News headlines in February 2024, page 14

Twenty-one years ago in February, US Secretary of State Colin Powell held up a tiny blue-capped vial in the UN Security Council, claiming Iraq and President Saddam Hussein were producing weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).

SYDNEY, Feb 14 (IPS) - Israel continues to defy its strongest backer the US and its western allies in its quest to control the land from the “River to the Sea”, and in the process ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population.

BRATISLAVA, Feb 14 (IPS) - UNAIDS Executive Director, Winnie Byanyima, recently made an impassioned call for governments to support women and girls from marginalized communities at the frontlines of the defence of human rights, to help ensure, among others, that global health is protected.

PORTLAND, USA, Feb 14 (IPS) - Together religious identity and demographics play an important role in the decades-long conflict between Israelis and the Palestinians. If the Palestinians, who are largely Muslim and Christian, had been Jewish, they would have been allowed to live in their homes on their lands and be entitled to be Israeli citizens.

NAIROBI, Kenya, Feb 14 (IPS) - Often referred to as the “Sun continent,” Africa receives more hours of bright sunlight than any other continent. But even with 60 per cent of the world’s solar resources, Africa has only one per cent of solar generation capacity, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

KATHMANDU, Nepal, Feb 14 (IPS) - A gathering ‘perfect storm’ – due to various developments, several quite deliberate – now threatens much devastation in the global South, likely to most hurt the poorest and most vulnerable.

Civilians in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are once again bearing the brunt of localized violence, amid a sharp uptick in fighting between Government forces and the M23 armed group, the UN refugee agency reported on Wednesday.

Tensions remain high in North Kivu province in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), particularly in the town of Sake, as clashes persist between M23 rebels and Government forces, the UN mission in the country, MONUSCO, reported on Wednesday.

The shockwaves from the war in Gaza continue to reverberate across the wider Middle East region, with the situation in Yemen much more complex than it was a few months ago, the UN Special Envoy for the country said on Wednesday.

As the risk of famine grows in Gaza and more people are exposed to deadly diseases, the heads of three UN agencies – the World Food Programme (WFP), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) – called for faster and safer aid access to the enclave.