News headlines in March 2021, page 6

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 25 (IPS) - The intersection of crisis, climate change and COVID-19 has resulted in a “rapid rise in hunger”, according to United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) Deputy Executive Director Amir Abdullah.

WASHINGTON DC, Mar 25 (IPS) - Imagine it is 2025 and that, unfortunately, another pandemic is sweeping the world. Much like in the 2020 crisis, borrowers have seen their livelihoods upended and are struggling to repay loans.

DEHRADUN, India/OXFORD, UK, Mar 24 (IPS) - 2020 will be remembered as the year that changed the world, as COVID-19 spared no country, no community, and no person. As the pandemic continues in 2021, there is recognition that some groups are impacted more than others, not just by the virus itself, but also by the socio-economic and access inequities exacerbated by global shutdowns. Globally, countries, and organisations are seeking to build back better and address inequities.

DHAKA, Mar 24 (IPS) - The building that was once the largest health centre in the Kutupalong refugee camp, serving some 55,000 Rohingya refugees 24/7, is now a burnt, distorted shell after a massive fire spread through the Cox’s Bazar camp in Bangladesh this week.

AMSTERDAM, the Netherlands, Mar 24 (IPS) - We should be well on the way to solving the climate crisis by now.

According to the Paris Agreement, last year should have been the year that all countries presented their commitments to cut carbon emissions for limiting global climate heating to within 1.5oC of pre-industrial levels.

IBADAAN, Nigeria, Mar 23 (IPS) - Saheed Babajide, a young animal production graduate and a manager at a national milk production company in Iseyin, Nigeria, is a beneficiary of the government's youth agriculture intervention programme. But he feels he received almost no training during the three years he participated. 

SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Mar 23 (IPS) - At least 85 poor countries will not have significant access to coronavirus vaccines before 2023. Unfortunately, a year’s delay will cause an estimated 2.5 million avoidable deaths in low and lower-middle income countries. As the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General has put it, the world is at the brink of a catastrophic moral failure.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 22 (IPS) - Prioritising water governance and ensuring data collection and investment in groundwater use around the world are some of the key issues that need to be addressed with regards to achieving development goals.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 22 (IPS) - Two human rights groups have called on the military in Myanmar to release journalists arbitrarily jailed and allow them to work without harassment and prosecution.

Amnesty International and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) told IPS that they will double down on those demands until all journalists are released and the operating licenses of newsgroups are restored.

NEW YORK, Mar 22 (IPS) - At a critical juncture on the road to the UN Food Systems Summit, three UN rights experts warn that it will fail to be a 'people's summit' unless it is urgently rethought.Global food systems have been failing most people for a long time, and the COVID-19 pandemic has made a critical situation even worse. 265 million people are threatened by famine, up 50% on last year; 700 million suffer from chronic hunger; and 2 billion more from malnutrition, with obesity and associated diet-related diseases increasing in all world regions.