News headlines in August 2024

A humanitarian air service, which has been described by the World Food Programme chief as “giving help and giving hope” to the world’s most remote and disadvantaged communities, is celebrating its twentieth anniversary this year.

When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife, Coretta Scott King, visited UN Headquarters in the 1960s to protest the Viet Nam conflict, the civil rights leader likened the anti-war movement to the struggle for equality for Black people in the United States, declaring then what has today become a slogan in the country’s continuing battle against racism.

SYDNEY & NUKU'ALOFA, Aug 30 (IPS) - Three months ahead of the COP29 United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference, the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, has called for an emergency response from the international community as new data from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reveals a critical deterioration in the state of the climate.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 30 (IPS) - Since June of this year, Chad has been facing an elongated period of heavy rainfall. Major flooding has triggered the onset of a significant humanitarian crisis, as all aspects of Chadian life, including health, food production, and community, have been negatively impacted. Additionally, response plans are severely compromised due to high levels of hostility taking place in neighbouring nations.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 30 (IPS) - In 2009 the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 29 August the International Day Against Nuclear Tests. This date recalled the official closing of the Semipalatinsk nuclear weapons testing site in today's Kazakhstan on 29 August 1991; that one site alone having seen 456 nuclear test explosions between 1949 and 1989.

Oksana, who is 26 weeks pregnant, described a harrowing scene in a Kyiv hospital in Ukraine during air raids, with staff scrambling to help patients and newborns into shelters.

The United Nations will continue engaging with all stakeholders in Afghanistan, advocating for human rights and equality, the global body’s Spokesperson said on Friday, amid the Taliban’s reported rejection of criticism by UN officials of a strict morality law.

The devastating lack of adequate care for survivors of sexual and gender-based violence in Sudan, including sexual and reproductive healthcare and psychosocial care, has had “dire” repercussions, independent UN experts said on Friday.

Spotlighting crises roiling parts of eastern Africa, the UN deputy chief concluded a regional visit in Adré, Chad, on Friday, calling for global solidarity to tackle famine in Sudan, flooding and mass displacement while ensuring free-flowing aid for millions trapped in war zones and those fleeing for their lives.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres told parliamentarians in Timor-Leste on Friday the world has much to learn from their inspirational struggle for self-rule, 25 years to the day since the historic referendum which paved the way for independence in 2002.