Women in Uruguay preparing to participate in an International Women’s Day march, 2019. New global plans are underway to mark the 25th anniversary of the Beijing conference advancing women’s rights in 2020, including events to be held in Mexico, France and New York. The efforts will not be easy. CREATIVE COMMONS
The US State Department has created a new commission to advise Secretary of State Pompeo, above, on redefining policies aligned with “natural law and natural rights.” For human-rights advocates, the language suggests ominous religious and other overtones. RON PRZYSUCHA/STATE DEPARTMENT
Vice President Pence suddenly showed up at the UN on April 10, 2019, to demand that the Security Council strip the current Venezuelan ambassador’s UN credentials. That has not happened. The US mission to the UN lacks a permanent representative amid an outflow of a range of personnel. Some UN diplomats say, “There is no one left.” MANUEL ELIAS/UN PHOTO
Wazhma Frogh, an award-winning advocate for Afghan women and girls, said in a recent interview about women’s participation in the current peace talks for her country: It’s a litmus test for the world, what’s going on in Afghanistan. LARA MCKINLEY
A possible peace deal in the pipeline as the Dinkas and Murles in Jonglei, South Sudan, agree to end age-old hostilities, March 28, 2019. The US is withholding its agreed-on share of UN peacekeeping dues that go to such missions as the one in South Sudan. UNMISS/UN PHOTO
Amal Clooney, the British human-rights lawyer, told the Security Council that now is its “Nuremberg moment” to push for prosecuting cases of sexual violence in conflict. Nadia Murad, right, a Yazidi, had been held by ISIS in Iraq. In 2018, Murad won the Nobel Peace Prize with Dr. Denis Mukwege, a Congolese, for their work to end sexual atrocities.
A resident returned to his home in the Mopti region of Mali after attacks in February 2019 in the Bankass Circle area, where at least 18 people died by shooting and burning. Deadly violence is increasing in central Mali, targeting civilians, Malian soldiers and peacekeepers with no resolution in sight.
In a refugee camp in South Sudan, people escape the fighting in the country’s civil war, including rampant rape by militias and national armed forces. Members of the UN Security Council are drafting a resolution to strengthen victims’ rights, but the United States is resisting language on sexual and reproductive health services. GEOFF PUGH
President Trump with Prime Minister Netanyahu at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, May 2017. From the start of his presidency, Trump’s Middle East policies have amounted to a “bromance” with the Israeli leader, the author writes, but where is the mysterious peace plan for Israel and Palestine, and who will gain from it the most?
In case you haven’t figured it out yet, it’s not really “America First.”
It’s “Donald Trump First.”
A new advocacy campaign started by Madre, an American nonprofit group, aims to introduce women in the developing world to lawmakers in Washington to explain how US foreign policy affects women at the receiving end. Life in Burkina Faso, above, can entail battling bad air, terrorist threats and poor maternal health. DULCIE LEIMBACH
“To reboot the world, we need to change the way we make policies,” says the New York-based advocacy group Madre, whose latest goal is nothing less than to “bring global women’s voices and solutions to progressive policymaking in the US.”
