Diplomacy & Crisis News

Innocent civilians trapped in violence now face “a new and deadly threat” from COVID-19, the UN chief told the Security Council on Wednesday, warning that the pandemic is “amplifying and exploiting the fragilities of our world”.

/ Industrie culturelle, Culture, Musique, Économie, Royaume-Uni, États-Unis, Histoire - Sciences et idées / Industrie culturelle, Culture, Musique, Économie, Royaume-Uni, États-Unis, Histoire - Sciences et idées

The UN refugee and migration agencies have welcomed $2.79 billion pledged by donors at a solidarity conference aimed at supporting Venezuelans who fled the protracted crisis in their country for host communities across the region. 

Further evidence of the unprecedented impact of COVID-19 on the global job market has emerged in a new study by the UN labour agency, which on Wednesday said that more than one in six young people have stopped working since the onset of the pandemic.

Independent UN human rights experts fear that some authorities in the United States are using the COVID-19 pandemic to restrict access to abortion, with at least eight states suspending procedures deemed medically unnecessary.

/ France, Monde, Audiovisuel, Industrie culturelle, Économie, Propriété industrielle, Musique, Culture, Médias - Sciences et idées / France, Monde, Audiovisuel, Industrie culturelle, Économie, Propriété industrielle, Musique, Culture, Médias - Sciences et idées

Millions of people around the world have been working remotely due to the coronavirus pandemic and now experts are asking whether this “business as unusual” could be the future of work, at least for those people whose job doesn’t require them to be tied to a particular location.

Dans la perspective de l'élection présidentielle de 2012, programmes et petites phrases seront disséqués par les commentateurs politiques. Mais ceux-ci seront moins diserts sur l'abstention, qui perturbe le fonctionnement du système représentatif. / France, Élections, État, Identité culturelle, Parti (...) / France, Élections, État, Identité culturelle, Parti politique, Politique, Société - 2011/09

Humanitarian aid projects to war-torn Yemen are reaching breaking point, and some $870 million is needed to continue giving life-saving assistance to millions of vulnerable people for the next six months, the World Food Programme (WFP), warned on Tuesday.

Perchées sur le fil de la dette, les économies occidentales flageolent de crise en crise. Depuis trois ans, les responsables politiques ont endossé le rôle de voiture-balai de la finance. Mais une autre piste s'ouvre, suscitant déjà craintes et controverses : qui a peur de la démondialisation ? / (...) / Chine, États-Unis (affaires extérieures), Europe, Capitalisme, Commerce international, Économie, Finance, Mondialisation, Relations internationales - 2011/08

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak in East Africa, the UN Human Rights regional office, based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, has been contributing to the COVID-19 response of UN country teams in the region, by ensuring that human rights protection for vulnerable people is included in their plans. The head of the office, Nwanneakolam Vwede-Obahor, shared some of the challenges she and her colleagues are facing.

In Malawi, where children with albinism face attacks, and even ritual killings, going to school can expose them to life-threatening dangers. The UN is helping to make schools safer for these vulnerable students. 

For the first time, the UN Military Gender Advocate award has been awarded to two UN peacekeepers: Commander Carla Monteiro de Castro Araujo, a Brazilian Naval officer, and Major Suman Gawani, of the Indian Army.

Ecrire pour qui et dans quelle langue ? Les auteurs des pays du tiers-monde, de tradition orale, tentent de répondre, mais souvent dans le tourment, à cette question universelle. Ecrire exige de rencontrer un lecteur, mais ce dernier reste improbable dans des nations émergeant de la longue nuit (...) / Colonialisme, Identité culturelle, Langue, Littérature - 1996/09

Pour la petite histoire d'abord : ainsi les éditeurs se sont décidés à publier les Versets sataniques de Salman Rushdie ; ils l'ont fait au bout de quelques jours, ils avaient le droit d'hésiter, l'affaire était grave et non sans danger pour leur personnel et leurs biens. Bravo. Le récent manifeste, (...) / Laïcité, Fondamentalisme - 1989/03

A master practitioner of the Hawaiian hula dance has told UN News that he is “nothing without my culture.”

School children in Mozambique are facing what a senior United Nations and World Bank official in the southern African country are calling “catastrophic outcomes” from the COVID-19 pandemic. By the UN Resident Coordinator in Mozambique, Myrta Kaulard, and Mark Lundell, World Bank Country Director.

African countries have “demonstrated commendable leadership” battling the COVID-19 pandemic, but more nations across the continent where conflict prevails, should heed the UN call for a global ceasefire to push back the deadly virus, said the Secretary-General on Monday.

Costa Rica is winning plaudits for its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Alice Shackleford, UN Resident Coordinator in Costa Rica, and WHO Representative María Dolores Pérez-Rosales, explain why the small Central American country is managing to keep the number of cases down, and its population healthy.

Warfare History Network

History, Americas

Here's how it all went wrong for him.

Confederate President Jefferson Davis considered his old West Point classmate Albert Sidney Johnston “the greatest soldier, the ablest man, civil or military, Confederate or Union, then living,” and it is safe to say that no other general in either army began the Civil War with a more glittering—or fleeting—reputation.

High Expectations

The towering expectations surrounding Johnston’s Civil War service began even before he joined his first command. As a transplanted Texan, Johnston chose to stick by his adopted state when it seceded in February 1861. Resigning his post as commanding general of the Department of the Pacific two months later, Johnston headed east to meet with Davis in Richmond, Va. Breathless news reports of Johnston’s progress followed him every step of the way, and he was greeted as a hero before he ever set foot in the capital.

Inevitably, perhaps, Johnston could not meet the sky-high expectations. Amid all the hoopla, one salient fact was overlooked—Johnston had never commanded an army of his own. To make matters worse, he was given an assignment that even the most experienced of generals would have found daunting. With less than 50,000 troops at his disposal, Johnston was tasked with defending a 500-mile-long border stretching from eastern Kentucky to western Missouri—an area equal in size to western Europe. Complicating his task was the fact that three major rivers wound their way through his defenses, at the mercy of industrious Union gunboats.

It was sure-fire recipe for disaster, and Johnston was not long in adding to his own cup of woe by failing to adequately safeguard the Confederate strongpoints at Forts Henry and Donelson. In February 1862, Union Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant easily captured both forts, along with 12,000 Confederate troops. That feat set Grant on the way to becoming the North’s leading commander, and put two large dints in Johnston’s previously spotless suit of armor. Still, his old friend Davis continued to support him. Responding to one Confederate congressman’s complaint that Johnston was “no general,” the president tartly replied, “If Sidney Johnston is not a general, the Confederacy has none to give you.” He angrily refused to remove Johnston from command.

“We Must Use the Bayonet”

Besides, Johnston had a plan for recovering both his reputation and the territory he had lost. Massing his army at Corinth, Miss., he organized a counterattack on Grant’s Union forces encamped around Shiloh Church in southwest Tennessee. On the morning of April 6, 1862, Johnston prepared to lead his army into battle. Picking up a tin cup, he sportively clinked his men’s bayonets. “These will do the work,” he assured them. “We must use the bayonet.” He added, for whatever it was worth, “I will lead you.” Earlier, he had rejected worries that the Union forces were too numerous to attack. “I will fight them if they were a million,” he asserted.

As it was, he did not fight them for long. Sitting astride his horse, Johnston suddenly reeled in the saddle and fell into the arms of Tennessee Governor Isham Harris–on hand that day as a civilian aide. “General, are you hurt?” cried Harris. “Yes, and I fear seriously,” Johnston replied.

Unnoticed in the heat of battle, Johnston had been struck behind the right knee by a Union bullet. Ignoring the wound, the general continued directing the battle while his boot filled with blood. The bullet had severed his femoral artery, and Johnston bled to death in a matter of minutes.

Ulysses S. Grant later rendered his own verdict on his slain opponent. “I do not question the personal courage of General Johnston, or his ability,” Grant wrote in his Personal Memoirs. “But he did not win the distinction predicted for him by many of his friends. He did prove that as a general he was over-estimated.” It was a verdict that Johnston did not live long enough to appeal.

This article originally appeared on the Warfare History Network.

Image: Wikimedia