(UN NEWS)* — Swift action is needed to prevent flare ups of Israeli-Palestinian violence and avert a looming food crisis, the top UN official in the Middle East told the Security Council on Wednesday [].
UN News/Maher Nasser | Nearly 600,000 people have visited the Holy Sites in Jerusalem since the beginning of Ramadan.
“There is no time to spare,” said Tor Wennesland, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process.
“We must take action, not only to ensure Palestinian well-being and governance, but as an integral part of ending the occupation and restoring a political horizon toward a viable two-State solution, based on UN resolutions, international law and previous agreements,” he said, briefing the Council on recent grim and dangerous security and humanitarian concerns.
(UN NEWS)* — Children in the Horn of Africa are living through an unprecedented large-scale crisis of hunger, displacement, water scarcity, and insecurity, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Monday [].
More than seven million children under the age of five remain malnourished and in need of urgent nutrition aid, and over 1.9 million boys and girls* are at risk of dying from severe malnutrition.
As the region comes out of one of the worst droughts in 40 years, vulnerable communities have lost cattle, crops, and entire livelihoods over the past three years of failed rains.“
The crisis in the Horn has been devastating for children,” said Mohamed Fall, UNICEF Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa.“
LONDON, May 22 2023 (IPS)*– “G7 countries have failed the Global South here in Hiroshima. They failed to cancel debts, and they failed to find what is really required to end the huge increase in hunger worldwide. They can find untold billions to fight the war but can’t even provide half of what is needed by the UN for the most critical humanitarian crises.”
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Adel Mansour takes his WFP food basket home on a cart in Abyan, Yemen. Credit: WFP/Ahmed Altaf
Hunger and debt
“If the G7 really want closer ties to the developing countries and greater backing for the war in Ukraine, then asking Global South leaders to fly across the world for a couple of hours is not going to cut it. They need to cancel debts and do what it takes to end hunger.
ROME, May 22 2023 (IPS)* – Two shocking findings have just been revealed: the G7 countries owe low- and middle-income countries a huge 13.3 trillion USD in unpaid aid and funding for climate action, at a time when one billion people now face cholera risk, precisely because of the staggering reduction and even non-payment of committed assistance.
This money could otherwise be spent on healthcare, education, gender equality and social protection, as well as addressing the impacts of climate change, says Oxfam. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS
Such an inhuman reality also reveals that the G7 (Group of the seven wealthiest countries), who represent just 10% of the world’s population, continue to demand the Global South to pay 232 million USD –a day– in debt repayments through 2028, on 17 May 2023 revealed a new analysis from Oxfam ahead of the G7 Summit in Hiroshima, Japan (May 19- 21, 2023).
(UN NEWS)* — As heavy fighting continues in Sudan, UN humanitarians warned on Friday [] that more than one million people have now been forced to flee for their lives.
UNDP Sudan | People fleeing conflict in Sudan wait at a bus station in Khartoum.
A wave of deadly attacks reportedly targeted West Darfur’s capital, El-Geneina, in recent days, while the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said that more than 700 people had been killed and nearly 5,300 injured nationwide, after five weeks of intense clashes and bombardment.
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“Over one million people have now been recorded as displaced, within Sudan or to neighboring countries,” said UNHCR Spokesperson Matthew Saltmarsh, as he issued an urgent appeal to respect the safety of civilians and to allow humanitarian aid to move freely, in line with an agreement reached by the warring parties in Jeddah, on 11 May.
‘Flagrant violations’ of agreement
Under that accord between the national army and rival RSF militia, both sides agreed to allow trapped civilians to leave combat zones and allow humanitarian aid to enter.
In 1931, the International Institute for Intellectual Cooperation invited Albert Einstein to enter correspondence with a prominent person of his own choosing on a subject of importance to society.
The Institute planned to publish a collection of such dialogues.
Einstein accepted at once, and decided to write to Sigmund Freud to ask his opinion about how humanity could free itself from the curse of war. Here are some quotations from Einstein’s letter, translated from the original German:
“Dear Professor Freud,
“Is there any way of delivering mankind from the menace of war?
“It is common knowledge that, with the advance of modern science, this issue has come to mean a matter of life and death for civilization as we know it; nevertheless, for all the zeal displayed, every attempt at its solution has ended in a lamentable breakdown.
(UN NEWS)*— After years of steady decline, cholera is making a devastating comeback and targeting the world’s most vulnerable communities, UN health experts warned on Friday [].
In a new alert, the World Health Organization (WHO) and UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said that more countries now face outbreaks, increasing numbers of cases are being reported and the outcome for patients is worse than 10 years ago.
‘Killing the poor in front of us’
“The pandemic is killing the poor right in front of us,” said Jérôme Pfaffmann Zambruni, Head of UNICEF’s Public Health Emergency unit.
Echoing the bleak outlook, WHO data indicates that by May last year, 15 countries had reported cases, but by mid-May this year “we already have 24 countries reporting and we anticipate more with the seasonal shift in cholera cases,” said Henry Gray, WHO’s Incident Manager for the global cholera response.
ROME, May 18 2023 (IPS)* – Once the money-making businesses have turned Asia and Africa into their low-cost factories, to produce and market at higher prices their clothes and footwear, they further obtain more profits by selling to these two continents around 90% of all their used clothes and textiles waste.
“As reuse and recycling capacities in Europe are limited, a large share of used textiles collected in the EU is traded and exported to Africa and Asia, and their fate is highly uncertain,” says the European Environmental Agency. Credit: Shutterstock.
Not only: such a business alleviates the harsh environmental impacts of the lucrative clothing and fashion industry, and the cost of recycling and eliminating the leftovers of these products.
(UN NEWS)* — Amid a massive increase in the number of people in Sudan impacted by more than a month of heavy fighting, the UN on Wednesday [] said that it needed a record near $3 billion to deliver life-saving aid to them.
In addition to a revised request from the UN aid coordination office OCHA for $2.56 billion to fund its Humanitarian Response Plan – targeting some 18 million people in Sudan – the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said that it required $472 million to assist those forced to flee across the country’s borders.
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The revised joint humanitarian response plan updates the response strategy launched for Sudan in December 2022 and reflects the “fundamental and widespread needs” within the country, according to OCHA.
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“Today 25 million people, more than half the population of Sudan, need humanitarian aid and protection,” said Ramesh Rajasingham, Head and Representative of OCHA in Geneva.
BULAWAYO, May 18 2023 (IPS)* – Meat from wild animals is relished across Africa and widely traded, but scientists are warning that eating bush meat is a potential health risk, especially in the wake of pandemics like COVID-19.
Freshly slaughtered bush meat is being consumed even though it may have health risks.
A study at the border settlements of Kenya and Tanzania has found that while people have been aware of the risks associated with eating bushmeat, especially after the COVID-19 outbreak, they don’t worry about hunting and eating wild animals that could transmit diseases.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 