COPENHAGEN: The number of countries involved in “violent conflicts” is the highest in 30 years, while the number of people killed in conflicts has risen tenfold since 2005, the UN secretary-general said Tuesday.
Antonio Guterres added that the number of “violent situations” classifiable as wars, based on the number of casualties, has tripled since 2007.
He also told reporters in Oslo, Norway, that “low-intensity conflicts” rose by 60 percent since 2007. Guterres gave no specific figures.
“Prevention is more necessary than ever,” Guterres said, adding “mediation becomes an absolutely fundamental instrument in our action.”
Guterres, who was attending a meeting on peacemaking, said that on top of regional conflicts, global terrorism was a new type of struggle that “can strike anywhere at any time.”
The annual Oslo Forum panel discussion on peacemaking also was attended by leaders from Somalia, Algeria, Jordan, Oman and Tanzania. The White House envoy for the war against the Islamic State also attended.
The UN refugee agency said nearly 69 million people fleeing war, violence and persecution were forcibly displaced last year, a record number.
In its annual Global Trends Report published Tuesday, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said the continued crises in places like South Sudan and Congo, as well as the exodus of Muslim Rohingya from Myanmar that started last year, raised the overall figure of forced displacements in 2017 to 68.5 million.
UN chief: Highest number of conflicts in 30 years, record 69 million displaced
UN chief: Highest number of conflicts in 30 years, record 69 million displaced
‘Keep dreaming’: NATO chief says Europe can’t defend itself without US
BRUSSELS: NATO chief Mark Rutte warned Monday Europe cannot defend itself without the United States, in the face of calls for the continent to stand on its own feet after tensions over Greenland.
US President Donald Trump roiled the transatlantic alliance by threatening to seize the autonomous Danish territory — before backing off after talks with Rutte last week.
The diplomatic crisis sparked gave fresh momentum to those advocating for Europe to take a tougher line against Trump and break its military reliance on Washington.
“If anyone thinks here again, that the European Union, or Europe as a whole, can defend itself without the US — keep on dreaming. You can’t,” Rutte told lawmakers at the European Parliament.
He said that EU countries would have to double defense spending from the five percent NATO target agreed last year to 10 percent and spend “billions and billions” on building nuclear arms.
“You would lose the ultimate guarantor of our freedom, which is the US nuclear umbrella,” Rutte said. “So hey, good luck.”
The former Dutch prime minister insisted that US commitment to NATO’s Article Five mutual defense clause remained “total,” but that the United States expected European countries to keep spending more on their militaries.
“They need a secure Euro-Atlantic, and they also need a secure Europe. So the US has every interest in NATO,” he said.
The NATO head reiterated his repeated praise for Trump for pressuring reluctant European allies to step up defense spending.
He also appeared to knock back a suggestion floated by the EU’s defense commissioner Andrius Kubilius earlier this month for a possible European defense force that could replace US troops on the continent.
“It will make things more complicated. I think Putin will love it. So think again,” Rutte said.
On Greenland, Rutte said he had agreed with Trump that NATO would “take more responsibility for the defense of the Arctic,” but it was up to Greenlandic and Danish authorities to negotiate over US presence on the island.
“I have no mandate to negotiate on behalf of Denmark, so I didn’t, and I will not,” he said.
Rutte reiterated that he had stressed to Trump the cost paid by NATO allies in Afghanistan after the US leader caused outrage by playing down their contribution.
“For every two American soldiers who paid the ultimate price, one soldier of an ally or a partner, a NATO ally or a partner country, did not return home,” he said.
“I know that America greatly appreciates all the efforts.”
