BRATISLAVA, Aug 17 (IPS) - A heavily criticised Namibian government sale of elephants has attracted only a third of its expected sales as government officials admit that an international outcry when the plans were announced may have put buyers off.

Reliable fuel and electricity supply are urgently needed in Lebanon to avert a potential “humanitarian catastrophe”, the top UN aid official in the country warned on Tuesday. 

Afghan civilians continue to bear the brunt of the Taliban takeover in the country where humanitarian needs remain critical and widespread among existing and newly displaced populations, UN agencies said on Tuesday.

Climate-related and geophysical events resulted in the loss of 312,000 lives and directly affected more than 277 million people in Latin America and the Caribbean, a new report released by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) revealed on Tuesday.

The vaccination against Ebola of high-risk populations began on Monday in Côte d’Ivoire following the discovery of an outbreak in the country three days ago. The swift response came after vaccines manufactured by Merck, which the World Health Organization (WHO) helped to secure to fight a four-month long outbreak in neighbouring Guinea, were quickly sent to the country. 

SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 17 (IPS) - Decades of public health cuts have quietly taken a huge human toll, now even more pronounced with the pandemic. Austerity programmes, by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, have forced countries to cut public spending, including health provisioning.

Hundreds of boys and girls have been killed or injured over the past two years amid the deteriorating political and security situation in Afghanistan, according to the latest UN report on Children and Armed Conflict, which was issued on Monday, a day after the Taliban consolidated control over the country. 

SANTIAGO, Aug 16 (IPS) - Communities in Arica y Parinacota, the region in the extreme north of Chile, are using solar energy and are being empowered by projects for shrimp and trout farming, the production of yarn from camelid wool, the production of tomatoes and cheese, and even the sale of surplus solar power to the national electric grid.

The damage to people and livelihoods caused by climate change is happening at a scale that “people on the front lines cannot manage”, according to the UN’s humanitarian office, OCHA.

A case of Ebola virus has been confirmed in Côte d’Ivoire for the first time since 1994, the country’s Ministry of Health has confirmed. The World Health Organization (WHO) is coordinating the delivery of vaccines to the country.