The world could learn a thing or two from the legacies of statesmen like Kofi Annan

Today marks the World Humanitarian Day, a day to remember those most affected by crises and celebrate the lives of those who risk their lives in humanitarian service. We also mourn the loss of Kofi Annan, one of the most political and diplomatic giants of our era. His unswerving commitment to peace, reconciliation and human dignity underpinned by a solid moral judgement won him the Nobel Peace accolade.

Today, as we continue to deal with refugees as numbers, we forget that civil wars have fuelled the largest humanitarian displacement crisis in modern history, with an immense psychological and physical toll on refugees.

As wars grind on with no end in sight, it is time to look beyond numbers to encompass the immediate needs of vulnerable refugees and their host populations. There should be a focus on primary health care, mental health, reproductive health, psychosocial and nutrition services to women and youth empowerment, as well as gender-based violence prevention and health systems resilience and responsiveness.

Only then will we succeed in our moral and legal obligations towards humanity as a whole. There are pragmatic and moral reasons for receiving societies to address access to healthcare for refugees according to international human rights tenets. It is time to honour the spirits of statesmen like Mandela, Rabin, Kofi Annan, Gandhi, King Hussein among others, and improve access to vulnerable populations to healthcare and mental health services.

Dr Munjed Farid Al Qutob
London, NW2

Building unity and cooperation amongst Nations

The town hall in a small market town within the Morbihan, within Brittany, within France, within a Union of European Nations. The Breton flag, the French Tricolour and the Blue flag of Europe are of equal size and fly at equal height. No flag is dominant. No authority is dominant. No Breton bureaucrat will trespass upon Morbihan affairs. No French bureaucrat will trespass upon Breton affairs. No European bureaucrat will trespass upon French affairs. Levels of cooperation and unity are agreed by elected leaders – independence is protected – mutual support is assured. Security is shared. Wealth is shared. Risks are shared. Concerns are shared.

The many benefits of the unity and cooperation that has been built amongst the people and the nations of Europe in sixty years are apparent to all with open eyes and open minds. Where should the unity of European nations stop and start? This question must be asked frequently and the answers must be reviewed frequently. The authority for all decisions and policies within this union rests only with the leaders of the elected governments of our nations – commissioners have no authority other than to fulfil the commissions given to them by the leaders of their nations. The objectives of our unity and cooperation must remain focused and precise and limited.

Huge benefits stem from free movement between our nations of trade, goods, services and people, from unified quality assurance and safety and employment standards, from trade deals that give us access to global markets whilst protecting our farmers, prime producers and manufacturers from “commodity dumping” and “free trade” speculators. Economic cooperation and a single currency can bring stability and security to the benefit of Europe and the world. A dependency upon the US dollar as a global currency is not good. Our European Court of Justice is designed to protect the ordinary citizens of Europe from the power of states, powerful businesses and powerful people. It is there to protect us, not to impose upon us.

Perhaps in time we could consider unified armed forces to defend our people and our nations, reduce our dependency upon the USA and provide support in areas of global conflict.

All of these and other cooperations should evolve over time – and only when agreed by the leaders of our elected governments.

We are a union of independent nations – our union must never trespass upon the independence of any nation. Indeed our union should protect freedoms and facilitate devolution and local development wherever it is needed.

The creation of a European Union of nations has only just started. Today it is threatened by nationalists, xenophobes, racism and tribalism. These threats are orchestrated by men who seek to gain personal power and who seek to divide and rule, and limit the freedoms of communities. For our unity of nations to succeed we all need to be thoughtful, caring, determined and brave. No nation could play a greater part in this building process than the United Kingdom.

Martin Deighton
Woodbridge

No wonder young people are leaving

Greece is about to exit the European Stability Mechanism after eight years of huge EU aid subsidies (needed after political irresponsibility of the Brexit variety). Sadly, its living standards and public services remain far below pre-crisis levels with little hope of improvement for decades and most of the country resembles a derelict building site.

Austerity on a scale which Scotland would experience after independence has left Greek welfare available for only the most needy.

Tax rises sent businesses abroad along with half a million of the next generation. Likewise today, if, instead of my mid-seventies, I was twenty-five with my new physics PhD, there's no way I'd remain here.

Rev Dr John Cameron
St Andrews

Childhood obesity isn’t a quick fix issue

I agree our politicians require courage to combat obesity, but as a teacher I never understood why the government didn't introduce cooking or food science into the curriculum from an early age to give young people the skills to prepare healthy meals on a budget (Editorials, 18 August).

Kartar Uppal
Sutton Coldfield

Although the number of young people now being treated for type two diabetes is not high, the emergence of the condition and the trend are deeply troubling. We can agree that the principal causes are poor diet and lack of exercise. For remedy, some commentators are pointing at education and schools; but they have enough on their plate and we should not burden them further.

Rather, we need we look to parents to teach their kids to cook wholesome food. But a generation that was not taught how to cook is not going to be capable of instructing its offspring. And, sadly, things can only spiral downwards as time passes. In any case, with the national economic problem of low productivity dictating that both parents must spend all hours working to bring in sufficient cash for survival, leaving no time to cook, and with single parent families an ever-increasing social phenomenon that also leaves short both time and cash, it is almost inevitable that ready meals and junk food have become the staple diet for many.

The upshot is increased bodily weight and life-changing disease. Given that intergenerational knowledge transfer is now lost in a large fraction of families, we may, as a nation, have to steel ourselves to an increasingly unhealthy future and its knock-on costs to the NHS. The alternative is for our politicians to stop dithering and engineer change in family culinary practices, whether through taxation or legislation or promotion of an economy that provides workers with higher rewards.

Ian Reid
Oban, Scotland

Antisemitism and the IHRA definition

Steve Ford wants Labour not to close off debate on the definition of antisemitism (Letters, 17 August). That would be fine were it not to fail to deal with the vital issue of whether “the existence of Israel is a racist endeavour”. This is the critical example of antisemitic thinking provided by the IHRA and not yet adopted by the Labour Party.

Even if, as seems likely, Labour gives way on this, silence on the substance of the issue will continue to raise the question in the Jewish Community and beyond: what does a possible future prime minister think? This is a quite separate question from whether the nature, style or degree of criticism of Israel can sometimes be antisemitic in intent.

Critics of Israel deserve the benefit of the doubt on that. Rather, it’s about whether you disassociate from a view, regarded by a strong body of opinion as antisemitic, calling into question the right of Jewish people to form themselves into a sovereign nation, seek recognition and to define their nationality by reference to Jewishness. Conflating the very foundation of the state of Israel with criticism of the way Israel currently behaves is to cross an important line.

Steven Fogel
London, NW1