News headlines in September 2022, page 5

NEW YORK, Sep 27 (IPS) - Last week, as world leaders gathered in New York for the 77th United Nations General Assembly, one topic came up more than most: looming famine. That’s because despite a global commitment to make famine a relic of the past, it is once again knocking at our door.

SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Sep 27 (IPS) - Inflation phobia among central banks (CBs) is dragging economies into recession and debt crises. Their dogmatic beliefs prevent them from doing right. Instead, they take their cues from Washington: the US Fed, Treasury and Bretton Woods institutions (BWIs).

After a week of discussions on Member States’ priorities, challenges and impacts, the high-level portion of the 77th session of the UN General Assembly concluded on Monday, with the presiding official observing that the sheer number of participants indicated the importance of the General Debate in international affairs.

The Security Council must act urgently to support Haiti as the gang, economic, and fuel supply crises there “intersect in altogether new and frightening ways”, the head of the UN Mission in the country, BINUH, said on Monday. 

The UN and its humanitarian partners are stepping up efforts to assist more than 150,000 people who have been impacted by fighting across the Kharkiv region of Ukraine, where Government forces recently announced they had regained full control after months of Russian occupation.

The UN chief on Monday issued a statement expressing deep sadness at the death of 15 people, including 11 children, at a school in the Russian city of Izhevsk, following an attack by a lone gunman who killed himself at the scene. Two dozen people were wounded.

The Permanent Representative of the Democratic Republic of Korea (DPRK) to the UN said on Monday that global security is in its worst state since the Second World War, owing to the high-handedness of some countries attempting to replace the international order centered on the UN system with one “governed by unilateral and exclusive Western values”.

The current chaotic state of the world – from wars to the spread of terrorism and climate-induced disasters – is the result of hegemonic, wealth-hoarding countries and their ambitions to subjugate others, “which Syria knows only too well,” Foreign Minister Fayssal Mekdad said on Monday.

Amid the challenges facing the world today – from Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic to climate change and conflicts – Canada is convinced of the need for more multilateralism, not less, as well as a stronger and more effective United Nations.  

MADRID, Sep 26 (IPS) - A Mexican joke goes: “I kill people for money. But you are my best friend, so I will kill you for nothing.”