(The Telegraph) – Philip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary, has been accused of vetoing a request for Britain to sign up to a UN initiative to prevent schools and schoolchildren from becoming victims of war. Unicef, the United Nations children’s fund, along with children’s charities, is promoting a “safe schools declaration”, setting out guidelines for how armed forces can avoid targeting schools in war. The initiative, which has been signed by 51 countries already, is being launched in Britain as gruesome pictures emerge from Syria, Yemen and elsewhere of children bombed and maimed in conflicts there.
