News headlines in March 2023, page 13

BRUSSELS, Mar 17 (IPS) - Every year, Afghan journalists celebrate their national day on 18 March. This year, there is little reason to party, because of general restrictions, increasing intimidation and a recent attack on journalists. However, at a unique gathering in Brussels, Afghan journalists showed resilience.

MADRID, Mar 17 (IPS) - Three-quarters of a century ago, the world adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, emphasising that all human beings are born equal in dignity and rights. The 2023 theme of its 75th anniversary focuses on the urgency of combating racism and racial discrimination.

BANGKOK, Thailand, Mar 17 (IPS) - The impacts of the climate crisis are acutely felt in the Pacific region. In recent years, the region has been hit by devastating climate events, which cause widespread destruction and significant loss of lives and livelihoods across countries.

BLANTYRE, Mar 17 (IPS) - In December last year, a video clip went viral of two elderly women surrounded by a charged-up crowd and engulfed in a cloud of dust as they filled up a grave in a village in the Mzimba district in northern Malawi.

Health authorities in Burundi on Friday said that they had detected eight samples of polio, officially declaring the landlocked African nation’s first outbreak in more than 30 years.

The UN chief condemned on Friday the latest ballistic missile launch by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), calling on Pyongyang to resume dialogue leading towards sustainable peace and a nuclear weapons-free Korean Peninsula.

UN Secretary-General António Guterresthis week announced the names of seven young climate leaders selected to serve on his Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change.

The war in Ukraine has had very significant implications for global food insecurity, the top UN humanitarian official told the Security Council on Friday, underscoring the critical need to extend landmark agreements to export grain and fertilizer from the region. 

The Pre-Trial Chamber of the UN-backed International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin of Russia on Friday, in connection with alleged war crimes concerning the deportation and “illegal transfer” of children from occupied Ukraine, the head of the ICC said.

The World Health Organization (WHO) continues to call for China to be ‘transparent’ in sharing COVID-19 data in efforts to determine the disease’s origins, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus reiterated on Friday in Geneva.