News headlines in May 2022, page 2

The tobacco industry damages both the environment and human health, and needs to be more accountable for the destruction it causes, declared the World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday.

A young Cambodian woman says it is her dream to help remove all land mines from the south of Lebanon and improve living conditions for all people living under the threat of death or injury.

LIMA, May 30 (IPS) - "Water is part of our culture, it is intrinsic to the Amazon," said José Manuyama, a member of a river defense committee in his native Requena, a town located in the department of Loreto, the largest in Peru, covering 28 percent of the national territory.

MADRID, May 30 (IPS) - The excesses committed by rich people can be deadly–and in fact they are. Be it about food, energy or overall waste, such excesses have been depleting the world's natural resources and pushing both current and future generations towards the edge of a predictable abyss.

SAN FRANCISCO, USA, May 30 (IPS) - India is being asked by the US government and the IMF to reconsider its decision to suspend wheat exports. Their cited concern is that export restrictions will exacerbate food shortages amidst Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But the argument does not stand ground technically or morally.

It’s been five decades since Sweden hosted the world’s first conference to make the environment a major issue, in recognition of the “human sacrifice zone” it could become if we fail to look after it, according to rights experts. On Monday, ahead of fresh discussions in Stockholm this week to discuss further action, the experts warned that much greater efforts are needed which could save millions of lives every year.

UNITED NATIONS, May 30 (IPS) - The four-month-old Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has triggered a hefty increase in military spending among Western nations and a rise in humanitarian and military assistance to the beleaguered country, is now threatening to undermine the flow of Official Development Assistance (ODA) to the world’s poorer nations.

There is an “urgent need” to support the victims of sexual exploitation and abuse in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) according to a local organization which works on the issue with the UN peacekeeping mission in the country, MONUSCO.

Women are often “placed second or even ignored” when they are employed as corrections officers in prisons and other detention centres, according to Téné Maimouna Zoungrana, an officer from Burkina Faso serving with the UN Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA). 

At the end of her official visit to China, the first such trip in 17 years, UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet announced new areas of engagement between her office and the Chinese Government on rights issues, and summarized the many rights issues raised during her six-day May mission.