23 June 2020 (WMO)* — The World Meteorological Organization is seeking to verify a reported new record temperature north of the Arctic Circle of 38° Celsius. This was on 20 June in the Russian town of Verkhoyansk amid a prolonged Siberian heatwave and increase in wildfire activity.
Verkhoyansk, located in the northern part of Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), is in a region of Eastern Siberia which has an extreme very harsh dry continental climate (very cold winter and hot summer).
(IWGIA)*— On 29 May an estimated 20,000 tons of diesel fuel leaked into the soil and natural water system near the city of Norilsk in northern Siberia after a fuel storage tank belonging to a daughter company of Russian nickel and copper giant Nornickel collapsed. A few days later, on 3 June, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared the incident a federal scale disaster.
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 23 2020 (IPS)* – The coronavirus pandemic is beginning to transform the United Nations into an institution far beyond recognition. The Secretariat building has been shut down since mid-March, and the UN campus will continue to remain a ghost town through end July– and perhaps beyond– with nearly 3,000 staffers, delegates and journalists working, mostly from home.
A staff member of the Liberia National Police Anti-Drug Squad reviews the municipal dump outside Monrovia, Liberia, where they are burning nearly 400 kg of marijuana and other drugs that were confiscated between 2011 and 2012. UN Photo/Staton Winter
Supported each year by individuals, communities, and various organizations all over the world, this global observance aims to raise awareness of the major problem that illicit drugs represent to society.
(UN News)*— Without urgent action, COVID-19 will continue to unravel decades of progress across South Asia, destroying the “hopes and futures of an entire generation”, warns a new report released on Tuesday [23 June 2020] by the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF.
.Lives Upended, notes that the rapidly advancing coronavirus pandemic, expanding across a region that is home to a quarter of the world’s population, is particularly affecting health and educational advances for children.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 