— Recently I learned a new word – “permacrisis” – a frightening concept of the endless loop of problems the world faces today, like being on a rollercoaster that never stops.
URBANA, Illinois, US, Oct 21 2024 (IPS)* – Hurricanes Helene and Milton resulted in record-setting rain, flooding, and flash flooding events across several states, including Florida and North Carolina, leaving devastating impacts on people, communities, and infrastructure that will require many years of rebuilding and recovery.
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Eventually, flooding waters recede, leaving behind a path of destruction and a fundamentally different habitat for non-human beings including plants and soil dwelling macro and microorganisms. Credit: Shutterstock.
(UN News)* — UN Secretary-General António Guterres urged delegations from some 190 countries to “make peace with nature” and shore up a plan to stop habitat loss, save endangered species, and preserve our planet’s precious ecosystems as the latest UN biodiversity summit got under way in Cali, Colombia on Sunday [] night.
Environment Ministry of Colombia | A young man displays a button with the official COP16 image at a carnival march in Ibagué, Tolima.
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The UN chief’s call came in a video message to the opening ceremony of the gathering, which officially begins on Monday 21 October in one of the most biodiverse countries on earth.
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Over the next two weeks, government experts, environmental activists and indigenous groups will tackle pressing global challenges in biodiversity protection.
17 Oct 2024 – Each new week brings new calamities for people in the countries neighboring Israel, as its leaders try to bomb their way to the promised land ofan ever-expanding Greater Israel.
Photo credit: Muhammad Mahdi Karim, Wikimedia Commons
In Gaza, Israel appears to be launching its “Generals’ Plan” to drive the most devastated and traumatized 2.2 million people in the world into the southern half of their open-air prison.
BOGOTA, Colombia, Oct 15 2024 (IPS)* – Information manipulation and misinformation are not new phenomena, but they have taken on exaggerated importance, especially with the massive use of social media.
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In Lima, Peru, during a 2021 national demonstration by indigenous women movements. Credit: Felipe Caicedo
New York (UNDP)* — A staggering 455 million of the world’s poor live in countries exposed to violent conflict, hindering and even reversing hard-won progress to reduce poverty, according to the latest update of the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) released on 17 October 2024.
The report includes an in-depth case study on Afghanistan, where 5.3 million more people fell into multidimensional poverty during the turbulent period 2015/16–2022/23. In 2022/23, nearly two-thirds of Afghans were poor. UNDP Afghanistan
Preventing malnutrition is central to WFP’s strategy – but access and funding pose key roadblocks
Paulema Rodeline nurses 7-month-old Kermissa at a centre for displaced people in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Photo: WFP/Tanya Birkbeck
(WFP)* —In Gaza, Ikhlas recounts pulling her daughter from the rubble of another bombardment, as she was pregnant with her fourth child. “We escaped death,” she says, speaking from the southern city of Rafah. “We live on whatever aid is distributed.”
(UN News)* — Nearly two million children suffering from severe wasting are at risk of death due to funding shortages for life-saving Ready-to-use-Therapeutic-Food (RUTF) to treat the condition, which is the most dangerous form of malnutrition.
The warning comes from UN children’s agency UNICEF which said levels of severe wasting in children under five remain gravely high in several countries due to conflict, economic shocks and climate crises.
Deadly condition
Severe wasting – also known as severe acute malnutrition – is caused by a lack of nutritious and safe foods and repeated bouts of disease, such as diarrhoea, measles and malaria.
In a world characterized by an unprecedented level of economic development, technological means and financial resources, millions of persons are living in extreme poverty, a moral outrage, according to the UN. Poverty is not solely an economic issue, but rather a multidimensional phenomenon that encompasses a lack of both income and the basic capabilities to live in dignity.
Nearly 1,000 social protection measures introduced by governments across 171 countries, only 18 per cent focused on women’s economic security. Credit: iStock/Down to Earth
Rural earn 82% for every dollar that men earn. Climate change has a more pronounced impact on women, primarily indigenous and peasant women
Achieving gender equality and empowering women is not only the right thing to do but is a critical ingredient in the fight against extreme poverty, hunger and climate change.
Women engaged in wage employment in agriculture earn 82 cents for every dollar that men earn, according to a recent FAO report. PHOTO:Sasint/Adobe Stock
As farmers, women have learned how to cope with and adapt to climate change, for example, by practicing sustainable agriculture in harmony with nature, switching to drought-resistant seeds, employing low-impact or organic soil management techniques, or leading community-based reforestation and restoration efforts.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 