Section: IRIN (Switzerland)
Bots and bombs: Does cyberspace need a “Digital Geneva Convention”?
Cyber-attacks are on the rise, threatening power grids, driving up geopolitical tensions, and even crippling hospitals. Countries should agree a new “Digital Geneva Convention” to contain the risk and set up a new international organisation to police the new rules. These proposals from Microsoft’s chief legal officer, Brad Smith, also say...
Updates
IRIN launches new stream of Geneva-based policy reporting 26 June 2017 We are pleased to announce the launch of a new stream of Geneva-based policy reporting, which will complement IRIN’s field journalism from crisis zones around the world by shining a light on trends in financing of humanitarian assistance, the aid reform agenda, peace...
Illegal weapons: A global guide
Just today, dozens of Syrians were killed in a suspected chemical weapons attack in Idlib. Be it also by barrel bomb, cluster munition, or landmine, civilians die all too frequently at the hands of weapons the international community has set out to ban. After years of declining use and progress in destroying stockpiles, deaths from such munitions...
Three deadly viruses that could spawn the next pandemic
Bird flu is back. Chinese authorities are closing live poultry markets as H7N9 courses through the country, infecting 192 and killing 79 in January alone. So far, this strain of avian flu appears to have been transmitted only through contact with live poultry, but there’s always a fear it will mutate and start passing between humans....
Unconventional cash project challenges aid status quo in Lebanon
The EU and Britain have met resistance to a new $85 million project to simplify cash allowances for Syrian refugees. In future, only one contractor will handle the payments and another will monitor the project, replacing systems involving some nine aid agencies. The donors say the new arrangement, due to start n the next few months, will reduce...
Lake Chad money, Oxfam-GOAL merger, and serial Syria talks: The Cheat Sheet
Every week, IRIN’s team of editors takes a look at what lies ahead on the humanitarian agenda and curates a selection of some of the best reports, opinion, and journalism you may have missed: What’s coming up? Finding $1.5 billion for Lake Chad The borders of Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, and Chad meet at Lake Chad. The region is now one...
Lake Chad money, Oxfam-GOAL merger, and serial Syria talks: The Cheat Sheet
Every week, IRIN’s team of editors takes a look at what lies ahead on the humanitarian agenda and curates a selection of some of the best reports, opinion, and journalism you may have missed: What’s coming up? Finding $1.5 billion for Lake Chad The borders of Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, and Chad meet at Lake Chad. The region is now one...
Crunch time in Congo, community philanthropy, and continuing genocide: IRIN’s Top Picks
Every week, IRIN’s team of editors curates a selection of humanitarian reports and opinion you may have missed, from in-depth analyses and features to academic studies and podcasts: Equality and economy in the Middle East As Bessma Momani points out right off the bat in this briefing for the Brookings Institution, one of the major drivers...
Elderly fare worst in Europe’s forgotten conflict
“A bullet flew in right here,” explains Nadyezhda Semyonovna, 65, to her local pastor, Yura, in the dining room of her home near Avdiivka, eastern Ukraine. “I was wearing pants like this and it went through here,” she says, pointing to the front of her thigh where it sliced through the cloth. “But I wasn’t wounded. Bullets were flying; the...
The crisis of multilateralism and the future of humanitarian action
“The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.’ – Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks, circa 1930. Long before the November 2016 US elections, there were clear signals that multilateralism was in crisis. In fact, Donald...
