News headlines in March 2023, page 29

Niger announced on Thursday that it is to join a key UN water-sharing agreement with its Lake Chad neighbours in the increasingly drought-prone Sahel region.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday praised Iraq for repatriating its citizens from camps in northeast Syria holding people suspected of having ties to ISIL extremists, urging other governments “to take responsibility and to act”. 

As food rationing begins for Myanmar’s Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, a top UN-appointed independent rights expert on Thursday urged the international community to step in and reverse the policy as “a matter of life and death”.

MADRID, Mar 01 (IPS) - Wildlife is indeed far much more than a safari or an ‘exotic’ ornament: as many as four billion people –or an entire half the whole world's population– rely on wild species for income, food, medicines and wood fuel for cooking.

DURBAN, Mar 01 (IPS) - South Africa’s almost record level food price inflation, load shedding, rising energy costs, and further fuel and interest rate hike forecast have eroded workers’ disposable incomes and further disadvantaging the poor – leaving analysts predicting that the country was at heightened risk, including civil unrest.

BANGKOK, Thailand, Mar 01 (IPS) - New technologies and innovations are reshaping our world and its future, often at a dizzying pace. Yet women and girls continue to be left behind in this burgeoning digital universe. How, then, can we harness these developments to create a better future for all of us?

This year’s International Women’s Day theme, “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality,” seeks to answer exactly that question.

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday visited earthquake-ravaged northwest Syria, becoming the first senior UN official to enter the region since war erupted in the country 12 years ago this month. 

UN rights chief Volker Türk has issued an urgent appeal to all countries to support people’s right to development, as a way out of the world’s current “destructive spiral”.

The number of children worldwide without access to social protection continues to rise, putting them at risk of poverty, hunger and discrimination, the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said in a report published on Wednesday. 

Schools made of straw, can be transformed into tech-savvy classrooms fit for the future through cooperation and innovative problem-solving, the UN deputy chief declared on Wednesday, speaking at the site of a national tragedy in Niger, which has now become a beacon of hope.