UNITED NATIONS, Sep 20 2024 (IPS)* –This year has been the worst for the Amazon rainforest in almost two decades. Although there has been a measured decline in deforestation when compared to 2023, forest fires have ravaged acres of critical ecosystems.
For the first eight months of this year, the Amazon has seen routine forest fires, totalling to over 53,000 recorded instances.
Greenpeace Brazil conducted an aerial survey in southern Amazonas and northern Rondônia to monitor deforestation and fires in July 2024. Credit: Marizilda Cruppe / Greenpeace
SYDNEY, NEW YORK, Sep 16 2024 (IPS)** – Bangladesh’s White Paper committee will review foreign loan deals signed by the fallen kleptocratic regime.
Anis Chowdhury
We recommend that it identifies and declares the loans or portions of loans that did not benefit the nation as unpayable, because they were siphoned off the country by corrupt politically powerful elites, or worse used to buy deadly weapons and surveillance equipment to oppress people.
Such loans are “odious” – they stink and are detestable.
It is not clear if sufficient courage will be summoned to even include the loans from the international organisations and significant and powerful donor countries.
In 2023, 380 women and young people were murdered in Honduras. Photo: Ingrid Prestetun/NRC
20 September 2024 — Honduras is facing an invisible crisis. In 2023 it was the least funded in the world. Almost 30 per cent of its population is in need of humanitarian aid and an increased number of Hondurans are forced to move and seek refuge outside the country’s borders.
Meanwhile, Honduras also continues to host a high number of people seeking asylum within the country or elsewhere in the region.
Here are four things you should know about the crisis in Honduras.
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 19 2024 (IPS)* – The United Nations, over the last year, has been relentlessly promoting the upcoming Summit of the Future – scheduled for September 22-23—as a landmark event.
And rightly so.
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But, surprisingly, the provisional list of speakers, released early this week, reflects notable absentees for a high-level summit– the five permanent members (P5) of the Security Council — whose representatives do not include any head of state (HS) or head of government (HG).
NAIROBI, Sep 18 2024 (IPS) –A report examining corporate capture of public finance is accusing industries fueling the climate crisis, including fossil fuel ones, of draining public funds in the Global South, singling them out for squeezing out of governments USD 700 billion in public subsidies each year.
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Joseph Loree, who lives in the oil-rich Lokichar area of Turkana in northern Kenya, keeps a few goats due to frequent droughts. Governments in the Global South are spending billions of dollars subsidising industries harming the climate, such as the one in Lokichar. Credit: Maina Waruru/IPS
Washington’s military interventions are not just wars on people — they’re also wars on the planet’s climate.
U.S. combat soldier in the rubble at one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces in Baghdad, 24 Apr 2003. (U.S. Air Force, Cherie A. Thurlby, National Archivers, Public domain)
13 Sep 2024 – This week marks 23 years since George W. Bush declared a U.S.-led “war on terror” and the people of Afghanistan and Iraq are still suffering its consequences.
(UN News)* — Some of the world’s poorest countries spend more on debt repayments than health, education and infrastructure combined, severely hampering their chances of developing their economies.
The UN is calling for an overhaul of the entire international financial system, to reduce inequality and improve people’s lives.
“The international financial architecture, crafted in 1945 after the Second World War, is undergoing a stress test of historic proportions – and it is failing that test”, argues UN Secretary-General António Guterres in a 2023 policy brief.
(UNEP)* — Air pollution costs the global economy a staggering US$8.1 trillion every year, or 6.1 per cent of the world’s gross domestic product.
Credit: UNEP
Air pollution comes from myriad sources and disproportionately affects the marginalized, including women, children and the elderly. Its impact crosses borders, harming public health, the economy and the environment.
13 September 2024 (WMO)* — The extended streak of extraordinarily high temperatures has continued, and the year so far has been the warmest on record for the globe, according to three leading international datasets.
(UN News)* — Social protection is essential to safeguard people from shocks, but half the world is without any coverage, including over 90 per cent of people living in climate-vulnerable countries, according to a new report released on Thursday [] by the International Labour Organization (ILO).
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