Latest news with #UNConvention
Hindustan Times
24-07-2025
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
Why Karnataka court halted deportation of Russian woman found in Gokarna cave
Karnataka High Court on Wednesday halted the deportation of Nina Kutnia, the Russian woman who was found with her children in a cave in Gokarna earlier this month. The woman, Nina Kutina, 40, was found in the cave by a police team from Gokarna station during a routine safety patrol.(PTI) The matter was heard by a single bench judge comprising Justice S Sunil Dutt Yadav, who stated that the deportation order could endanger the 40-year-old woman's children and their welfare. Also Read | 'Nina doesn't believe in…': Partner of Russian woman found in Karnataka cave 'concerned' about daughters Citing principles put forth by United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), Beena Pillai, the advocate apearing for Kutina, argued that the deportation process would disregard the children's welfare and their best interest. Based on this, the state high court stated it was in best interest of both the children if the deportation was reconsidered. Under Article 3 of the UN Convention, "the best interests of the child must be a top priority in all decisions and actions that affect children." Who is Nina Kutina? Nina Kutina was found living with her two daughter in a cave on Ramatirtha Hill, Gokarna. As per police officials, the Russian woman had overstayed her visa in India by eight years. The 40-year-old Russian woman told cops she moved from Goa to Karnataka for "spiritual solitude and live closer to nature." After the family was found in the cave on July 9, authorities transferred Nina and her children to a shelter in Tumakuru for further processing. After her rescue, Nina's estranged partner Dror Goldstein surfaced and stated that he has been working for shared custody of his two daughters. In a Goa police complaint filed by the Israeli businessman in 2017, Goldstein accused Nina of brainwashing his children and keeping them away from him. He added that the Russian woman began to use him for money and often subjected the Israeli man to physical and verbal abuse.
The Star
23-07-2025
- Politics
- The Star
M'sia to sign UN Convention on cybercrime in October, Dewan Rakyat told
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia is set to sign the United Nations Convention Against Cybercrime in October, says Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail. He said the country is also in the process of joining the Budapest Convention or the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime. The Home Minister said these moves are part of the effort to fight the growing threat of cybercrimes, which are becoming more sophisticated and inventive. "The National Scam Response Centre (NSRC) receives an average of about 500 calls a day from the rakyat to report online scams. "There is an increasing trend of reports related to online scams, and we have to respond to the complaints," he told Chong Zhemin (PH-Kampar) in the Dewan Rakyat on Wednesday (July 23). Chong wanted to know the number of cybercrime cases reported last year and the ministry's efforts to enhance digital security for the people. Saifuddin said police recorded a total of 46,085 cybercrime reports last year, with 49% of cases resolved. He said the NSRC was placed under the purview of the police force this month to bolster the fight against cybercrime. The NSRC, comprising representatives from Bank Negara, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) and the police, will have its own office in Cyberjaya. "At the behest of the Prime Minister, the Public Service Department has also agreed to consider creating 139 new posts for the centre," he added. Saifuddin said Malaysia plans to sign the UN Convention in Vietnam in October. The Budapest Convention, drafted by the Council of Europe in 2001, was the first international treaty to address Internet and computer crime. It went into force in July 2004 and has been ratified by close to 80 states and parties, including several outside Europe, to date. The UN Convention was first proposed by Russia in 2017, with an ad hoc committee formed in 2019 by the UN General Assembly. It eventually produced a draft resolution that was approved by the General Assembly in December last year, with the signing ceremony planned for October. Meanwhile, Saifuddin said the Home Ministry is reviewing the country's cybercrime laws to expand enforcement authorities' investigative powers. "Cybercrimes are getting more threatening and creative. "Our laws cannot remain static but must be dynamic to address these crimes accordingly," he added. Saifuddin said engagement sessions will be held with relevant stakeholders before the proposed amendments are drafted.
Irish Examiner
09-07-2025
- Health
- Irish Examiner
Human rights body to inspect planned mental health facility in Cork for UN convention breaches
The Human Rights and Equality Commission is to examine a proposed residential mental health facility in Cork amid claims that it will amount to a "far-reaching, permanent breach" of a UN convention. Serious concerns have been raised around plans to locate a 50-bed long-stay residential mental health unit for people with severe and long-term mental illness on an isolated site, which has no footpath access or services nearby. Social Democrats TD Liam Quaide said plans for the €64m unit at St Stephen's Hospital at Sarsfield's Court, Glanmire, represent a "complete reversal" of a move towards keeping people in their own communities. "This makes no sense. The only sense it makes is financial sense for the HSE to centralise a lot of its staffing costs into one area in a site that they own themselves. But it's very much against the interests of the residents who will be there into the future," Mr Quaide told an Oireachtas committee. "There's no footpath even connecting St Stephen's Hospital to the nearest service station, which is 1.7 kilometres away. The nearest retail centre is three kilometres away in Riverstown, there's no footpath for the first kilometre of that. "There's no community amenities within walking distance of St Stephen's. There's no plans to develop any and the cohort of service users who would become residents there, many would have mobility issues, most or all would not drive," Mr Quaid, who worked as a senior clinical psychologist, said. In 2023, Cork County Council wrote to the HSE after councillors unanimously backed a call to oppose the plans to build the unit at St Stephen's Hospital. Mr Quaide said he had repeatedly raised the issue both as a councillor and now as a TD, but it "feels like an unstoppable process" as he claimed "the agency is intent on pushing ahead with this". "I feel very strongly about it because I worked in the mental health services in Cork as a psychologist, and I've seen the benefits of the same services in Cork adhering to our national mental health policies over the years, by facilitating the re-integration of long-stay patients of institutional facilities back into their communities." The Cork East TD put it to Irish Human Rights and Equality chief commissioner Liam Herrick, who was appearing before the disabilities committee, that the development would result in "a blatant breach" of the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities. Mr Quaide: It will be a far-reaching, permanent breach, because the proposal is for a centralised residential mental health service that will detach people from their community of origin, and in fact, from any setting that vaguely represents community living. While acknowledging he did not have full details of the case, Mr Herrick said the information outlined by the TD appeared to "engage" with the protections provided for in the UN Convention as well as "other rights and equality standards". Mr Herrick said: "We have a wide range of statutory functions and powers. I'd be happy to engage with you further, maybe learn more about the instance, and then we can explore if any of our powers or functions may be relevant in the area. "But on the face of it, I can say that the situation you outline does engage with those issues [contained in the UN Charter], and we'd be happy to consider further." Mr Quaide said there is no issue with the site as a location for a new elective hospital and acute inpatient mental health admissions, as is also planned, because those admissions are generally short term. Read More Mental health services short more than 800 beds, report reveals
The Guardian
02-07-2025
- Climate
- The Guardian
Droughts worldwide pushing tens of millions towards starvation, says report
Drought is pushing tens of millions of people to the edge of starvation around the world, in a foretaste of a global crisis that is rapidly deepening with climate breakdown. More than 90 million people in eastern and southern Africa are facing extreme hunger after record-breaking drought across many areas, ensuing widespread crop failures and the death of livestock. In Somalia, a quarter of the population is now edging towards starvation, and at least a million people have been displaced. The situation has been years in the making. One-sixth of the population of southern Africa needed food aid last August. In Zimbabwe, last year's corn crop was down 70% year on year, and 9,000 cattle died. These examples are just the beginning of a worldwide catastrophe that is gathering pace, according to a report on drought published on Wednesday. In regions across the world, drought and water mismanagement are leading to shortages that are hitting food supplies, energy and public health. Mark Svoboda, the founding director of the US National Drought Mitigation Center (NMDC), and co-author of the report, said: 'This is not a dry spell. This is a slow-moving global catastrophe, the worst I've ever seen.' The report, published by the NMDC, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, and the International Drought Resilience Alliance, examined in detail more than a dozen countries in four main regions: Africa, south-east Asia, Latin America and the Mediterranean. Taking information from governments, scientific institutions and local sources, the authors were able to build a picture of human suffering and economic devastation. In Latin America, drought led to a severe drop in water levels in the Panama canal, grounding shipping and drastically reducing trade, and increasing costs. Traffic dropped by more than a third between October 2023 and January 2024. By early 2024, Morocco had experienced six consecutive years of drought, leading to a 57% water deficit. In Spain, a 50% fall in olive production, driven by a lack of rainfall, has caused olive oil prices to double, while in Turkey land degradation has left 88% of the country at risk of desertification, and demands from agriculture have emptied aquifers. Dangerous sinkholes have opened up as a result of overextraction. Svoboda said: 'The Mediterranean countries represent canaries in the coalmine for all modern economies. The struggles experienced by Spain, Morocco and Turkey to secure water, food and energy under persistent drought offer a preview of water futures under unchecked global warming. No country, regardless of wealth or capacity, can afford to be complacent.' El Niño weather conditions in the past two years exacerbated the underlying warming trend of the climate, the authors found. 'High temperatures and a lack of precipitation had widespread ramifications in 2023 and 2024, such as water supply shortages, low food supplies and power rationing,' they wrote. The impacts of drought stretch far beyond the borders of stricken countries. The report warned that drought had disrupted the production and supply chains of key crops such as rice, coffee and sugar. In 2023-2024, dry conditions in Thailand and India led to shortages that increased the price of sugar by 9% in the US. Sign up to Down to Earth The planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essential after newsletter promotion Wednesday's report follows a series of recent warnings on the world's water crisis. Fresh water is in sharper demand than ever, but a combination of global heating, which is changing rainfall patterns to make dry areas drier and in others replacing steady rain with more extreme cloudbursts, and the widespread mismanagement and pollution of water resources have left the world on the brink. Demand for fresh water will outstrip supply by 40% by the end of this decade, and more than half of the world's food production will be at risk of failure in the next 25 years, according to the biggest report yet on the state of the world's water resources, published last autumn. Separately, a report in March highlighted the 'unprecedented' loss of glacier ice, which is threatening the food and water supply of 2 billion people around the world. Last month, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said the global land area affected by drought had doubled in the last 120 years, and the cost of droughts was also rising sharply. An average drought in 2035 is projected to cost at least 35% more than it would today. Ibrahim Thiaw, the executive secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, the global treaty signed in 1992 meant to avoid the worst impacts of drought, said the problem had received too little attention. 'Drought is a silent killer. It creeps in, drains resources and devastates lives in slow motion,' he said. 'Its scars run deep.' He added: 'Drought is no longer a distant threat. It is here, escalating, and demands urgent global cooperation. When energy, food and water all go at once, societies start to unravel. That's the new normal we need to be ready for.'
The Guardian
02-07-2025
- Climate
- The Guardian
Droughts worldwide pushing tens of millions towards starvation, says report
Drought is pushing tens of millions of people to the edge of starvation around the world, in a foretaste of a global crisis that is rapidly deepening with climate breakdown. More than 90 million people in eastern and southern Africa are facing extreme hunger after record-breaking drought across many areas, ensuing widespread crop failures and the death of livestock. In Somalia, a quarter of the population is now edging towards starvation, and at least a million people have been displaced. The situation has been years in the making. One-sixth of the population of southern Africa needed food aid last August. In Zimbabwe, last year's corn crop was down 70% year on year, and 9,000 cattle died. These examples are just the beginning of a worldwide catastrophe that is gathering pace, according to a report on drought published on Wednesday. In regions across the world, drought and water mismanagement are leading to shortages that are hitting food supplies, energy and public health. Mark Svoboda, the founding director of the US National Drought Mitigation Center (NMDC), and co-author of the report, said: 'This is not a dry spell. This is a slow-moving global catastrophe, the worst I've ever seen.' The report, published by the NMDC, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, and the International Drought Resilience Alliance, examined in detail more than a dozen countries in four main regions: Africa, south-east Asia, Latin America and the Mediterranean. Taking information from governments, scientific institutions and local sources, the authors were able to build a picture of human suffering and economic devastation. In Latin America, drought led to a severe drop in water levels in the Panama canal, grounding shipping and drastically reducing trade, and increasing costs. Traffic dropped by more than a third between October 2023 and January 2024. By early 2024, Morocco had experienced six consecutive years of drought, leading to a 57% water deficit. In Spain, a 50% fall in olive production, driven by a lack of rainfall, has caused olive oil prices to double, while in Turkey land degradation has left 88% of the country at risk of desertification, and demands from agriculture have emptied aquifers. Dangerous sinkholes have opened up as a result of overextraction. Svoboda said: 'The Mediterranean countries represent canaries in the coalmine for all modern economies. The struggles experienced by Spain, Morocco and Turkey to secure water, food and energy under persistent drought offer a preview of water futures under unchecked global warming. No country, regardless of wealth or capacity, can afford to be complacent.' El Niño weather conditions in the past two years exacerbated the underlying warming trend of the climate, the authors found. 'High temperatures and a lack of precipitation had widespread ramifications in 2023 and 2024, such as water supply shortages, low food supplies and power rationing,' they wrote. The impacts of drought stretch far beyond the borders of stricken countries. The report warned that drought had disrupted the production and supply chains of key crops such as rice, coffee and sugar. In 2023-2024, dry conditions in Thailand and India led to shortages that increased the price of sugar by 9% in the US. Sign up to Down to Earth The planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essential after newsletter promotion Wednesday's report follows a series of recent warnings on the world's water crisis. Fresh water is in sharper demand than ever, but a combination of global heating, which is changing rainfall patterns to make dry areas drier and in others replacing steady rain with more extreme cloudbursts, and the widespread mismanagement and pollution of water resources have left the world on the brink. Demand for fresh water will outstrip supply by 40% by the end of this decade, and more than half of the world's food production will be at risk of failure in the next 25 years, according to the biggest report yet on the state of the world's water resources, published last autumn. Separately, a report in March highlighted the 'unprecedented' loss of glacier ice, which is threatening the food and water supply of 2 billion people around the world. Last month, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said the global land area affected by drought had doubled in the last 120 years, and the cost of droughts was also rising sharply. An average drought in 2035 is projected to cost at least 35% more than it would today. Ibrahim Thiaw, the executive secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, the global treaty signed in 1992 meant to avoid the worst impacts of drought, said the problem had received too little attention. 'Drought is a silent killer. It creeps in, drains resources and devastates lives in slow motion,' he said. 'Its scars run deep.' He added: 'Drought is no longer a distant threat. It is here, escalating, and demands urgent global cooperation. When energy, food and water all go at once, societies start to unravel. That's the new normal we need to be ready for.'
