UN: COVID-19 restrictions bring brief air-quality gains in 2020
Pandemic lockdowns and travel restrictions caused dramatic but short-lived improvements in air quality and drops in pollution, the United Nations has said, but warned the blip was no substitute for…
Madagascar on the brink of first climate-induced famine, UN warns
A four-year drought has pushed at least 30,000 people in southern Madagascar to level five of famine, the UN warned. The island nation of Madagascar has endured four years of…
Israel-Palestine: US blocks UN statement for third time in a week
A third United Nations Security Council emergency meeting in a week – amid the deadly Israeli offensive in Gaza – has again ended with no concrete outcome after the United States blocked…
NGOs call for urgent aid as millions on brink of starvation
More than 250 NGOs have urgently called on international governments to increase aid and save more than 34 million people on the brink of starvation this year. In an open…
Biden’s virtual climate summit: Diplomacy sans human touch
There will be no hands to shake or backs to slap, no way to look a foreign leader in the eye. The small human moments that define statecraft will be…
World on the verge of climate crisis ‘abyss’, warns UN
Time is fast running out to tackle the climate crisis, a United Nations report has warned, with the COVID-19 pandemic having failed to put the brakes on “relentless” climate change….
Conflict and COVID driving record hunger in DR Congo, warns UN
A record 27.3 million people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are facing acute hunger, one-third of the violence-wracked Central African country’s population, largely because of conflict and the…
FAST- TRACK WOMEN’S PARTICIPATION IN PUBLIC LIFE “FOR EVERYONE’S BENEFIT”
The UN rights chief said on Tuesday March 16th that empowering women and girls to participate fully in public life is both the right and “smart thing to do”, speaking…
UN chief urges global plan to reverse unfair vaccine access
UN. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres sharply criticized the “wildly uneven and unfair” distribution of COVID-19 vaccines on Wednesday 17th February 2021, saying 10 countries have administered 75 percent of all vaccinations…
WHO authorizes AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use
The World Health Organization on Monday February 15th granted emergency authorization to the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine. Why it matters: WHO’s authorization “should trigger the delivery of hundreds of millions of doses to…
