News headlines in December 2022, page 3

BUENOS AIRES, Dec 23 (IPS) - With large projects held back by the economic crisis and lack of infrastructure, Argentina seems to be looking at an alternative path towards a more sustainable energy mix involving small renewable energy projects, promoted by environmentally aware industries, businesses and private users.

PORTLAND, USA, Dec 23 (IPS) - Despite the objections, resistance and protests taking place in many countries around the world, raising the official retirement age to receive government provided pension benefits is coming soon.

TORONTO, Canada, Dec 23 (IPS) - A year that started with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and is ending with famine in Africa, while still spreading death and misery through an enduring pandemic and a deteriorating climate crisis -- 2022 has been an apocalyptic warning of the frailty of our planet and the woeful shortcomings of humankind.

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 23 (IPS) - The reform of the Security Council, the most powerful body at the United Nations, has remained a never-ending political saga.

According to the President of the General Assembly, Csaba K?rösi of Hungary, 43 years have passed since the question of Security Council reform first appeared on the UN agenda.

NEW YORK, Dec 23 (IPS) - The UN Charter mandates the Security Council to maintain international peace, but wars rage on and nations arm themselves with ever more lethal weapons. No wonder that the Council’s critics are so many and calls for its reform so urgent.

From extreme floods to heat and drought, weather and climate-related disasters have affected millions and cost billions this year, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Friday, describing the “tell-tale signs and impacts” of intensified climate change.

Some 190 desperate people are on the verge of perishing at sea, adrift somewhere between the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said on Friday, urging countries in southern Asia to rescue them.

MADRID, Dec 22 (IPS) - Day after day, international humanitarian organisations launch desperate appeals for funding to continue saving some of the many lives at high risk. When they get a handful of dollars – even just one million – from a rich country, they welcome it as manna from heaven.

KABUL & ATHENS, Dec 22 (IPS) - Maliha looks confident in a café in Athens as she tells the story of her journey from Afghanistan to Europe. But as she starts recounting how a smuggler assaulted her in Turkey two years ago, she pauses, looking the other way and fiddling with her loose hair.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Dec 22 (IPS) - The writer is Campaign Manager - Global Campaign for Equality in Family LawIn September 2021, in the midst of a pandemic-related lockdown, a 15-year-old Muslim girl from Colombo, Sri Lanka was married off by her relatives to a much older man.