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.
BEIRUT, 16 October 2024 (UNICEF)* – Children in Lebanon are at growing risk of health and protection issues – including waterborne diseases like cholera, hepatitis and diarrhoea – as the continued bombardment of the country increasingly disrupts and damages essential services that families rely on.
UNICEF/al Mussawir – Ramzi HaidarSouthern Beirut suburbs following airstrikes during the first 3 days of October 2024.
At least 28 water facilities have been damaged by the conflict, affecting water supply to more than 360,000 people, primarily in the south of the country.
(UN News)* — The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has said that an Israeli army bulldozer demolished an observation tower and the perimeter fence of a UN position earlier on Sunday [] in Marwahin, in the southern part of the country.
A press statement issued by the Mission, formally known as the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, said Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) “deliberately demolished” the watchtower and the fence surrounding the Marwahin site.
(UN News)* —All States and international organizations, including the United Nations, have obligations under international law to bring to an end Israel’s unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, according to a new legal position paper released Friday [] by a top independent human rights panel.
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Ryan Rodrick Beiler | The Separation Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and behind it an Israeli settlement.
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It details the obligations for Israel, third-party States and the UN to bring to an end the unlawful occupation, according to the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel.
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
11-year-old Abbas was injured by shrapnel near his home in southern Lebanon, fleeing with his family and leaving behind everything
UNICEF2024/Fouad-Choufany/Lebanon
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(UNICEF Lebanon)*11 October 2024 — Abbas, 11 years old, was hit by shrapnel in his hand after a missile struck near his house in the south of Lebanon.
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“I was at home when suddenly a rocket fell near our home. I went out to see what happened, and all of a sudden, I looked at my hand and saw it was covered in blood,” he recounted.
(UN News)* — More than 1.8 million Palestinians in Gaza are experiencing “extremely critical” levels of hunger, with 70 per cent of crop fields destroyed and livelihoods decimated during the ongoing Israeli military offensive, a UN-backed food security assessment released on Thursday [] has revealed.
Figures from the global IPC food security initiative show that 133,000 people – or 6 per cent of the enclave’s population – are already experiencing Phase 5 or “catastrophic” food insecurity.
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
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 