Modi-Led Yoga Session At UN Sets Guinness World Record

UNITED NATIONS, June 21: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Yoga celebration at the UN headquarters in New York on Wednesday created a Guinness World Record for the participation of people of most nationalities.

Modi, who is in New York on the first leg of his maiden state visit to the US at the invitation of President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden, led a historic event at the UN Headquarters to commemorate the 9th International Day of Yoga, attended by top UN officials, diplomats and prominent personalities.

The Yoga celebration led by Prime Minister Modi at the UN headquarters created the Guinness World Record for participation of people of most nationalities, officials said.

The prime minister, wearing a customised white yoga T-shirt and trouser, thanked people for coming to New York from far away to attend the celebration.

"I'm delighted to see you all. And I thank you all for coming. Friends. I'm told that almost every nationality is represented here today," Modi told the gathering.

He was joined by President of the 77th session of the UN General Assembly Csaba Korisi, deputy Secretary General Amina Mohammed, and New York City mayor Eric Adams.

Record 110 Million People Forcibly Displaced Across The Globe: UN

GENEVA, June 14: A record 110 million people worldwide have been forcibly displaced from their homes, the United Nations said Wednesday, branding the huge upsurge an "indictment" of the world.

Russia's war in Ukraine, refugees fleeing Afghanistan and the fighting in Sudan have pushed the total number of refugees forced to seek shelter abroad, and those displaced within their own countries, to an unprecedented level, said UNHCR, the UN refugee agency.

At the end of last year, 108.4 million people were displaced, UNHCR said in its flagship annual report, Global Trends in Forced Displacement.

The number was up 19.1 million from the end of 2021 -- the biggest-ever increase since the records began back in 1975.

Since then, the eruption of the conflict in Sudan has triggered further displacement, pushing the global total to an estimated 110 million by May.

"We have 110 million people that have fled because of conflict, persecution, discrimination and violence, often mixed with other motives -- in particular the impact of climate change," UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi told a press conference in Geneva.

"It's quite an indictment on the state of our world," he said.

Of the 2022 global total, 35.3 million were refugees who fled abroad, with 62.5 million being internally displaced.

There were 5.4 million asylum-seekers and a further 5.2 million other people -- predominantly from Venezuela -- needing international protection.

"My fear is that the figure is likely to increase more," said Grandi.

He said the swelling displacement this year was being increasingly met with "a more hostile environment, especially when it comes to refugees, almost everywhere".

"Leadership is about convincing your public opinion that there are people that deserve international protection," he said.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees noted that around 76 percent of refugees fled to low- and middle-income countries, while 70 percent stayed in neighbouring countries.

Grandi said Britain's plans to send asylum-seekers to Rwanda for adjudication was "not a good idea".

He said the US case was more complex, but added: "We are worried... about denial of access to asylum in the United States".

Under tougher new US rules, asylum-seekers are supposed to set up an interview appointment through a smartphone application or processing centres Washington plans in Colombia, Guatemala and other countries.

Grandi welcomed the European Union's steps towards a pact on asylum and migration, calling it a good attempt to balance tensions surrounding the issue, and "relatively fair" to people on the move.

Under pressure to reduce migrant arrivals, EU governments last week agreed on steps to fast-track migrant returns to their countries of origin or transit countries deemed "safe".

Grandi said the way to address the flow of people coming to Europe was to start much further upstream on refugees' long journeys.

However the door to asylum in the EU, the United States and Britain "needs to remain open... People need to be able to seek asylum where they feel safe."

And he added: "Asylum seekers should not be put in jail. Seeking asylum is not a crime."

Grandi pleaded for urgent global action to alleviate the causes and impact of displacement, saying UNHCR was "not in a good financial situation this year".

UNHCR's internal Sudan crisis appeal is only 16 percent funded, and the appeal for the refugee-hosting countries is 13 percent funded.

Some 467,000 people have fled Sudan since fighting between warring parties broke out in mid-April, while more than 1.4 million have become internally displaced.

Of the planning figure of a million refugees fleeing Sudan in six months, he said: "Now I'm thinking it's too little."

There were 6.5 million Syrian refugees at the end of 2022, of which 3.5 million are in neighbouring Turkey.

There were 5.7 million Ukrainian refugees, with the February 2022 Russian invasion triggering the fastest outflow of refugees since World War II.

Last year, over 339,000 refugees returned to 38 countries, while 5.7 million internally displaced people returned home.

The countries hosting the most refugees are Turkey (3.6 million), Iran (3.4 million), Colombia (2.5 million), Germany (2.1 million) and Pakistan (1.7 million).

UNESCO Chief Says US Intends To Rejoin The Body In July

PARIS, June 12: The United States plans to rejoin UNESCO from July this year, ending a lengthy dispute that saw Washington end its membership in 2018, the UN cultural agency announced on Monday.

"It is a strong act of confidence in UNESCO and in multilateralism," said its director general Audrey Azoulay when she informed representatives of the body's member states in Paris of Washington's decision to rejoin.

The United States, a founding member of UNESCO, was a major contributor to UNESCO's budget until 2011, when the body admitted Palestine as a member state.

That triggered an end to the contributions under US law.

Then president Donald Trump went further by announcing in 2017 that the United States was withdrawing from UNESCO alongside Israel, accusing the body of bias against the Jewish state.

Its pullout took effect in 2018.

Azoulay, a former French culture minister who has headed UNESCO since 2017, has made it a priority of her mandate to bring the US back.

In a letter to Azoulay, Richard Verma, the US deputy secretary of state for management and resources, said Washington was "grateful" to Azoulay for progress on "significant issues", including "decreasing focus on politicised debate".

Until the suspension of its contributions in 2011, the US paid about 22 percent of UNESCO's budget, or $75 million.

But the US Congress, then fully controlled by President Joe Biden's Democratic Party, in December paved the way for the United States to restore funding, setting aside $150 million in the budget.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in March said the US absence from UNESCO was letting China write rules on artificial intelligence.

"I very much believe we should be back in UNESCO -- again, not as a gift to UNESCO, but because things that are happening at UNESCO actually matter," Blinken told a Senate committee when he presented the budget.

"They are working on rules, norms and standards for artificial intelligence. We want to be there," he said.

The US had already withdrawn from UNESCO in 1984 and rejoined the Organisation after an almost 20-year absence, in October 2003.

The proposed plan to rejoin in 2023 must now be submitted to the General Conference of UNESCO Member States for final approval.

Some member states want an extraordinary session to be held quickly to decide.

No Invitation For Taliban To UN's Afghanistan Crisis Talks In Qatar

DOHA, May 1: The Taliban will be absent from UN-led talks that open Monday in Qatar on how to handle Afghanistan's rulers and press them to ease a ban on women working and girls going to school.

Envoys from the United States, China and Russia as well as major European aid donors and key neighbours such as Pakistan are among representatives from about 25 countries and groups called to the two days of talks by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

The Taliban government has not been invited, however, and ahead of the meeting the question of recognition of the administration has loomed large.

A small group of Afghan women staged a weekend protest march in Kabul to oppose any moves to recognise the rulers who returned to power in August 2021.

In an open letter to the Doha meeting released Sunday, a coalition of Afghan women's groups said they were "outraged" that any country would consider formal ties because of the record of the government that says its handling of women's rights is "an internal social issue".

The United Nations and United States have insisted that recognition is not on the agenda.

Rights' groups fears have been fuelled by UN deputy secretary-general Amina Mohammed, who said last month that the Doha meeting could find "baby steps" that lead to a "principled recognition" of the Taliban government.

The UN said the comments were misinterpreted. No country has established formal ties with the Taliban administration and UN membership can only be decided by the UN General Assembly.

Ahead of his arrival in Doha, Guterres' office said the meeting "is intended to achieve a common understanding within the international community on how to engage with the Taliban" on women's and girls' rights, inclusive governance, countering terrorism and drug trafficking.

"Any kind of recognition of the Taliban is completely off the table," US State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said last week.

Since ousting a foreign-backed government in 2021, the Taliban authorities have imposed an austere version of sharia law that the United Nations has labelled "gender-based apartheid".

Women have been barred from most secondary education and universities, and prevented from working in most government jobs as well as UN agencies and NGOs.

Though divided on many disputes, the UN Security Council powers united on Thursday to condemn the curbs on Afghan women and girls and urge all countries to seek "an urgent reversal" of the policies.

Diplomats and observers say, however, that the Doha meeting highlights the quandary faced by the international community in handling Afghanistan, which the UN considers its biggest humanitarian crisis with millions depending on food aid.

Amina Mohammed said it was "clear" that the Taliban authorities want recognition. Formal UN ties would help the government reclaim billions of dollars of desperately needed funds seized abroad after it took power.

But diplomats from several countries involved in the Doha talks said this would not be possible until there is a change on women's rights. The Afghan foreign ministry said after last week's UN vote that "diversity should be respected and not politicised".

The UN chief is to give the Doha meeting an update on a review of the world body's critical relief operation in Afghanistan, ordered in April after authorities had stopped Afghan women from working with UN agencies, diplomats said.

The UN has said it faces an "appalling choice" over whether to maintain its huge operation in the country of 38 million. The review is scheduled to be completed on Friday.