News headlines in February 2023

NEW YORK, Feb 28 (IPS) - Emina Cerimovic is a senior disability rights researcher at Human Rights Swatch.A few days ago, I saw a photo shared to Twitter of Sham, a young Syrian girl rescued from under the rubble in northwest Syria, sitting upright in her hospital bed, According to the Syrian Civil Defense, a volunteer humanitarian group also known as the White Helmets, Sham will lose both her legs because of injuries from the quake.

ROME, Feb 28 (IPS) - Genocide, war crimes, aggression, ecocide, crimes against humanity – which is the odd one out? The right answer is ecocide - destroying, polluting or damaging the natural living world on a large scale is not among the crimes that can be prosecuted at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Feb 28 (IPS) - Global warming and climate breakdown are going to be disruptive to say the least. Humanity’s insistence on unsustainable development and rising greenhouse gas emissions will make the settlements of millions of people increasingly prone to extreme weather events and full-blown natural disasters.

HARARE, Feb 28 (IPS) - In New Ashdon Park, a medium-density area in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, at new homes that have replaced a once thriving forest, makeshift fireplaces have become common sights as residents solely depend on firewood for energy.

Repealing discriminatory laws against people living with HIV/AIDS saves lives and helps advance the end of the pandemic, the chief of UNAIDS has said, marking Zero Discrimination Day on Wednesday.

Climate change and the economic downturn continue to fuel the crisis in Afghanistan, and there have been no “encouraging developments” towards getting girls back into classrooms, a senior UN official said on Tuesday. 

International demand for patents hit a record high last year, as innovators in China, the United States, Japan, the Republic of Korea and Germany, sought to protect their inventions, said the UN agency that polices the process worldwide, on Tuesday.

Top UN officials on Tuesday called on the Security Council’s strong support for Syria following the 6 February earthquakes, which worsened an already dire situation in the wake of 12 years of brutal civil war.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on Tuesday asked all nations to work harder towards abolishing the death penalty, an ongoing practice in 79 countries.

Although cascading global crises are undermining hard fought development gains, “now is not the time for despair", UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed told African ministers and policy makers meeting in Niamey, Niger, on Tuesday.