SYDNEY, NEW YORK, WASHINGTON DC, Aug 6 2024 (IPS)* – The International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB) are complicit in the gross human rights violations and death of democracy in Bangladesh.
Kazakhstan tightens laws to combat trafficking of newborns
()*— Babies are being sold for up to $4,500 in Kazakhstan, but the government is cracking down on traffickers with a new law adopted earlier this month.
To fight against trafficking newborns, the new legislation facilitates the criminal prosecution for such crimes as kidnapping, illegal deprivation of liberty, human trafficking, involvement in prostitution and more.
(UN News)* — Scaling up aid delivery remains a challenge in Gaza as the war reaches the 300-day mark, the head of the UN humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory said on Thursday [].
Andrea De Domenico was speaking from Jerusalem in his final briefing to journalists at UN Headquarters in New York as the Israeli authorities have not renewed his visa.
()* — UN agencies warned on Friday [] of the high risk of the further spread of infectious diseases in Gaza, amid chronic water scarcity and no way to adequately manage waste and sewage.
“People in Gaza are facing yet another peril: Hepatitis A is spreading including among children,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency that assists Palestine refugees, UNRWA, wrote on social media.
(UN News)* — The conflict in Sudan has led to a horrifying surge in violence against children, a new UN report has revealed, underscoring the need for urgent and tangible protection measures.
The report on Children and Armed Conflict in Sudan, released on Tuesday [], documented a staggering 2,168 grave violations against 1,913 children in 2022 and 2023 – a significant increase compared to the previous reporting period.
(UN News)* — A new UN report published Wednesday [] into alleged abuses carried out against thousands of Palestinians detained by the Israeli authorities since war erupted in Gaza last October has documented a range of serious violations that may amount to torture.
(UN News)* —Nearly a quarter of all adolescent girls who have been in a relationship – close to 19 million – will have experienced intimate partner violence by the time they turn 20, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said in a new analysis on Monday [].
The study, published in the medical journal The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, draws on existing data and provides the first detailed examination of the prevalence of physical and/or sexual violence faced by girls aged 15-19 years who have been in intimate relationships.
Almost 16 per cent, or one in six, were affected in the past year.
(UN News)* — In a bid to prevent a polio epidemic in Gaza, UN humanitarians on Tuesday [] repeated continuing international calls for a ceasefire to allow a mass vaccination campaign to get underway.
Almost 10 months of war and intense Israeli bombardment have shattered healthcare in Gaza and disrupted routine inoculation rounds for youngsters, leaving them exposed to a range of preventable diseases including polio, which the UN World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed had been identified last month in several sewage samples taken from Gaza.
BELÉM, Brazil, Jul 28 2024 (IPS)* – The decade-and-a-half-long battle for life in the so-called Volta Grande (Big Bend) of the Xingu river, a stretch of the river dewatered by the Belo Monte hydroelectric power plant in the Brazilian Amazon, has a possible solution, albeit a partial one. | En español
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An igapó, a flood-prone wooded area on the Vuelta Grande of the Xingu River, with fruit on the dry ground. This is where the piracema, or fish reproduction, was supposed to take place, frustrated by the scarcity of water released by the Belo Monte hydroelectric plant on this stretch of the river in the eastern Brazilian Amazon. The fruits are lost and stop feeding the fish by falling on the ground and not in the water. Credit: Mati / VGX
(UN News)* —Senior UN officials on Friday [] reiterated the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza, and escalating threat to aid workers, urging immediate action prevent further deterioration.
Muhannad Hadi, Deputy UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, and Antonia De Meo, Deputy Commissioner-General of the UN agency assisting Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, briefed the Security Council on the dire situation.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 