United Nations

An estimated 65 journalists have been assassinated so far this year, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

UNESCO is the entity of the United Nations charged with tracking the freedom of press worldwide.

The InterDependent reports that Guy Berger, UNESCO’s director of the Division of Freedom of Expression and Media Development, said UNESCO focuses on the murder of journalists because  “'although many journalists are harassed or imprisoned worldwide, we prioritize our attention on the killings and impunity issues which constitute not only the ultimate form of censorship but also a cycle of unpunished attacks.”'

Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, might have broken into tears because the lack of a global agreement on climate change is "condemning future generations before they are even born," BBC reported. But Figueres still said that a deal can be done by 2015 and the pitfalls that doomed the 2009 Copenhagen negotiations for an international climate-change accord could be avoided, BBC also reported.

James Anaya, U.N. special rapporteur on indigenous rights, said during a visit to Canada that "there's a crisis in Canada with regard to indigenous issues, notwithstanding some important developments within Canada over the last decades," the Associated Press reported.

The disparities include: one in five indigenous Canadians live in dilapidated and often overcrowded homes, Anaya said, and "funding for aboriginal housing is woefully inadequate;" and that the suicide rate among Inuit and First Nations youth who live on reservations is more than five times greater than that of other Canadians.

With the United Nations General Assembly in New York this week, one UN event looked at the role the United Nations could have, if any, regarding ensuring privacy on the Internet from governmental spying.

A blogger for Ars Technica who was on the panel and who wrote about the event "pointed out that while anti-democratic countries may want legitimacy, their policies are already well in place. Surveillance capabilities are already being used, with or without the UN’s approval or disapproval, by democratic and anti-democratic governments."

Another interesting point from the panel was a Brazilian representative who "referred to the fact that President Barack Obama had recently defended the global American spying effort: 'I think it's important to recognize you can't have 100 percent security, and also 100 percent privacy, and also zero inconvenience. We're going to have to make some choices as a society.'" 

The Brazilian official said in light of the revelations of American spying on the Brazilian president and a major Brazilian energy company '“Brazil has 100 percent inconvenience, 0 percent security, and 0 percent privacy.”'