UNITED NATIONS - All 193 UN member states Sunday  agreed to an ambitious global agenda which features 17 new sustainable development goals that aim, by 2030, to eradicate extreme poverty, promote prosperity and people’s well-being, and protect the environment, paving the way for a successful UN summit in September.

The agreed-upon draft plan, also known as “Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,” is expected to be officially adopted at the summit, which will attract more than 150 world leaders at the UN Headquarters in New York. The weekend agreement came at the end of a negotiating process that has spanned more than two years and involved both developed and developing countries, representing the global aspiration for common development on the basis of win-win cooperation.

The participants in the negotiation process were all UN member countries with varying national conditions and different development targets, so naturally, they viewed the same agenda from different perspectives. China for its part has attended the negotiations in a constructive manner, and played a crucial role in bridging the gap and promoting unity among participating countries, laying a solid foundation for the hard-won agreement.   Meanwhile, the agreement

in the country. The Independent Human Rights Commission meanwhile said that civilian casualties have increased sharply in the first six months of the year compared to the same period last year. They say there is a 30 percent increase in civilian casualties. "Civilian casualty [toll] is catastrophic. In the past six months more than 3,000 civilians were killed and wounded in the country, which shows a 30 percent increase compared to last year. Many of them were children and women," said AIHRC spokesman Rafiullah Bedar.

Hostage-taking, domestic abuse and torture of prisoners of war and an increase in homeless people are also areas of concern, they said. The Human Rights Commission adds that groups involved in the war have violated humanitarian laws of war and are continuing to attack public places. "According to the report 75 per cent of civilian casualties were attributed to armed opposition attacks, 3.7 percent attributed to pro-government forces and 16 percent of civilians were killed or injured by unknown people," Bedar added. Meanwhile, many families who have lost children in insurgent attacks have appealed to organizations working for peace to help stop attacks carried out in public places.

The recent AIHRC findings show that civilians in Helmand, Badakhshan, Nangarhar, Faryab and Kunduz provinces are particularly at risk. The Human Rights Commission's findings are inline with UNAMA's last report, in June, that noted 978 Afghan civilians had been killed and over 1, 900 wounded in the Afghan conflict in the first four months of the year. (Tolonews)