(UN News)* — Women and girls of African descent face a “systemic and historical pattern” of racial abuse in the health sector in countries across the world, leaving them at increased risk of death during childbirth, the UN’s sexual and reproductive health agency said on Wednesday [].
“The scourge of racism continues for Black women and girls in the Americas, many of whom are descendants of the victims of enslavement,” Natalia Kanem, Executive Director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), said in a news release.
“Too often, Afrodescendent women and girls are abused and mistreated, their needs are not taken seriously, and their families are shattered by the preventable death of a loved one during childbirth. “Justice and equality will only be possible when our healthcare systems see these women and provide them with respectful, compassionate care.”
(UN News)* — The UN’s top human rights official urged respect for religious tolerance on Tuesday []as Member States gathered in Geneva in response to the recent burning of the holy Quran in the Swedish capital.
UNAMA/Barat Ali Batoor | Men pray at a mosque in Afghanistan.
Addressing the Human Rights Council, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk noted that the tome was the “core of faith” for well over one billion Muslims.
Those who had burned the Quran most likely did so “to express contempt and inflame anger”, Mr. Türk said, as he warned that these acts also aimed “to drive wedges between people”, to provoke and transform differences into hatred.
(UN News)* — As conflict continues to rage in Sudan, UN humanitarians expressed alarm on Tuesday [] at a surge in the number of people fleeing across the border to Chad.
From the World Food Programme (WFP), Chad Country Director Pierre Honnorat said that 20,000 people crossed into Chad just last week.
Speaking to journalists via Zoom from the Zabout refugee camp in Goz Beida, Mr. Honnorat described desperate scenes: “We can see that they have suffered, many lost family members, and we don’t even dare ask them, ‘Where are the men?’ The answer from the mothers is often that they were killed. So, you just see many women, many children.”
(UN NEWS)* — Global sea surface temperatures reached a record high in May, June, and July – and the warming El Niño weather pattern is only just getting started – experts at the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Monday [].
Unsplash/Rafael Garcin
Global sea surface temperatures were at a record high in May and June 2023.
Alarm bells have been rung at the UN agency in particular because of an “unprecedented peak” in sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic.
MADRID, Jul 10 2023 (IPS)* – A quick glance at the current European political map would clearly show how far the extremist ideology has been installed in European countries –those who still wave the French Revolution’s flag of “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.”
Credit: United Nations
According to the Napoleonic French Revolution’s three pillars, Liberty means freedom for an individual to do what he/she wants to do without harming others’ Liberty. Equality means equal opportunity to all the citizens irrespective of their caste, religion, race, gender.
Fraternity means an environment of brotherhood among the citizens of a nation.
DUDUMACAD, Ethiopia, 7 July 2023 (UNFPA)* – “Saving the life of this baby was a miracle and a blessing for my family. I am immensely grateful,” said Amino Bashir, 25, as she held her newborn.
Ms. Bashir lives in Dudumacad in the Somali region of Ethiopia – one of the areas devastated by a gruelling drought across the Horn of Africa that has affected more than 36 million people so far.
People fleeing the ongoing fighting in Sudan arrive in Chad. Photo: IOM/F. Ada Affana
Geneva/Cairo/Port Sudan, 6 July 2023(IOM)* – Nearly 3 million people have been displaced internally and across borders by the conflict in Sudan, in less than three months.
In addition to the more than 2.2 million internally displaced persons (IDPs), nearly 700,000 others have fled into neighbouring countries, according to the latest figures by the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM).
Youlka buys food for dinner at a market in Togo’s Savanes region, where many displaced people are seeking shelter from violence. Photo: WFP/Richard Mbouet
She heaves a sigh of relief. With her national identity and ration cards in hand, she hurries to the distribution point for World Food Programme (WFP) cash. She already knows what she’ll spend it on.
(UN NEWS)* — With over 18,000 near-Earth objects (NEOs) lurking beyond the stratosphere, 2,000 of which are classified as potentially hazardous, the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) is using Friday’s International Asteroid Dayto raise awareness across the planet.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA | Asteroid tracks among the stars.
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NEOs are asteroids or comets that come relatively close to the Sun, to about 50 million kilometres from Earth’s orbit. Some of them, ‘potentially hazardous objects’ (PHOs), come even closer – in interstellar terms – with a minimum distance of less than 7.5 million kilometres.
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Measuring more than 140 meters across, the PHOs have the potential to cause regional devastation with possible global consequences.
(UN NEWS)* — Senior UN officials and donor partners on Sunday [] visited the Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank city of Jenin, where they witnessed the “shocking” damage sustained during the Israeli incursion this past week.
The two-day Israeli military operation, which included airstrikes in this densely populated community, caused the worst level of destruction in more than 20 years in Jenin camp.
The two-day military operation was the fiercest in over 20 years, according to the UN agency that supports Palestine refugees, UNRWA.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 