News headlines in August 2022

MÉXICO, Aug 31 (IPS) - Latin America is already one of the world’s regions hit hardest by the impacts of climate change. Extreme weather events such as droughts, heatwaves, tropical cyclones and floods have caused scores of deaths and severe damage to crop production and infrastructure, as underlined in a recent regional report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

A long-awaited report by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) into what China refers to as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) has concluded that “serious human rights violations” against the Uyghur and “other predominantly Muslim communities” have been committed.

The queue of women grows steadily outside a government clinic in Kuppiyawatta, in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo. In just over half an hour the number swells to around 200. Pregnant women, some with children in hand, are waiting their turn to receive food vouchers from the UN World Food Programme (WFP) – part of its emergency food assistance response.

Although COVID-19 deaths have decreased across the world, numbers could rise as northern countries head into winter, senior officials from UN health agency WHO have warned. 

Experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) arrived in the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia on Wednesday, the latest stage in their efforts to inspect conditions at the embattled nuclear power plant there. 

Bulawayo, Aug 31 (IPS) - Africa needs to trade in carbon credits to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, finance the transition to renewable energy, and boost economic development, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) says.

Major health risks are unfolding in Pakistan as unprecedented flooding continues, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday, warning of the threat of further spread of malaria, dengue fever and other water- and vector-borne diseases.

By suspending former Catalan government and parliament members from public duties prior to them being convicted, following the independence referendum back in 2017, Spain violated their political rights, the UN Human Rights Committee said in a statement published on Wednesday.

Hazards such as earthquakes, floods, heatwaves, and wildfires, can be prevented from becoming life-threatening disasters, according to the authors of a UN report launched on Wednesday.

The Secretary-General has paid warm tribute to the last leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, whose death aged 91 was announced on Tuesday, describing him as the person who “more than any other” brought about the peaceful end of the Cold War, which had dominated international relations since the 1940s.