News headlines in December 2017, page 5

SUVA, Fiji, Dec 12 (IPS) - Civil society leaders from more than 100 countries called for action on climate-induced displacement at a summit in Suva, Fiji last week.

GENEVA, Dec 12 (IPS) - It is an incontrovertible fact that more people are on the move owing to globalization. Fifteen percent of the world's population are on the move worldwide. In other words, of the world population of 7 billion, one billion are on the move. Seven hundred and forty million people are referred to as internal or as domestic migrants within their countries of origin. The number of internally displaced persons reaches about 60 million. On top of this, the world has more than 244 million international migrants who cross borders often into the unknown. Lastly, there are 22.5 million refugees – encompassing the 5.3 million Palestinian refugees – registered by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees who have been forced to flee their home societies as a result of violence and armed conflict. The first two decades of the 21st century will go down in history as the era in which the world has witnessed the most complex and massive movement of people since the end of the Second World War.

ROME, Dec 12 (IPS) - International Mountain Day and the Mountain Partnership's 15th anniversary coincided on December 11, kicking off a three-day Mountain Partnership Global Meeting at the headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome.

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 12 (IPS) - Almost 70 years since the Genocide Convention was adopted, the international community still faces a continued and growing risk of genocide.

NAIROBI, Kenya, Dec 12 (IPS) - Today is 12 December 2017 is an auspicious day, as it marks Kenya's independence from colonial rule in 1963. Today is also Universal Health Coverage Day. It is the anniversary of the first unanimous United Nations resolution calling for countries to provide affordable, quality health care to every person, everywhere.

NEW DELHI, Dec 11 (IPS) - Although difficult to ascertain whether it is a trend reversal, two recent FAO reports (2017a, b) show a rise in hunger globally as well as in Africa. The number of undernourished (NoU) in the world suffering from chronic food deprivation began to rise in 2014 –from 775 million people to 777 million in 2015 – and is now estimated to have increased further, to 815 million in 2016. The stagnation of the global average of the proportion of undernourished (PoU) from 2013 to 2015 is the result of two offsetting changes at the regional level: in Sub-Saharan Africa, the share of undernourished people increased, while there was a continued decline in Asia in the same period. However, in 2016, the PoU increased in most regions except Northern Africa, Southern Asia, Eastern Asia, Central America and the Caribbean. The deterioration was most severe in Sub-Saharan Africa and South-Eastern Asia (FAO 2017a,b).

KARACHI, Dec 10 (IPS) - Sliced noses, broken ribs, fractured fingers, slashed arms, bruised and bloodied faces with teeth missing and eyes swollen... Sana Jawed, 30, has been witnessing these brutalities for over a decade.

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 09 (IPS) - The space for civil society organizations is shrinking around the world, with particular impacts on women activists and human rights defenders who face additional barriers due to their gender or sexual orientation.

BUENOS AIRES, Dec 08 (IPS) - In and around the city of Rosario, where most of Argentina's soybean processing plants are concentrated, a local law banned the use of glyphosate, the most widely-used herbicide in Argentina. But two weeks later, producers managed to exert enough pressure to obtain a promise that the ban would be overturned.

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 08 (IPS) - The 44-member Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) represents some of the world's most vulnerable island nations fighting a virtually losing battle against rising sea levels triggered by global warming and climate change.