News headlines in 2022, page 12

LONDON, Dec 12 (IPS) - The European Court of Justice on November 22, 2022, made a ruling that reversed much of the progress we have made in a decade in the fight against corruption, economic and natural resource crimes, tax abuses and other forms of illicit financial flows across the world. In the ruling, the court declared invalid the part of the European Union’s Anti Money Laundering Directive that allowed public access to registries about companies’ beneficial owners (that is, the real people who own or actually control them).

NEW YORK, Dec 12 (IPS) - Three weeks have gone by since the much-ballyhooed mega-gathering of the 27th Conference of Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), generally known by its easy-to-say-and-remember title - COP27, concluded at the resort city Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt.

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 12 (IPS) - The digital divide – between the world’s rich and poor nations —remains staggeringly wide.

For over 2.7 billion people, many of them living in developing and least developed countries (LDCs), meaningful connectivity remains elusive, according to a UN report released during the 17th Internet Governance Forum in Addis Ababa, last month.

Gender equality remains essentially, a question of power, said the UN chief on Monday, but to change the culture of male-domination and bring balance, we need equality in terms of leadership, decision-making and participation at all levels.

The number of calories per person consumed globally, increased by a full nine per cent on average last year, to 2,960 per day, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Monday, in its latest annual statistics report.

To mark Universal Health Coverage Day on Monday, the UN is sharing the spotlight with the biggest sporting event in the world this week - the FIFA World Cup semi-finals. A showcase celebration of Health for All on the eve of the first showdown between Argentina and Croatia, is taking place on the main stage at the FIFA Fan Festival in Doha, Qatar.

More than 11,000 boys and girls have been killed or injured in the war in Yemen - an average of four a day since fighting escalated in 2015, though the number is likely to be far higher, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has reported.

With armed gangs in charge of key transport routes in Haiti, the country could see famine conditions, unless a robust humanitarian aid plan is put in place, the head of the World Food Programme (WFP) in Haiti, Jean-Martin Bauer, has warned.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has welcomed the decision by the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to investigate recent deadly attacks allegedly committed by the M23 armed group.

Failures on the part of UN Peacekeeping missions have been highly publicised and well documented – and rightly so. But if you look at the overall picture and crunch the data, a different and ultimately positive picture emerges.