KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, 17 March 2022 (UNFPA)* – “I had a miscarriage and my two-year-old daughter got sick,” Anisa* recalled after her local health facility stopped providing maternal and newborn health services. “We both needed medical care, but we did not know where to go.”
CARACAS, Mar 18 2022 (IPS)* – Doris Martínez was a cook in a Venezuelan restaurant that closed its doors; she emigrated to Colombia, got sick from working long hours standing in front of a stove, and returned to her country where, together with her husband and children, she runs a busy fast food kiosk on a road in Valles del Tuy, near the Venezuelan capital. lEn español
Doris Martínez gets ready to start cooking at her food kiosk in Valles del Tuy, an area of small dormitory towns near Caracas. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez/IPS
18 March 2022 (UNHCR)* – UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, together with 102 humanitarian and development partners is appealing for US$1.2 billion to deliver much-needed humanitarian assistance and protection to 2.3 million South Sudanese refugees and local communities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, and Uganda. | Español | Français | عربي
MADRID, Mar 18 2022 (IPS)* – Yemen’s already dire hunger crisis is teetering on the edge of outright catastrophe, with 17.4 million people now in need of food assistance and a growing portion of the population coping with emergency levels of hunger, three UN agencies warned on 14 March 2022.
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Across Yemen, 2.2 million children are acutely malnourished, including nearly more than half a million children facing severe acute malnutrition, a life-threatening condition, according to new IPC report. Credit: United Nations.
Tripoli, 17 March 2022 (IOM)* – At least 70 migrants are missing at sea and presumed dead off the Libyan shore in the past two weeks, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Mediterranean Sea. Photo IOM/Mohamed Muse
On 12 March, a boat reportedly carrying 25 migrants capsized near the Libyan coast of Tobruk. Authorities rescued six migrants and recovered seven bodies while 12 remain missing.
(UN News)* — Almost one child per second in Ukraine is becoming a refugee of the war, UN humanitarians said on Tuesday [15 March 2022], as the total number of people who have now fled the country since the Russian invasion began, passed three million.
“We have now reached three million mark in terms of movements of people out of Ukraine to neighbouring countries. And among these people there are some 157,000 third-country nationals,” said Paul Dillon, spokesperson for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), speaking in Geneva.
(UN News)* — Security forces in Myanmar have killed at least 1,600 people and detained more than 12,500, since the military coup last year, the UN rights office said on Tuesday [15 March 2022].
Unsplash/Pyae Sone Htun | Protesters attend a march against the military coup in Myanmar.
In a new report warning that serious rights abuses uncovered in Myanmar may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, appealed to the international community to take “concerted, immediate measures to stem the spiral of violence” there.
MADRID, Mar 15 2022 (IPS)* – More than 60 percent of the world’s adult labour force –or about 2 billion workers– work in the informal economy. “They are not recognised, registered, regulated or protected under labour legislation and social protection. The consequences can be severe, for individuals, families as well as economies.”
Women sell fruit and vegetables on a sidewalk in the Philippines. Credit: ILO/Minette Rimando
The International Labour Organization (ILO) on 18 February 2022 on this issue reported that despite major efforts over the years, there are few signs of the informal economy shrinking in size.
Farmers and fishing communities have had to let go of their folk knowledge on weather and seasonal patterns that used to guide them for the best times to carry out the various steps in their trade—planting, harvesting, setting out to sea, preservative drying of goods, etc.
Governments inability or unwillingness to implement solutions to the climate crisis is deeply entrenched, and seemingly intractable | Image from Wall Street International Magazine.
March 2022 (Wall Street International)* — For far too many climate change activists, 2021 and the beginning of 2022 have plunged people into feelings of helplessness and hopelessness.
The inertia of the existing fossil fuel infrastructure and governments inability/unwillingness to implement tangible, collaborative, global solutions to the climate crisis is deeply entrenched, and seemingly intractable.