News headlines in June 2024

PHNOM PENH, Jun 28 (IPS) - Modernity is arriving rapidly in Cambodia, observes journalist Kris Janssens (48), who has lived and worked in the country since 2016. The predominantly young population is eager to move forward, embracing technology over traditional agriculture or fishing. Can Cambodians unite their country's authentic soul with their aspirations for progress?

BONN, Germany, Jun 28 (IPS) - Despite the evident and increasing urgency of the climate crisis, the June intersessional meeting of the UNFCCC closed with little to show for two full weeks of negotiation.

OAKLAND, California / PRAGUE, Czech Republic / YOKOHAMA, Japan, Jun 28 (IPS) - Our three organizations - Western States Legal Foundation, Peace Depot, and Basel Peace Office - all dedicated to the elimination of nuclear weapons, have consistently expressed our concern about the risk of nuclear war escalating during armed conflicts and times of high tension, when nuclear-armed states often make veiled or even explicit threats to use nuclear weapons and prepare for such use.

R.S. PORA, India, Jun 28 (IPS) - Smelling the toxic smoke coming from burned powder kegs and helplessly watching fields turn into smoke and ash is traumatic. Rushing to the government's safe houses and leaving your homes, belongings and cattle behind whenever the armies of India and Pakistan trade fire is inexplicable. Then came climate-change-induced weather unpredictability. 

Resources are desperately needed to ramp up aid supplies for Burkina Faso, a landlocked country in West Africa, which is staring at an “unprecedented humanitarian crisis”, according to the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Any relationship that any country has with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), including Russia, “must entirely abide” by Security Council sanctions, Izumi Nakamitsu, UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs said on Friday, as she briefed ambassadors.

The health system in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince is “on the brink” and “crippled by escalating violence” according to the UN’s Pan American Health Organization’s (PAHO) representative in the Caribbean island nation, Dr. Oscar Barreneche.

On Friday, at the UN Human Rights Council's (OHCHR) first panel for the annual full-day discussion on women's rights, The UN human rights chief Volker Türk on Friday told a Human Rights Council panel that it’s time to eliminate laws and practices that contribute to “economic violence” against women and girls.

With just six years remaining to reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), global progress is alarmingly insufficient, with a mere 17 per cent of the targets currently on track, according to a new UN report released on Friday.

Over and above the difficulty of actually getting into Gaza, aid teams now face the crushing realization that with a shortage of fuel and dwindling supplies, there is a limit to what they can do to help all those in need, UN aid worker Louise Wateridge told UN News on Friday.