News headlines in January 2023, page 5

ROME, Jan 26 (IPS) - In a wiser world, the term ‘treating someone like dirt’ would be a good thing. After all, 15 of the 18 nutrients essential to plants are supplied by soils and around 95% of the food we eat comes directly or indirectly from them, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

So dirt is actually a precious resource that deserves to be treated with respect, care and perhaps even a little love.

MINDELO, Cabo Verde, Jan 26 (IPS) - On 20 January, the world’s best sailors arrived in Mindelo, Cabo Verde, completing the initial leg of the 2023 edition of The Ocean Race. Coinciding with this stop was the launch of Cabo Verde’s first blue bond at the Ocean Summit, an event jointly organized by The Ocean Race and the Government of Cabo Verde on the sidelines of the grueling round-the-world race. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was in attendance as this year’s keynote speaker.

GOA, INDIA, Jan 26 (IPS) - When countless supporters of the Indian National Congress, the main opposition party, arrive in Srinagar on January 30 to hoist the Indian flag, they would have walked 3,570 kilometres over 150 days.

The top UN official for the Middle East peace process, said on Thursday he was “deeply alarmed and saddened” at the continuing cycle of violence in the occupied West Bank, after nine Palestinians were killed during an Israeli military raid.

While describing maintaining peace as core to the UN – it's very reason for being - Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed warned the Security Council on Thursday that it was a mission now “under grave threat.”

The court order closing down Russia’s oldest human rights organization, the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG), is “yet another blow to human rights and civic space in the country”, said a Spokesperson for the UN rights office, OHCHR on Thursday.

This year, the theme of the UN Holocaust Remembrance Day, marked on Fridayis “home and belonging”, two concepts that were systematically ripped away from Jewish citizens, once the Nazi Party took control of Germany in 1933.

BOA VISTA, Brazil, Jan 25 (IPS) - “Our electric power is of bad quality, it ruins electrical appliances,” complained Jesus Mota, 63. “In other places it works well, not here. Just because we are indigenous,” protested his wife, Adélia Augusto da Silva, of the same age.

Sanjeeta Pant, Jan 25 (IPS) - The G20 India Presidency is marked by unprecedented geopolitical, environmental, and economic crises. Rising inflation threatens to erase decades of economic development and push more people into poverty. Violent extremism is also on the rise as a result of increasing global inequality, and the rule of law is in decline everywhere. All of these challenges impact the G20's goal of realizing a faster and more equitable post-pandemic economic recovery.

But as India prioritizes its agenda for 2023, it is corruption that is at the heart of all of these other problems- and which poses the greatest threat to worldwide peace and prosperity.

MADRID, Jan 25 (IPS) - Gone are those times when catastrophes were measured in terms of human suffering. Now, with an exception: Ukrainians victims of the Russian invasion, everything is calculated in just money.