NEW YORK, Sep 30 2024 (IPS)** –The world is standing at a critical juncture. Climate change is not just a future threat—it’s here, and it’s already devastating lives. From record-breaking heat waves to floods and landslides, the planet is sending us clear signals that we cannot afford to ignore.
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Nakabuye speaks to a crowd of over one thousand at the Youth Climate Strike rally in New York City on September 20, 2024.
But for many of us in the Global South, this crisis is not new. It is a daily reality that we have been living with for years, despite contributing almost nothing to the problem.
27 September 2024 (UNEP)* — Record-setting wildfires tearing through South America are likely to become the new normal unless the region makes dramatic investments in fire prevention and limits slash-and-burn agriculture in places like the Amazon, experts are cautioning.
IBAMA/ASCOM
Since May, blazes have ravaged forests and savannahs across Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Paraguay and Peru as drought has created tinderbox-like conditions in many places.
Even the world’s largest tropical wetland, the wildlife-rich Pantanal, has been smouldering for months.
ROME, 25 September 2024 – The Italian authorities imposed yet another punitive measure on the Geo Barents, the search and rescue vessel operated by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), for performing its legal and humanitarian duty to save lives at sea.
This time, the vessel received two separate detention orders, immediately after the Geo Barents had finished disembarking 206 survivors in Genoa, in northern Italy.
26 September 2024 —There is a stand-alone article in the European Union’s founding Treaty that puts human rights at the core of EU foreign policy.
There are authoritative guidelines and a comprehensive action plan on human rights and democracy, adopted by EU governments, to guide the bloc’s external actions.
MVOMERO, Tanzania, Sep 24 2024 (IPS)* – In the scorching sun of Mikese village in Tanzania’s eastern Mvomero district, 31-year-old Maria Naeku tirelessly tends to her small vegetable patch. Each time she pulls a weed, the red soil stains her hands as she guides the trickle of water from a maze of pipes through an elevated bed to nurture her plants. In a drought-stricken area, Naeku’s small garden is a lifeline for her family, giving them food and income.
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Maria Naeku, a Maasaiwoman in Mikese village in Mvomero district tends to her vegetable garden.Credit: Kizito Makoye Shigela/IPS
The intensity of the present conflict in Lebanon has already claimed the lives of more children per day than the 2006 conflict.
UNICEF/UNI561764/SánchezOn February 22, 2024, friends of Hassan Al Durr, a 5-year-old girl killed in an airstrike, visit the aftermath of the deadly airstrike that claimed her life. Majdal Zoun, Southern Lebanon.
BEIRUT, 26 September 2024 (UNICEF)* –The average number of children killed per day in Lebanon this week is more than double the number of children killed per day during the country’s devastating 2006 conflict.
An estimated 400 children, or about 12 children per day, were killed during the 33-day 2006 conflict[1].
(UN News)* — A new humanitarian crisis is unfolding at Lebanon’s border with Syria as thousands of people flee Israeli shelling linked to the war in Gaza, UN humanitarians said on Thursday [], just as Israel premier Benyamin Netanyahu arrived in New York for the UN General Assembly.
Only hours earlier, UN Secretary-General António Guterreswarned the Security Council that “hell is breaking loose in Lebanon” along the UN-patrolled line of separation, with exchanges of fire greater in “scope, depth and intensity” than previously.
With the amount of aid Israel is currently allowing into Gaza, it will take humanitarian agencies more than two years to deliver the kits needed to prepare tents, makeshift shelters and damaged homes south of Wadi Gaza for this coming winter, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council-led Shelter Cluster in Palestine.
Makeshift site in Khan Younis, Gaza. Photo credit: Alison Ely / Palestine Shelter Cluster
25 September 2024 — At least 25,000 sealing-off kits, the equivalent of 25 truckloads, must be delivered per week to southern Gaza before the end of November, to meet the vast needs.
Everyone seems to have had a family member or friend who has either gotten seriously ill or died due to acquiring an infection that did not respond to prescribed medicines, and the underlying reason was often antimicrobial resistance.
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Sep 26 2024 (IPS)* – In 2017, South African activist Nonhle Mbuthuma took a stand against the powerful oil giant Shell, halting their plans to explore the pristine Wild Coast.
Environmental activist Nonhle Mbuthuma.
Despite facing death threats, she refused to back down. As a co-founder of the Amadiba Crisis Committee and a 2024 Goldman Prize winner, Mbuthuma continues to fight for her community’s rights and the environment.
Her bravery reflects the countless risks land and environmental defenders face across the globe.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 