News headlines in January 2024, page 15

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 15 (IPS) - The world’s rich are getting progressively richer while the world’s poor continue to be increasingly poorer.

In a new report released January 15, Oxfam says the wealth of the world’s five richest men has doubled since 2020 –even as five billion people were made poorer in a “decade of division.”

Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, has allocated $10 million from the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to support men, women and children fleeing the conflict between rival militaries in Sudan, across the border into neighbouring South Sudan.

Globally in 2024, children are likely to see increased exposure to violence and war, and economic hardship, says the UN children’s agency (UNICEF), in a flagship study released on Monday.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has emphasized the imperative of establishing “basic conditions” to facilitate safe and full-scale aid delivery to civilians in Gaza while stressing that only a ceasefire will prevent the crisis from escalating.

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday launched a $1.5 billion emergency appeal to provide care to more than 87 million people this year in 41 ongoing crises, including in the occupied Palestinian territory, Ukraine, Sudan, Syria and the Horn of Africa.

Nearly two years since Russian forces launched a “full-blown war and occupation” of Ukraine, UN relief chief Martin Griffiths on Monday issued an urgent appeal together with the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) for $4.2 billion.

After more than 100 days of war in Gaza and no let-up in sight, senior UN humanitarians issued a rare joint appeal for greater aid access on Monday, expressing renewed fears of death due to famine and disease unless there is a “fundamental step change” in procedures.

Despite the immense dangers and obstacles, the UN continues to deliver desperately needed humanitarian aid in Gaza. Here is an overview of the humanitarian efforts in the occupied territory.

ROME, Jan 12 (IPS) - “We are the mothers, daughters and sisters of the missing and murdered Baloch. We are thousands.” Mahrang Baloch, a 28-year-old doctor from Pakistan's Balochistan province, is blunt when introducing herself and the rest of a group protesting in central Islamabad.

JOHANNESBURG, Jan 12 (IPS) - Israel disputed both South Africa’s jurisdiction and the provisional measures that it demanded the International Court of Justice impose on the State of Israel to prevent genocide.