News headlines in May 2022, page 16

YAOUNDÉ, May 13 (IPS) - Sylvie Djacbou Deugoue is Forest Campaigner with Greenpeace Africa and a 2022 Aspen New Voices Fellow.Growing up amid under the leafy canopy of the Congo Basin rainforest, the woodland was more than our home. It was our playground, our medicine cabinet, our teacher, our therapist. And it was a source of livelihood with its rich biodiversity and helped shield us from the effects of climate change.

MADRID, May 13 (IPS) - Please do not say you were not aware that the world produces enough food to feed all human beings on Earth, while nearly double the combined European Union’s population go to bed hungry… every single night.

Humanitarians continue to call for scaling up assistance in the Horn of Africa, where the worst drought in 40 years is affecting some 15 million people across Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia. 

Amid new claims by Moscow of a covert biological weapons programme in Ukraine, the Director of Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) affirmed on Friday that the UN is not aware of any such programme and has neither the mandate nor the technical operational capacity to investigate it - a message first delivered to the Security Council on 11 and 18 March, by High Representative Izumi Nakamitsu. 

A new UN-led push to prevent an arms race in outer space has received wide-ranging support and participation from civil society and Member States – including all five permanent members of the Security Council - at talks in Geneva.

Ensuring everyone has access to a healthy diet is among the goals of a UN-backed initiative launched on Friday in line with efforts to transform food systems globally. 

Kicking off a three-day meeting on Friday on the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its wider impact on food and energy prices, the head of the UN agriculture agency outlined key ways for governments to help safeguard global food security.

Recent deep cuts to overseas aid budgets by governments, will have “direct, negative impacts” on the ability of the world to reach the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the UN chief warned on Friday.

Nairobi, May 13 (IPS) - Children washing clothes in rivers, begging on the streets, hawking, walking for kilometres in search of water and firewood, their tiny hands competing with older, experienced hands to pick coffee or tea, or as child soldiers are familiar sights in Africa and Asia.

BERLIN, May 13 (IPS) - While the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine is shaking up the European security order, other parts of the world are being particularly affected by the war’s ‘side effects’.