News headlines in January 2024, page 20

NEW YORK, Jan 05 (IPS) - Nearly nine months of war have tipped Sudan into a downward spiral that only grows more ruinous by the day. As the conflict spreads, human suffering is deepening, humanitarian access is shrinking, and hope is dwindling. This cannot continue.

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 05 (IPS) - The atrocities against Palestinians in a ruthlessly devastated Gaza — with over 21,000 mostly civilian deaths in retaliation to the killings of 1,200 inside Israel —have resurrected a longstanding question: is it time for Palestine to be recognized as a full-fledged UN member state?

The question has also been triggered by a statement by China, a veto-wielding permanent member of the UN Security Council (UNSC).

The UN’s relief chief on Friday warned that “Gaza has simply become uninhabitable” and demanded Israeli forces and Palestinian militants start meeting their obligations under international law to protect civilian lives.

Hospitals in Gaza and other vital medical infrastructure have been attacked nearly 600 times since war erupted in the enclave in response to the Hamas-led terror attack in southern Israel, the UN health agency said on Friday.

HARARE, Jan 04 (IPS) - It is do or die on the streets of Zimbabwe as homeless families battle for survival solely depending on begging. Such is the life of 69-year-old Gladys Mugabe, who lives with her disabled son in Harare Gardens, a well-known recreational park in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare.

PANAMA CITY, Panama, Jan 04 (IPS) - Violence against women and girls is one of the most widespread and persistent abuses of fundamental rights at a global level that, to a certain extent, derives from what we consider "normal" in our societies. In addition to firmly condemning that every three women in the world suffer from physical or sexual violence, we must question what we are normalizing as a society for this to happen.

The international community must take “decisive and immediate action” to bring nearly nine months of brutal civil war in Sudan to an end and boost humanitarian relief, the UN relief chief Martin Griffiths said on Thursday.

Music legend Stevie Wonder had a strong and powerful message marking the 10th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities at the UN back in 2016: “We need to have equal access to education and to knowledge and information,” he told delegates.

In Ukraine, there was no respite from war over the holiday period, neither for the country’s citizens, nor the UN workers attempting to deliver aid and support, a senior official for the UN migration agency (IOM) told UN News.

The UN’s World Economic Situation and Prospects report for 2024 projects a slowdown in global growth from an estimated 2.7 per cent in 2023 to 2.4 per cent in 2024.