With the chief of the UN’s gender empowerment agency declaring that women are still “sitting in the corridors when men are inside at the table negotiating peace”, the historic Generation Equality Forum in Paris concluded on Friday with new commitments designed to address that, and other injustices.

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday urged leaders to push back against daunting new COVID surges through increased vaccination efforts and public health measures, warning that with Delta quickly becoming the dominant strain in many countries ‘we are in a very dangerous period of the pandemic’.

The World Food Programme (WFP) has resumed operations in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, after fighting halted the emergency response last week, although the agency warned on Friday that “serious challenges” continue to threaten the entire humanitarian response.  

WASHINGTON DC, Jul 02 (IPS) - After more than a decade of rising tensions and growing nuclear competition between the two largest nuclear-weapon states, U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed at their June 16 summit to engage in a robust “strategic stability” dialogue to “lay the groundwork for future arms control and risk reduction measures.”

NEW DELHI, India, Jul 02 (IPS) - Two Indian women, one Muslim and the other Dalit (former untouchables), separated by culture and geography, have found common ground in leading change in conflict-torn South Sudan.

Leading figures from government, business and civil society are preparing to take part in this year’s High Level Political Forum on sustainable development (HLPF), where they will discuss ways to recover from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and turn the deadly crisis into an opportunity for a major shift towards a more sustainable global economy.

The UN’s Pause campaign, which encourages social media and other news consumers to stop and check the validity of information they share, received a major endorsement on Thursday after a study from a leading research institute in the United States concluded that it has helped encourage the behavioural change needed to stop the spread of misinformation online.

Without an urgent injection of cash, billions globally risk still being without lifesaving access to safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene services by 2030, according to a new UN report published on Thursday. 

Although the COVID-19 pandemic had triggered the roll-out of an “unprecedented number” of new and often innovative social protection measures, it was unable to stem a widening gap between rich and poor countries, according to a new UN report released on Thursday.

With cases now doubling in Africa every three weeks, the Delta variant of COVID-19 has spread to 16 countries and it is present in three of the five nations reporting the highest caseloads. The variant is the most contagious yet - up to 60% more transmissible than other variants.