Page 163 - Lobal Issues News Today

The world is counting on the G7 bloc of industrialized democracies to demonstrate global leadership and solidarity, said the UN chief on Sunday, speaking to journalists in Hiroshima, Japan, which he described as a “global symbol of the tragic consequences when nations fail to work together”, and abandon multilateralism.

Global life expectancy has grown by 50 per cent since the birth of the UN World Health Organization (WHO) 75 years ago, the UN chief said on Sunday, but in the wake of COVID, climate change, and other challenges, “progress is in peril”.

More than 60 per cent of Ukrainian refugee mothers in Poland are experiencing high or severe levels of distress, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Friday, Mental Health Action Day, highlighting the psychological impact of the war in their homeland.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) continues to warn of the potential nuclear threat in the Ukraine conflict amid rising tensions surrounding the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP).

The UN Human Rights Council-appointed panel of independent experts examining the Iranian Government’s response to protests that erupted there last November, has said that it’s “deeply alarmed” at continuing executions of demonstrators, ahead of pending reviews.

Nearly 15 months after Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, civilians are forced to live through an “unbearable routine”, amidst alarming levels of destruction and damage to their communities, said the deputy UN disarmament chief on Thursday.

The UN Children’s Fund is calling for an urgent increase in funding to help tackle an escalating number of cases of sexual violence against children and women in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC) North Kivu province, where armed groups proliferate amidst heavy fighting in recent months.

Iraq’s stability and hard-won gains require robust support amid concerns of shrinking civic space, postponed elections, and an unfolding climate emergency, the top UN official in the country told the Security Council on Thursday.

PARIS, May 18 (IPS) - Some movie scenes keep replaying in one’s mind long after one has left the cinema, and this is certainly true of Moon Over Aburi, a short film shot in Ghana that has been gaining accolades since its release earlier this year.

Roughly 90 per cent of the population in Afghanistan is on the brink of poverty “and children bear the brunt of it,” the Representative of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in the country, Fran Equiza, told journalists in New York on Thursday.