(UN News)* — Describing the level of devastation across the Gaza Strip as “absolutely staggering”, the Head of Emergency Communications for the World Food Programme (WFP) has told UN News in an interview that civilians are desperate for lifesaving aid and there’s a growing risk of widespread famine.
Speaking from Gaza, Jonathan Dumont said many people have been displaced multiple times, and that families are living either in tents or in the rubble of collapsed buildings, with no access to electricity or running water.
MADRID, Dec 11 2024 (IPS)* – The available data is self-explanatory: business-prompted human activities have already altered over 70% of the Earth’s lands, with 24 billion tonnes of fertile soil lost due to industrial agriculture, the excessive use of chemicals, overgrazing, deforestation, pollution and other major threats.
Human activity has degraded over 70% of Earth’s land, with 24 billion tonnes of fertile soil lost annually. It takes up to 1,000 years to produce just 2-3 cm of soil. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS
Border Guards Use Force, Deny Access to Asylum Procedures
(Budapest) – Polish law enforcement is unlawfully, and sometimes violently, forcing people trying to enter the country back to Belaruswithout considering their protection needs, Human Rights Watch said on 10 December 2024.
CARACAS, Dec 9 2024 (IPS)* – Poverty, while declining in Latin America and the Caribbean so far this century, shows a new face, that of the looming vulnerability of the poor as they become less rural and more urban, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) says in a new analysis. | En español
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The Altos de Florida neighbourhood in southwest Bogotá shows the shift from rural to urban landscapes. Credit: UNDP
(UN News)* —Haiti is facing one of the worst food crises in its history, with 5.4 million people in urgent need of assistance.
Recent escalations of violence and displacement have made an already difficult situation worse, further complicating the delivery of aid and pushing families to the brink of survival.
As 2034 FIFA World Cup Decision Looms, Dangers Are Clear
(Beirut, December 4, 2024) –Migrant workers in Saudi Arabia are facing widespread abuses across employment sectors and geographic regions, including at high-profile giga-projects funded by or linked to Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on 4 December 2024.
(UN News)* — Migration is one of the defining issues of our time, with migrants accounting for 3.6 per cent of the global population, the UN Deputy Secretary-General said on Thursday [], urging coordinated action to find better solutions that prioritise safety, equity and opportunity for migrants.
“Migration is not just a statistic; it is the lived experience of women, men and children, each with unique identities and vulnerabilities – pursuing better lives and opportunities. But along their journeys, they face unimaginable violence, hardship and risk,” Amina J. Mohammed said, addressing an informal meeting of the General Assembly on the subject.
(UN News)* —More than 60 million women and girls worldwide who are forcibly displaced or stateless face high risks of gender-based violence (GBV), but funding for lifesaving services to support them is woefully lacking, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said.
UN data reveals that reports of conflict-related sexual violence increased shockingly by 50 per cent last year compared to 2023, and women and girls accounted for 95 per cent of verified cases.
These numbers, however, “represent a small fraction of the reality” as many cases go unreported, the agency warned.
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 2 2024 (IPS)* – If and when the devastating military conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza come to an end, the ultimate winners will not be the Russians, the Americans or the Israelis but the world’s arms manufacturers—contemptuously described as “merchants of death”.
Credit: US National Archives
And so will be the winners in a rash of conflicts and civil wars in Syria, Myanmar, Lebanon, Yemen, Sudan and Afghanistan.
4 JUN 2024– The world is warming at a record pace, with unseasonable heat baking nearly every continent on Earth. April, the last month for which statistics are available, marked the 11th consecutive month the planet has set a new temperature high.
Photo: PSI/Science Photo Library via AFP
Experts say that is a clear sign the Earth’s climate is rapidly changing. But many believe – or at least say they believe – that climate change is not real, relying on a series of well-trodden myths to make their point.
© WFP/Jonathan Dumont | People walk on destroyed buildings in Gaza.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 