UN
Ozone layer slowly but noticeably healing: UN
Earth's protective ozone layer is on track to recover within four decades as it is slowly but noticeably healing, a UN-backed panel of experts said Monday.
In a report published every four years on the progress of the Montreal Protocol, the panel confirmed the phase-out of nearly 99 percent of banned ozone-depleting substances.
The Montreal Protocol was signed in September 1987 and is a landmark multilateral environmental agreement that regulates the consumption and production of nearly 100 man-made chemicals or ozone-depleting substances (ODS).
The overall phase-down has led to the notable recovery of the protective ozone layer in the upper stratosphere and decreased human exposure to harmful ultraviolet (UV) rays from the sun.
"The impact the Montreal Protocol has had on climate change mitigation cannot be overstressed," Meg Seki, executive secretary of the UN Environment Programme's Ozone Secretariat, said.
"Over the last 35 years, the Protocol has become a true champion for the environment. The assessments and reviews undertaken by the Scientific Assessment Panel remain a vital component of the work of the Protocol that helps inform policy and decision-makers."
The discovery of a hole in the Ozone Layer was first announced by three scientists from the British Antarctic Survey, in May 1985.
According to the Panel's report, if current policies remain in place, the layer is expected to recover to 1980 values by 2040.
Over the Antarctic, this recovery is expected by around 2066 and by 2045 over the Arctic.
Variations in the size of the Antarctic ozone hole, particularly between 2019 and 2021, were driven largely by meteorological conditions.
Nevertheless, the Antarctic ozone breach has been slowly improving in area and depth, since the year 2000.
Read more: ‘Largest-ever ozone hole’ over Arctic closes
The Montreal Protocol has already benefitted efforts to mitigate climate change, helping avoid global warming by an estimated 0.5-degree Celcius, the report said.
In 2016 an additional agreement to the Montreal Protocol, known as the Kigali Amendment required a phase-down of the production and consumption of some hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs).
HFCs do not directly deplete ozone but are powerful gases which contribute to global warming and accelerated climate change.
The panel said that it is estimated the amendment will avoid 0.3 to 0.5 degrees Celsius of additional warming by 2100.
"Ozone action sets a precedent for climate action. Our success in phasing out ozone-eating chemicals shows us what can and must be done – as a matter of urgency – to transition away from fossil fuels, reduce greenhouse gases and so limit temperature increase," World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said in a statement.
The panel cautioned against the use of a potential method to reduce climate warming by increasing sunlight reflection.
For the first time, they examined the potential effects on the ozone arising from the intentional addition of aerosols into the stratosphere, known as a stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI).
They said an unintended consequence of SAI was that it could also affect stratospheric temperatures, circulation and ozone production and destruction rates and transport.
Read more: Govt committed to protect ozone layer: Environment Minister
Myanmar: Hundreds of political prisoners released, but thousands remain in jail, says UN
Hundreds of political prisoners in Myanmar were granted amnesty this week, the UN human rights office (OHCHR) said, but thousands more remain incarcerated.
"The release of political prisoners in Myanmar is not only a relief to those unfairly detained, but also their families," OHCHR Spokesperson Jeremy Laurence told the media Friday in Geneva.
"Importantly, however, we take this opportunity to call for the release of the thousands of others who remain in detention for opposing military rule."
To mark the country's 75th anniversary of independence, the military junta which seized power nearly two years ago, announced this week that it would free some 7,000 prisoners.
However, it did not specify whether those jailed as part of its brutal crackdown on dissent would be included.
The OHCHR spokesperson said the military regime incarcerated some 300 political prisoners.
"Even as news emerged about the amnesty to mark the country's independence day, we continued to receive reports of people being detained for opposing military rule, many of whom have been subjected to torture and ill-treatment," he added.
Since the military coup of February 1, 2021, nearly 17,000 people have been arrested and over 13,000 remain in detention, Jeremy said.
The local monitoring group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners also believes that 300 political prisoners had been released – having identified 223 while working to verify the others.
However, the UN official said on the very day that they were released, another 22 political prisoners were detained. "Such detentions are not only intended to silence the junta's critics but are also designed to instil fear."
As this year marks the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk has called for an end to arbitrary detention once and for all.
The UN rights chief called on governments and all detaining authorities globally to put the milestone Declaration into action by granting an amnesty, pardon or by simply releasing all those detained for exercising their rights.
"The pathway out of Myanmar's crisis is not by locking people up – it is by allowing them to freely, fully, and effectively participate in political life," Jeremy said.
Read more:On Myanmar’s diamond jubilee of independence, Bangladesh reiterates call for Rohingya repatriation
WHO 'continues to urge' China to share more data amid Covid surge
The UN health agency has "continued to urge China" to share more rapid, regular, reliable data on hospitalisations and deaths, as well as more comprehensive, real-time viral sequencing in the wake of a Covid surge in the East Asian country.
"The World Health Organization (WHO) is concerned about the risk to life in the world's most populous country and reiterated the importance of stepping up vaccination coverage, including booster doses," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said recently in his first online briefing for the year.
"With circulation in China so high and comprehensive data not forthcoming – as I said last week it is understandable that some countries are taking steps they believe will protect their citizens," he added.
Several countries, including the US, have announced new Covid testing requirements for travellers from China to gain domestic entry, amid concerns over the spread of the latest variants.
WHO Emergencies Director Dr Mike Ryan said: "We know there are difficulties in all countries very often in recording hospital releases, admissions and use of ICU (intensive care unit) facilities."
"We believe that the current numbers being published from China underrepresents the true impact of the disease in terms of hospital admissions, in terms of ICU admissions, and particularly in terms of deaths."
Also Read: Is China sharing enough COVID-19 information?
WHO has held high-level meetings with Chinese authorities over the past week to discuss the rise in cases and hospitalisations.
The UN agency's Technical Advisory Group on Virus Evolution (TAG-VE) also met with Chinese experts to discuss the situation.
During that meeting, scientists from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention presented data from what they described as imported and locally acquired coronavirus infections.
The analysis showed that most of the viruses circulating in the country are of two Omicron lineages, BA.5.2 and BF.7, which accounted for 97.5 percent of all local infections, as well as a few other known Omicron sublineages.
"These variants are known and have been circulating in other countries, and at present no new variant has been reported by the China CDC," the TAG-VE said in a statement on Wednesday.
So far, 773 sequences from mainland China have been submitted to the virus database operated by the global science initiative, GISAID.
Most, 564, were collected after December 1. Of this number, only 95 are labelled as locally acquired cases, while 187 are imported and 261 "do not have this information provided."
The majority of the locally acquired cases, 95 percent, belong to the two Omicron lineages.
"This is in line with genomes from travellers from China submitted to the GISAID EpiCoV database by other countries. No new variant or mutation of known significance is noted in the publicly available sequence data," the statement said.
Tedros said the pandemic is now in its fourth year, and despite progress, it is still a threat to health, economies, and societies.
"We are really concerned about the current Covid-19 epidemiological picture, with both intense transmission in several parts of the world and a recombinant sub-variant spreading quickly," he said.
Covid was on the decline for most of 2021, Tedros added, citing factors such as increased vaccinations worldwide and the identification of new lifesaving antivirals.
However, there are still major inequities in access to testing, treatment and vaccination.
"Every week, approximately 10,000 people die of Covid-19, that we are aware of. The true toll is likely much higher," he said.
Also, the Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 is on the rise in the US and Europe and has been identified in nearly 30 countries.
XBB.1.5 was initially detected in October 2022. It is the most transmissible subvariant yet, according to Dr Maria Van Kherkove, the WHO technical lead for Covid.
"We do expect further waves of infection around the world, but that doesn't have to translate into further waves of death because our countermeasures continue to work," she said.
Meanwhile, the TAG-VE experts are also working on a related risk assessment that should be published in the coming days.
Dr Van Kherkove emphasised the importance of continued Covid surveillance around the world to track known subvariants that are in circulation.
Last month, more than 13 million cases of the disease were reported, though the WHO believes the toll is higher.
"But more concerning, we've had a 15 percent increase in deaths in the last month and again, we know that that is an underestimate because there are delays in reporting, and with the holiday period and with mixing, those trends are expected to continue," Dr Van Kherkove said.
Why hasn’t the UN recognised 1971 Bangladesh Genocide yet?
Seventy-five years after the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide came into force, one of its glaring failures has been not recognising the 1971 Bangladesh genocide and the 2017 genocide against the Rohingyas in Myanmar.
This not only saddens us in Bangladesh, it also upsets many who have followed large scale massacre of human beings in various parts of the post-colonial world.
Polish Jewish refugee lawyer Raphael Lemkin coined the word “genocide” in 1943 to describe the killing and destruction of people. The word is derived from the Greek “genos” (people, tribe or race) and the Latin “cide” (killing) against the backdrop of the Holocaust, that Winston Churchill said was a “crime without a name”. But Churchill’s double-standards remained the enduring feature of Western standpoint on how they look at a genocide or large scale engineered deaths.
Churchill, the British “hero” who guided the Allies to victory in World War II and who attacked Hitler and the Nazis over the Jewish Holocaust, has been held responsible for triggering the Bengal famine that led to 3 million deaths in what was then undivided Bengal, the largest province of British India.
Read more: 'Recognising the Bangladesh Genocide of 1971': ICSF welcomes US Congress initiative
Madhusree Mukerjee, whose “Churchill’s Secret War” created waves and rattled many a British colonial apologist, has gone on record to equate Hitler’s extermination of 10 million Jews with Churchill’s presiding over the death of three million Bengalis through a famine orchestrated by policies linked to the British war effort.
On December 9, 1948, the international community formally adopted a definition of genocide within the 1948 Convention – essentially enshrining the message of “never again” in international law.
Rachel Burns of the York University questions whether the convention has achieved what it set out to do and focused on three of its key areas of failure.
· First, the very application of the term “genocide” is applied too slowly and cautiously when atrocities happen.
· Second, the international community fails to act effectively against genocides.
· Third, too few perpetrators are actually convicted of their crimes.
Read more: Declare Pakistan army action in 1971 ‘Genocide’: US congressmen introduce resolution
Burns points to the many genocides that have occurred since the 1948 Convention and its ratification in 1951, and then points to the only three that have been legally recognised – and led to trials – under the convention: Rwanda in 1994, Bosnia (and the 1995 Srebrenica massacre), and Cambodia under the 1975-9 Pol Pot regime.
Burns refers to the widespread killing and displacement of Yazidi by IS and of Rohingyas in Myanmar which are ongoing and recognised by the UN as a whole, but are yet to be officially recognised as genocides by some individual states. Similarly, 13 years after atrocities took place in the Sudanese region of Darfur, criminal investigations continue but no official charges of genocide have been made under the convention.
Political scientist Adam Jones names the genocides committed under Saddam Hussein against the Kurds in 1988-91 in Iraq, and the genocide committed by West Pakistan forces against Bangladeshis in 1971.
“And the list of ‘genocides’ that might fall under the UN definition is frighteningly long. The International Criminal Court is investigating several states in which human rights violations and war crimes ‘may’ have occurred,” says Rachel Burns.
Read more: 1971 genocide: Need to work together to get recognition from UN, says DU VC
As a passionate and patriotic Bangladeshi, I would like to argue that the UN should prioritize recognising the 1971 East Pakistan genocide against Bengalis for three reasons:
· The number of people killed in then East Pakistan by Pakistani forces (regular army and collaborators) between March and December 1971 far exceeds the numbers of victims of the three genocides recognised by the UN. Nearly 3 million Bengalis of all faiths were massacred by the Pakistani forces. In comparison, 1.5 to 2 million deaths occurred at the hands of the murderous Khmer Rouge but these deaths were over a four year period between 1975 and 1979. Between 500000 to 650000 Tutsis were massacred by Hutus during the Rwandan civil war between April and August 1994. And the Balkan genocide casualty toll never crossed six digits.
· The genocide in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) was not just limited to random killings but involved both targeted murders (of intellectuals to leave behind a brain deficit) and also largescale rapes (nearly 300,000) of Bengali women as well as arson.
· This genocide was carried out by the Pakistan army – and not by militias – which has since been designated by US and NATO as an “useful ally in the war against terror”.
Read More: Chitra erosion threatens mass grave of 1971 in Magura
A recognition of the 1971 East Pakistan genocide by the UN is not only important for the global body to regain its credibility and effectiveness but also to expose a military institution which is seen as of much strategic value in the West.
The West has been fooled, somewhat willfully, into believing that the Pakistan army is useful in fighting terror in Afghanistan. There is enough evidence now to suggest that the Pakistani generals were always running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. They were allowing US and NATO a springboard for anti-Taliban operations but were also allowing Taliban safe shelter, training and weapons in Pakistan, without which the Taliban would have never survived, let alone emerge victorious to take over the country.
The least the West, especially the US (which is very vocal about human rights violations in Bangladesh now), can do is to take the initiative to officially recognise the 1971 East Pakistan genocide. They should stop fooling their own citizens and taxpayers about the role of the Pakistani army in the war against terror. By recognising the 1971 genocide, they can hold the Pakistan army accountable for denying Bengalis the right to life during the Liberation War. Recognition of both 1971 East Pakistan genocide and the 2017 Rohingya genocide will help call out and expose two evil military institutions who threaten democracy and dignity of life in our part of the world. It is high time the West stops chasing phantoms and does its bit to punish mass murderers in our region. Otherwise, their sermons on human rights just ring hollow.
Read More: Brave Women Freedom Fighters of Bangladesh’s 1971 Liberation War
Seventy-five years after the UN Convention, Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel’s “never again” for genocide remains “a prayer, a promise, a vow” but also a frequent reality. And their frequent recurrence owes much to how many genocides have gone unrecognised and unpunished.
Tarana Halim, an actress and lawyer, is a former Bangladeshi minister. She is now president of Bangabandhu Sanskritic Jote, a front for cultural movement against radicalism. She is also a member of Awami League central committee.
UN to hold emergency meeting on Israeli visit to holy site
The U.N. Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting Thursday at the request of the Palestinians and other Islamic and non-Islamic nations to protest the visit of an ultranationalist Israeli Cabinet minister to a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site and demand an end to Israeli extremist provocations and respect for the historic status quo at the site revered by Muslims and Jews.
Tuesday’s visit by Israel’s new National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a West Bank settler leader who draws inspiration from a racist rabbi, to the site known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif, Arabic for the Noble Sanctuary, drew fierce condemnation from across the Muslim world, a strong rebuke from the United States, and fueled fears of unrest as Palestinian militant groups threatened to act in response.
The Palestinian U.N. ambassador, Riyad Mansour, told reporters Wednesday after meetings with Arab ambassadors, representatives of the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the 120-member Nonaligned Movement and others that there is not only widespread condemnation of Ben-Gvir’s visit but also of the broader “environment of extremism” surrounding the most extremist government in Israel’s history.
He accused Israel of committing “aggression” not only against Muslim holy sites including the Al Aqsa Mosque but against Christian sites including graveyards.
The site is the holiest site in Judaism, home to the ancient biblical temples. Today, it houses the Al Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam. Since Israel captured the site in 1967, Jews have been allowed to visit but not pray there.
Describing the Temple Mount as “the most important place for the Jewish people,” Ben-Gvir decried what he called “racist discrimination” against Jewish visits to the site.
With the Dome of the Rock, the Islamic shrine, in the background and waving his fingers at the camera, he said the visits would continue. As for threats from Gaza’s Hamas militant group, Ben-Gvir, known for his anti-Arab rhetoric and provocative stunts, said in a video clip taken during the visit: “The Israeli government won’t surrender to a murderous organization, to a vile terrorist organization.”
Mansour, flanked by ambassadors from about 20 countries, said that at Thursday’s emergency Security Council meeting, also supported by the United Arab Emirates, China, France and Malta, “we will not be satisfied with beautiful statements which will be uttered.”
“We want them to be implemented in a concrete way,” he said. “We want this behavior not to be repeated in Al Aqsa Mosque and Al-Haram Al-Sharif, and we want a guarantee of honoring and respecting the historic status quo in deeds, not only in words.”
Assistant Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs Khaled Khiare will brief the Security Council at Thursday’s meeting, U.N. spokesman Stepane Dujarric said.
Jordan’s U.N. Ambassador Mahmoud Hmoud said his country, whose ruler King Abdullah II is custodian of the Islamic and Christian holy sites, is “extremely concerned at the incursion” by minister Ben-Gvir and the Israeli government.
“This is an action of extremism that purports to create a new cycle of violence,” he said. “The Security Council has to take its responsibility seriously and stop such attempts.”
Hmoud said Israel has made a commitment to respect “the historic legal status quo” and its obligations under international law, but unfortunately Ben-Gvir made an incursion into the Al-Aqsa Mosque in violation of Israel’s legal obligations.
“There has to be a firm stand by the international community against this because it will happen again, and once it will happen again, a new cycle of violence will ensue,” he warned.
Hmoud recalled that in September 2000 Ariel Sharon, then Israel’s opposition leader, visited the holy site, which helped spark clashes that led to a full-fledged Palestinian uprising known as the Second Intifada. The Security Council deplored Sharon’s visit, which it called a “provocation.”
Clashes between Israeli security forces and Palestinian demonstrators in and around the site also fueled an 11-day war with Hamas in 2021.
Benjamin Netanyahu returned to office last week for his sixth term as prime minister, leading the most religious, right-wing government in the country’s history. Its goals include expanding West Bank settlements and annexing the occupied territory.
Responding to the outcry over Ben-Gvir’s visit, Netanyahu late Tuesday said Israel remains committed to “strictly maintaining the status quo” at the site.
“The claim that a change has been made in the status quo is without foundation,” he said.
'Without strong, coordinated action, the carnage in Myanmar would worsen'
A UN-appointed independent human rights expert has said the carnage in Myanmar would only worsen without strong, coordinated action by countries against atrocities committed by the junta in the country.
Thomas Andrews, special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, said the adoption of the UN Security Council's first resolution on the Southeast Asian nation recently since the military unleashed a brutal crackdown nearly two years ago was not enough.
Special rapporteurs are appointed by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council to examine and report back on a specific human rights country situation.
"Demanding that certain actions be taken without any use of the Security Council's Chapter VII authority, will not stop the illegal Myanmar junta from attacking and destroying the lives of the 54 million people being held hostage in the country," he said recently.
The resolution expressed "deep concern" at the continuing state of emergency since the military seized power and the "grave impact" of the coup on Myanmar's people.
It also urged "concrete and immediate actions" towards implementing a peace plan, which was agreed to by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and called to uphold "democratic institutions and processes."
Andrews said: "The systematic gross human rights violations – amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity – being perpetrated daily on the people of Myanmar by an illegal military junta requires strong, coordinated action by UN member states."
He said the resolution's demands – including an immediate end to all forms of violence, the release of political prisoners, unimpeded humanitarian access, and respect for the rights of women and children – are "critically important" but missing are "consequences for the failure to meet them and the imposition of sanctions and accountability for crimes the military has committed to date."
The language of the resolution should have been stronger, Andrews added.
Read more: UN Security Council adopts first-ever resolution on Myanmar; China, Russia and India abstain from voting
"However, the resolution makes it clear that the action required to end the crisis would not come from the Security Council. It is, therefore, imperative that those nations with the political will to support the people of Myanmar take coordinated action immediately to end the carnage," the expert said.
"The resolution should not become 'a dead-end…followed by more international inaction.' It should be a wake-up call for those nations who support a people under siege."
Targeted action is needed, including coordinating sanctions, cutting off the revenue that finances the junta's military assaults, and an embargo on weapons and dual-use technology, Andrews said.
Read more: Thailand hosts informal meeting on Myanmar political crisis
Weather, climate disasters hit millions, cost billions in 2022: UN
Weather and climate disasters, from extreme floods to heat and drought, hit millions and cost billions in 2022, the UN weather agency said Friday.
The clear need to do much more to cut greenhouse gas emissions was again underscored throughout events in 2022, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) added.
"This year we have faced several dramatic weather disasters which claimed far too many lives and livelihoods and undermined health, food, energy and water security and infrastructure," WMO chief Petteri Taalas said.
"There is a need to enhance preparedness for such extreme events and to ensure that we meet the UN target of Early Warnings for All in the next five years."
While Global temperature figures for 2022 will be released in mid-January, the past eight years are on track to be the eight warmest on record, according to the WMO.
While the persistence of a cooling La Niña event, now in its third year, means that 2022 will not be the warmest year on record, its cooling impact will be short-lived and not reverse the long-term warming trend caused by record levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in our atmosphere.
Also, this will be the tenth successive year that temperatures have reached at least 1°C above pre-industrial levels – likely to breach the 1.5°C limit of the Paris Agreement.
The WMO will promote a new way of monitoring the sinks and sources of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide by using the ground-based Global Atmosphere Watch, satellite and assimilation modelling, which allows a better understanding of how key greenhouse gases behave in the atmosphere.
Greenhouse gases are just one climate indicator used to observe levels.
Sea levels, which have doubled since 1993; ocean heat content; and acidification are also at recorded highs.
The past two and a half years alone account for 10 percent of the overall sea level rise since satellite measurements started nearly 30 years ago, the WMO's provisional State of the Global Climate in 2022 report said.
And 2022 took an exceptionally heavy toll on glaciers in the European Alps, with initial indications of record-shattering melt.
The Greenland ice sheet lost mass for the 26th consecutive year and it rained – rather than snowed – on the summit for the first time in September.
Although 2022 did not break global temperature records, it topped many national heat records throughout the world.
India and Pakistan experienced soaring heat in March and April. China had the most extensive and long-lasting heatwave since national records began and the second-driest summer on record.
And parts of the northern hemisphere were exceptionally hot and dry.
Read more: Summer droughts now 20 times more likely due to climate change
A large area centred around the central-northern part of Argentina, as well as in southern Bolivia, central Chile, and most of Paraguay and Uruguay, experienced record-breaking temperatures during two consecutive heatwaves in late November and early December 2022.
"Record-breaking heatwaves have been observed in China, Europe, North and South America," the WMO chief said. 'The long-lasting drought in the Horn of Africa threatens a humanitarian catastrophe."
And while large parts of Europe sweltered in repeated episodes of extreme heat, the UK hit a new national record in July, when the temperature topped more than 40°C for the very first time.
In East Africa, rainfall was below average throughout four consecutive wet seasons – the longest in 40 years – triggering a major humanitarian crisis affecting millions of people, devastating agriculture, and killing livestock, especially in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia.
Record-breaking rain in July and August led to extensive flooding in Pakistan, which caused at least 1,700 deaths, displaced 7.9 million and affected 33 million people.
Read more: UN chief appeals to world to help badly flood-hit Pakistan
UN appoints Bangladesh’s Sara Hossain as chair of Fact Finding Mission on Iran
The United Nations’ Human Rights Council has appointed members to a recently established Fact-Finding Mission to review Iran’s rights violations during recent protests.
The council tweeted on Tuesday that its President Federico Villegas has appointed Sara Hossain of Bangladesh as the chair of the mission. Shaheen Sardar Ali of Pakistan and Viviana Krsticevic of Argentina are the two other members of the mission.
Also read: Bangladesh elected UN Human Rights Council member with 160 votes
The Human Rights Council established an independent, international fact-finding mission on November 24 to thoroughly investigate alleged human rights violations in Iran related to the protests that began on September 16, 2022.
'Bangladesh outshines neighbours in socioeconomic indicators'
In the five decades of its independence Bangladesh achieved greater success than any of its South Asian neighbours in a plethora of social and economic indicators, Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the UN Office at Geneva Sufiur Rahman said Saturday.
He was speaking at a seminar organised by the Permanent Mission of Bangladesh in Geneva, marking Victory Day of the country.
During the seminar, members of the Bangladeshi community discussed the successes and challenges of the current government. They highlighted the strong role that expatriate Bangladeshis could play in not only projecting Bangladesh's achievements but also stopping negative publicities against the country.
Ambassador Sufiur said besides facing the challenges of LDC graduation and climate change, Bangladesh must prepare from now on to tackle different internal and external challenges hastened by geo-political reasons.
Deputy Permanent Representative Sanchita Haque talked about the disappointing role of the UN during the 1971 Liberation War of Bangladesh during Cold War.
Also, the national flag was hoisted, statements were read out, and a special prayer was offered in the morning.
Before the evening seminar, a minute of silence was observed to pay tribute to the valiant martyrs of 1971.
Afterwards, a documentary on the Liberation War was screened.
Read more: Bangladesh’s achievements made it an example for other countries to emulate: UN
Global trade growth turns negative after record year: UN
The UN trade facilitation agency has said global trade is set to hit a record high of $32 trillion for 2022, but inflation has reversed some of the gains made in recent months.
The global growth turned negative during the second half of 2022, UNCTAD added.
"Trade in goods and services is expected to reach $25 trillion and $7 trillion, respectively, by the end of the year. The downturn began in the third quarter of the year, with goods trading about one percent lower than from March to May," the UN agency said.
Although services increased by 1.3 percent in the third quarter, both goods and services are expected to fall in value in the run-up to the end of the year, according to the latest global trade update of UNCTAD.
Demand for foreign goods proved resilient through 2022, with trade volumes overall increasing by three percent.
Trade volumes of east Asian economies have shown resilience, while South-South trade lagged during the third quarter.
Read more: Bangladesh govt aims to increase money supply over next two fiscals
Overall, geopolitical frictions, persisting inflation, and lower global demand are expected to negatively affect global trade during 2023, UNCTAD said.