Geneva, Switzerland | AFP | by Robin MILLARD Tropical storm Freddy is on track to break the record as the longest-lasting cyclone of its kind, the United Nations said Friday, as the killer storm was set to hit Mozambique once again. “Freddy is continuing its incredible and dangerous journey,” Clare Nullis, spokeswoman for the UN’s World Meteorological Organization, told reporters in Geneva. Freddy has been a named tropical cyclone for 33 days since developing off […]
Tag: UN
Nearly 130,000 facing starvation in Horn of Africa: WHO
Nearly 130,000 people in the Greater Horn of Africa are “staring death in the eyes” from catastrophic hunger, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned Friday. Some 48 million people in the Greater Horn — Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda — are facing crisis levels of food insecurity, the WHO said. That means households skipping meals and depleting savings and assets in order to eat. Of those, six million are facing emergency […]
Drugs from the deep: scientists explore ocean frontiers
by Kelly MACNAMARA Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Some send divers in speed boats, others dispatch submersible robots to search the seafloor, and one team deploys a “mud missile” — all tools used by scientists to scour the world’s oceans for the next potent cancer treatment or antibiotic. A medicinal molecule could be found in microbes scooped up in sediment, be produced by porous sponges or sea squirts — barrel-bodied creatures that cling to […]
US, NATO role in Ukraine risks ‘catastrophic consequences’: Russia
The involvement of the United States and NATO in the war in Ukraine risks bringing “catastrophic consequences”, Russia warned Thursday in a speech boycotted by many Western diplomats. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva that “the most acute strategic threat is posed now by the US and NATO policy aimed at further fomenting the conflict in and around Ukraine.” “Their growing involvement in an armed confrontation is […]
La Nina ending but warming El Nino may strike soon: UN
Geneva, Switzerland | AFP | by Robin MILLARD An exceptionally long La Nina weather phenomenon that intensified drought and flooding is finally ending, the United Nations said Wednesday — but what comes next might bring its own problems. The outgoing La Nina phenomenon, a cooling of surface temperatures that can have a widespread impact on global weather conditions, started in September 2020. However, despite La Nina’s cooling effect, both 2021 and 2022 were warmer than […]
World not adequately prepared for disasters, report says
UNITED NATIONS, United States (AFP) — Earthquakes, floods, storms — the world is not adequately prepared to face increasing disasters, said a report published Tuesday calling for a rethink on global risk management. Since 1990, more than 10,700 disasters have affected over six billion people worldwide, according to data from the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. In 2015, the international community adopted global goals to lower casualties and damage by the year 2030 […]
UN appeals for $4.3 bn to help millions in war-torn Yemen
GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — The United Nations said it needed $4.3 billion this year to help millions of people in war-ravaged Yemen, ahead of a donors’ conference on Monday. Aid agencies need the money to help more than 17 million people in the country, which has been devastated by an eight-year civil war. The conflict has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and plunged the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula into one of the […]
UN demands Russia withdraw from Ukraine
by Nicolas REVISE / Amélie BOTTOLLIER-DEPOIS Agence France-Presse UNITED NATIONS, United States (AFP) — The United Nations voted overwhelmingly Thursday to demand Russia immediately and unconditionally withdraw its troops from Ukraine, marking the one-year anniversary of the war with a call for a “just and lasting” peace. Ukraine earned strong backing in a nonbinding vote that saw 141 of the 193 UN members in support, seven opposed and 32, including China and India abstaining. Coming […]
UN Security Council ‘silence’ on N. Korea missiles ‘dangerous’, US says
UNITED NATIONS, United States (AFP) — The United States on Monday denounced a “dangerous” lack of action by the UN Security Council on North Korea’s missile launches, accusing — but not naming — China and Russia of having “forced” the body “into silence.” The reclusive North Korean state test-fired dozens of missiles in 2022, setting security postures in East Asia on edge. It fired two ballistic missiles Monday, 48 hours after it test-launched an intercontinental […]
Haitian schools becoming targets of violence: UNICEF
UNITED NATIONS, United States (AFP) — Schools in Haiti, previously considered safe havens from the Caribbean nation’s turmoil, have become increasingly targeted by violent groups, UNICEF warned Thursday. The UN agency reported that since the beginning of the school year last October, 72 schools had seen acts of violence — including kidnappings, ransacking and looting — a nine-fold increase over a year ago. “This includes at least 13 schools targeted by armed groups, one school […]
Jobs, not doctrine, the lure for Africa’s jihadists: UN
by Nina LARSON Agence France-Presse GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — Poverty and the prospect of better-paid work, rather than ideology, are what fuel recruitment to jihadist and other violent groups in Africa, the United Nations said Tuesday. The conclusion casts doubt on conventional wisdom that religious doctrine is the main lure for joining groups like Boko Haram, al-Shabaab and the Al-Qaeda-linked Support Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM). The UN Development Programme (UNDP) in 2021 interviewed […]
Myanmar: UN expert’s report highlights junta’s fraudulent claim to legitimacy, urges States to denounce 2023 ‘sham’ elections
Myanmar’s junta—the State Administration Council (SAC)—is illegal and illegitimate, the UN human rights expert on Myanmar said. He called for the international community to deny the SAC legitimacy, create a coalition of member states to enforce strong, coordinated sanctions against the SAC, and support the National Unity Government which has a stronger claim to legitimacy. UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner





