The public water system in Lebanon is “on life support” and could collapse at any moment, putting 71 per cent of the population, or more than four million people, at immediate risk of losing access to safe supply, the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, warned on Friday. 

KATHMANDU, Nepal, Jul 23 (IPS) - Following the Supreme Court’s decision to reinstall the House of Representatives and appoint-- after a prolonged and nasty legal battle-- a new Prime Minister, Sher Bahadur Deuba, there is high probability that a government of national unity will be put together in Nepal.

Against the backdrop of a rapidly changing global climate, water-related hazards top the list of natural disasters with the highest human losses in the past 50 years, according to a new report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

Jul 22 (IPS) - “The government should open schools, even if it’s for an hour, to facilitate some student-teacher interaction. Most teachers feel that students should be encouraged to come to school.

KIGALI, Rwanda, Jul 22 (IPS) - Rwanda is trying to reduce post-harvest loss by relying on new technologies to increase the amount of food available for consumption and help smallholder farmers confront some challenges caused by the overproduction of staple crops.

Lifesaving assistance arrived for the beleaguered Tigray region of Ethiopia on Thursday as the first UN World Food Programme (WFP) plane carrying humanitarian workers touched down in the capital Mekelle. 

Although new COVID-19 cases in Africa have slowed following an eight-week surge, this “small step forward” could be short-lived, the Regional Office of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday. 

Jul 22 (IPS) - Almost 200 people dead and many others still missing. Billions of euros’ worth of damage. Communities devastated. Thousands of homes destroyed and their occupants traumatised.

The head of the UN food relief agency called on the world’s richest nations on Thursday to invest more in sustainable living, to feed the world’s growing population.  

Nearly half of the 1.7 million children worldwide living with HIV were not on treatment last year, the UN programme leading the global fight against HIV and AIDS, UNAIDS, said in a report released together with partners.