News headlines in December 2021, page 7

The United Nations “belongs” to the younger generation, and countries must ensure they participate in decisions on environmental protection and climate action, Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said during her visit to Costa Rica this week. 

Nearly 5,000 refugees who fled violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) four years ago, are opting to head home voluntarily from Zambia over the coming months, with the first 100 people setting out on Tuesday. 

In Sudan, reports of serious sexual violence and the use of live ammunition against protesters at the weekend must be investigated immediately, the UN rights office, OHCHR, said on Tuesday.

Belarus and Poland must resolve the migrant and refugee crisis at their mutual border, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said on Tuesday, describing the on-going situation as “appalling”.   

NEW YORK, Dec 21 (IPS) - We are about to start a third year of living with COVID-19. The world’s humanity and solidarity are now at its further test – and yet the implications of the absence of solidarity keep us all in the boat of mutations, lockdowns, quarantines and delayed SDGs – denied prosperity for all. 2021 has unearthed a new expression of global inequity: “vaccine nationalism” – which itself competes high with socioeconomic downturns, jobless growth, the climate crisis, and rising poverty.

MADRID, Dec 20 (IPS) - A bit of fiction. Or maybe not. If things keep going the way they are, the result will be that such a massive flux would create instability and tensions, impact the global markets, cause record prices of fossil fuels, food and everything else, and the bankruptcy of big private financial corporations.

Dec 20 (IPS) - One surprise from COP26 – the latest UN climate change conference in Glasgow – was an agreement between world leaders on a new set of rules for regulating carbon markets. This would allow countries to trade the right to emit greenhouse gases.

Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka this year’s Champion of the Earth for Science and Innovation, has spent three decades helping to safeguard some of the world’s rarest primates, including endangered mountain gorillas. 

One of the UN Secretary-General’s most prominent stops during the second day of his visit to crisis-hit Lebanon was the port of Beirut, where he laid a wreath at the memorial for the victims of the explosion there which took the lives of more than 200 people.

NARANDIBA, Brazil, Dec 20 (IPS) - First came sugar. For four centuries, it was the main sugarcane product in Brazil. But since the 1970s sugarcane has grown and diversified as a source of energy: ethanol, electricity and biogas.