News headlines in August 2022, page 5

An expert on the human rights situation in Cambodia has issued a 10-point agenda for the authorities which calls for opening up political space and paving the way for democratic reform. 

Staple foods have become unaffordable, warned UNICEF Regional Director for South Asia, George Laryea-Adjei on Friday, who pointed out that severe malnutrition in crisis-wracked Sri Lanka was already among the highest in the region. 

Speaking from Kharkiv in northeast Ukraine, where shelling has intensified in the last week, the UN's top aid official in the country issued an urgent appeal on Friday for guarantees from Russia and affiliated forces, to allow humanitarians to deliver “absolutely necessary” relief items across the contact line. 

GENEVA, Aug 26 (IPS) - As you know, after four years as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, my mandate ends next week, on 31 August.

The world has changed fundamentally over the course of my mandate.

SANTIAGO, Aug 25 (IPS) - Renewable energies, especially solar and wind power, are growing inexorably in Chile, driven by large companies. But community generation of alternative energy is not taking off, despite a law promoting it.

BIRMINGHAM, USA, Aug 25 (IPS) - Built in 1942 and still operating today, Camp Lejeune is a military base covering over 153,000 acres in Jacksonville, North Carolina. Shortly after it was founded, it became heavily contaminated with toxic chemicals like perchloroethylene, benzene, trichloroethylene, vinyl chloride, and later on PFAS. However, the military only realized the severity of the issue in 1982when the Marine Corps discovered volatile organic compounds on base.

Managing the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis is no substitute for a real political process, a truth laid bare by recent events, the Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process told the Security Council on Thursday, as he urged delegates to turn their attention to the broader strategy of ending the occupation and realizing the long elusive two-State solution.

On Thursday, the UN-partnered Cluster Munition Monitor civil society group, released their 2022 Cluster Munition Monitor report, on the risk these weapons pose to civilians.  

MADRID, Aug 25 (IPS) - There is a prevailing doctrine among the right and far-right political parties who are still in the opposition and are most likely to jump to power in those countries where they are not already ruling. It is the doctrine of “the worse things go, the better for us.”

Groundwater, which sustains drinking water supplies, sanitation systems, farms, industries and ecosystems, is being overused, polluted and neglected, speakers warned at a World Water Week event on Thursday.