News headlines in October 2023, page 3

The President of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Monday hit back at Russia’s recent decision to issue arrest warrants against senior judges, describing the move as the most notable example of “unacceptable threats and attacks” on the international judicial body.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Monday called on the world to “stop the madness” of climate change as he visited the Everest region in Nepal where melting glaciers are putting entire communities at risk of extinction.

Climate impacts are accelerating with every fraction of a degree of global warming, yet denial, distortion and falsehoods about well-established scientific facts are flooding the internet and media landscape, according to the participants of a panel discussion at UN Headquarters on mis- and disinformation relating to climate change.

With the Israel-Palestine crisis in its fourth week, UN aid teams on Monday highlighted the mounting pressure on north Gaza hospitals where patients and health workers remain, amid reports of expanded Israeli ground operations.

The United Nations has welcomed the resumption of talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to end the months-long conflict between the Sudanese army and its rival paramilitary force which lefts scores dead and sent the northeast African country spiraling into humanitarian crisis.

The crisis sparked by the Hamas terrorist attack and ongoing Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip is a "political and humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions” said the UN’s independent human rights expert for the Occupied Palestinian Territory this week.

Relief agencies warned on Sunday that civil order is starting to break down in Gaza after thousands of desperate people stormed UN-operated warehouses and other aid distribution centres in the ravaged enclave, taking wheat flour, hygiene supplies and other basic survival goods.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres began his official visit to Nepal by extending deep condolences to the families of the 10 Nepalese students killed in the terror attacks by Hamas in Israel, and once again called for the protection of all civilians in Gaza, where, he said, “the situation is growing more desperate by the hour.”

The ancient city of Antakya, in Türkiye’s southeastern province of Hatay, was once a hub of history, culture and diversity. Today, it bears the scars of a series of catastrophic earthquakes that struck in February and an emergence of scattered signs of life.

United Nations agencies and officials on Saturday reiterated calls for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza after another night of heavy bombing left hospitals and healthcare facilities without electricity and civilians across the enclave virtually “cut off from the outside world”.