News headlines in November 2023

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 30 (IPS) - Remarks to the UN Security Council on the implementation of resolution 2712 on the Middle East, 29 November 2023 Resolution 2712 was approved in a context of widespread death and wholesale destruction unleashed by the conflict in Gaza and Israel.

According to Israeli authorities, more than 1,200 people were killed -- including 33 children -- and thousands were injured in the abhorrent acts of terror by Hamas on 7 October. Some 250 people were also abducted, including 34 children.

Deadly torrential rains and floods have affected more than two million people in several areas of Somalia, with over 100 killed and 750,000 displaced from their homes, the authorities and humanitarian partners said on Thursday in the capital, Mogadishu.

Civil society organizations are on the “frontlines” of peacebuilding, a senior UN official said on Thursday, as the Organization convened the inaugural dialogue with grassroots organizations aimed at building and nurturing peace initiatives on the ground.

Climate change and its impacts, particularly extreme weather and heatwaves, pose a “substantial risk” to progress being made to fight malaria, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday.

UN human rights chief Volker Türk has deplored the decision by Russia’s highest court to outlaw what it called “the international LGBT movement” and brand it as “extremist” - a move he feared could lead to gay and transgender rights groups there being banned outright.

The leadership of communities affected by HIV has been vital in driving progress to end the epidemic, UN health agency WHO said on the eve of World AIDS Day, observed annually on 1 December.

A last-minute extension of the pause in fighting in Gaza between Israel and Hamas on Thursday offered hope that UN humanitarians and aid partners will be able to pursue their efforts to reach the enclave’s most vulnerable people.

Delegates meeting in Dubai agreed Thursday on the operationalization of a fund that would help compensate vulnerable countries coping with loss and damage caused by climate change, a major breakthrough on the first day of this year’s UN climate conference.

The world is heating up at an unprecedented pace, new climate data shows, and leaders gathered for the COP28 conference which opened in Dubai on Thursday must get us out of “deep trouble”, UN chief António Guterres said.

TECOLUCA, El Salvador, Nov 30 (IPS) - For farmers in the valleys below the 15 de Septiembre hydroelectric plant in central El Salvador, the rains bring floods. Now that the rains are more unpredictable, the loss of crops and disruption of fishing are even more devastating as they deal with erratic climate-change-induced flooding.

For decades, poor fishing and farming communities in southern El Salvador have paid the price for the electricity generated by one of the country's five dams, as constant and sometimes extreme rains cause the reservoir to release water that ends up flooding the low-lying area where the families live.