News headlines in June 2021, page 6

UN refugee agency UNHCR, on Thursday welcomed the growing number of countries that have offered COVID-19 vaccines to refugees before urging others to do the same.

STOCKHOLM / ROME, Jun 24 (IPS) - A confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe By the end of April 2019, a government campaign to vaccinate more than 40 million children under five against polio in Pakistan was suspended after a series of attacks on health workers and police.

NEW YORK, Jun 24 (IPS) - The first wave of COVID-19 never ended in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Since the region became a hotspot for the pandemic in June 2020, successive waves have continued to build upon the first.

Humanitarian convoys from Turkey that bring lifesaving aid into northwest Syria must continue, UN Secretary-General António Guterres told the Security Council on Wednesday. 

Thousands of families in southern Madagascar are on the edge of starvation, and “holding on for dear life”, the UN food agency chief said on Wednesday - after bearing witness to the suffering firsthand - urging the world to step-up and take action.   

Defense forces, soldiers from nearby countries and other security personnel have been fighting an “asymmetric war” against armed groups, sparking an “unprecedented humanitarian crisis”, the top UN official in the country told the Security Council on Wednesday.  

A total of 184 countries on Wednesday voted in favour of a resolution to demand the end of the US economic blockade on Cuba, for the 29th year in a row, with the United States and Israel voting against.

Full implementation of a historic ceasefire agreement and the withdrawal of foreign forces are critical for consolidating peace in Libya, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Wednesday in remarks to a major international meeting aimed at shoring up the country after a decade of civil conflict. 

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 23 (IPS) - One hundred and thirty countries have signed a statement recognising the efforts of health care workers, first responders and essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic – "one of the greatest global challenges in the history of the United Nations".

Small businesses which make up more than half of the global workforce were 2.5 times more likely to go under than larger firms in the first months of COVID-19, the International Trade Centre (ITC) said on Wednesday, warning that the impact of climate change could cause pandemic-scale disruption “every decade”.