News headlines in May 2022, page 11

“When war is waged, people go hungry,” Secretary-General António Guterres told the Security Council on Thursday during a debate on conflict and food security chaired by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Although many migrants worked on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic, risking their own lives to save others, they were at times denied access to basic services and excluded from recovery plans, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in New York on Thursday. 

The number of people in need has risen by around 10 per cent this year so far, the UN’s humanitarian affairs chief said on Thursday.

Durban, May 19 (IPS) - Amar Lai’s first memories are working alongside his parents and siblings in a quarry, breaking rocks. He was aged four.

A record 59.1 million people were displaced within their homelands last year, or four million more than in 2020, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Thursday, citing the latest Global Report on Internal Displacement (GRID). 

PRETORIA, South Africa, May 19 (IPS) - The COVID pandemic has had a profoundly negative impact on Africa’s sovereign debt situation. Currently, 22 countries are either in debt distress or at high risk of debt distress.

Mali’s decision on 15 May to withdraw from the G5-Sahel group and its Joint Force is “unfortunate” and “regrettable”, a senior United Nations official told the Security Council on Wednesday, as she urged countries in the region to redouble efforts to protect human rights, amid protracted political and security crises. 

DURBAN, May 18 (IPS) - Technology used to trace the origin and price of consumer goods to ensure farmers earn fair profits could easily be adapted as a tool to fight child labour Fair Trade living wage and income lead Isa Miralles told delegates at the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour.

MADRID, May 18 (IPS) - While the attention of mostly Western media and politicians is quasi exclusively hoarded up by the proxy war in Ukraine and its consequences on the energy sector, the world’s big oil business continues to burn Planet Earth with its underreported though highly polluting, wasteful practice of gas flaring.

Hunger levels around the world are at “a new high”, the UN chief said on Wednesday, in a call to action to fight the current surge in global food insecurity.