbingly similar to the pattern of trafficking of “brides” to China from at least five other Asian countries.

In Ecuador, a landmark lawsuit brings good news for the indigenous Waraoni community...

During his trip to China this past weekend, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres remained silent on the arbitrary detention of one million Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang.

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