News headlines in 2022, page 8

A top UN-appointed independent human rights expert has urged the Scottish Government to pass a new law offering legal protection to people based on their gender identity, including trans women.

From Arctic communities desiring to receive public services in their own languages, to the Arhuaco people in Colombia who still speak Ika, indigenous people across the world are determined to keep their mother tongues alive. 

No one should have to surrender their human right to migrate in order to find a living wage, the UN human rights office, OHCHR said in a new report published on Friday, highlighting the importance of temporary migratory labour programmes. 

Climate change has driven an “unprecedented” number of larger and more deadly cholera outbreaks around the world this year, the UN health agency, WHOsaid on Friday.

The resumption of public floggings and executions in Afghanistan must stop immediately, a group of independent UN human rights experts said on Friday in an appeal to the ruling Taliban leadership. 

CARACAS, Dec 15 (IPS) - The social crisis and humanitarian emergency in Venezuela became international headline news again once the government and the opposition, bitter adversaries for two decades, agreed to direct three billion dollars in state funds held abroad to social programs.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Dec 15 (IPS) - During November, soldiers of the March 23 Movement (M23) have been approaching Goma in the eastern territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), close to the Rwandan border. About 180.000 people are now leaving Goma, a city with a million inhabitants. Many stakeholders are involved in the conflict and there is an apparent danger that the overall carnage that affected the Congolese eastern border areas fifteen years ago will resume. At the same time, war is ranging in Ukraine, which name likely comes from the old Slavic term for borderland.

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 15 (IPS) - To commemorate the seventy-seventh UN Day, the United Nations Asia Network for Diversity & Inclusion (UN-ANDI) held a panel discussion on the topic “Making the UN Charter a reality”. The discussion took place virtually on 27 October, and the event was attended by diverse participants from around the world.

Dec 15 (IPS) - As the COP entered its crucial second week, negotiations are intensifying now. A slew of new contact groups – meeting mostly behind closed doors – are discussing the minutest details of the Global Biodiversity Framework and the contentious issues within or around it, such as Digital Sequencing Information, Access, and Benefit Sharing. The core aim of all these groups is to talk and resolve all issues and produce a draft treaty that will be acceptable to all parties.

Holding those who commit crimes against UN ‘blue helmets’ to account, is key to improving their safety and security, peace operations chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix said on Thursday, launching a new Group of Friends to support the initiative.