News headlines in April 2021, page 2

The turmoil following the military coup in Myanmar, coupled with the impact of COVID-19 could result in up to 25 million people – nearly half of the country’s population, living in poverty by early next year, a United Nations report said on Friday. 

An 89-year-old pianist who escaped the Holocaust in Nazi Germany almost eight decades ago, has been explaining how he started playing jazz in memory of his sister, and has kept going through the COVID-19 lockdown, playing from the window of his Brussels home “to give people courage.”

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 29 (IPS) - As the United Nations prepares for its solutions-based Global Food Systems Summit in September, officials say resolving issues around water scarcity, pollution and wastage is crucial transforming food production and consumption.

A “complex and unpredictable security situation” in Tigray continues to impede the delivery of life-saving assistance to Ethiopia’s northern region, the Deputy UN Spokesperson told journalists on Thursday.   

Just over 460 days since the first COVID-19 cases were reported in Europe, more citizens living in the region have now been vaccinated, than the number infected, and although new cases and hospitalizations are falling, “the threat remains present”, a senior UN health official said on Thursday.  

GAZA, Apr 29 (IPS) - We were able to keep the coronavirus at bay for five months in Gaza, the densely populated Palestinian strip of land surrounded by Israel that I call home. But the Coronavirus doesn’t respect walls or artificial borders. While preparations were made for the pandemic to inevitably breach a blockade so few Palestinians can, we waited for it to come for us. And it did.

An unrelenting drought in southern Madagascar, an island State off the East African coast in the Indian Ocean, is forcing hundreds of thousands to the brink of famine at a scale “beyond belief”, a senior UN food agency official said on Thursday. 

CANBERRA, Australia, Apr 29 (IPS) - Edmund Burke called the press the fourth estate, the fourth pillar of democracy, with an oversight role on the remaining three pillars – the legislature, executive and the judiciary. In an ideal world, this fourth estate would have unimpeded access to the other three pillars so that the citizenry could be kept informed at all times. This freedom was conceived to be so sacrosanct that many countries have included it as a fundamental right, e.g., the US Constitution enshrined it as the very first amendment.

People working in the petroleum industry or living near petroleum facilities are at increased risk of developing several different cancer types, according to a new report by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARCWHO), part of the UN World Health Organization (WHO).

CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Apr 29 (IPS) - Of nature's many gifts, an ocean stroll at sunset is one appreciated globally. Earth Day on 22 April encouraged environmental protection but ocean threats remain abundant.