BUENOS AIRES, Aug 12 (IPS) - Argentina will receive a 347 million dollar loan from the World Bank to upgrade one of the most important suburban railway lines in the city of Buenos Aires. The operation is part of the multilateral lender’s new policy, which deepens its commitment to the fight against climate change.

With Taliban fighters continuing to gain ground in Afghanistan, the UN Secretary-General is following events “with deep concern” said the UN Spokesperson on Thursday, including the battle for Herat and Kandahar, the country’s second and third largest cities.  

Political strides are breathing new hope into the country’s fragile State-building process, driven by an electoral agreement signed by Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble, and the heads of Somalia’s federal member states, a senior UN official told the Security Council on Thursday.

With 40 per cent of the global population under 25, the international community has a special responsibility to ensure young people can share their perspectives and concerns about existential threats to current and future generations, UN disarmament chief Izumi Nakamitsu said on Thursday.

Young people are on the “frontlines of the struggle to build a better future”, the UN chief said on Thursday, International Youth Day.

A group of UN-appointed experts on Thursday called for a moratorium on the sale of surveillance technology, warning against the danger of allowing the sector to operate as “a human rights-free zone.” 

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 12 (IPS) - The annual high-level debate during the upcoming 76th General Assembly sessions beginning September 21 —which traditionally attracted over 150 world leaders in a pre-pandemic era-- is now clouded in uncertainty.

UN weather experts said on Thursday that they’re “actively looking” into a possible record temperature for Continental Europe of 48.8 Celsius (119.8 Fahrenheit) near the town of Syracuse in Sicily, amid devastating wildfires in Mediterranean countries and Russia.

NEW DELHI, India, Aug 12 (IPS) - Sania Farooqui is a journalist and filmmaker based out of New Delhi.Earlier in January, Indian journalist Nidhi Razdan found out she was a victim of one of the most sophisticated and elaborate cyber attacks. Razdan wrote in a piece that it was all an attempt to access her bank account details, personal data, emails, medical records, passport and access to all her devices, including computer and phone.

Aug 11 (IPS) - The world watched in July 2021 as extreme rainfall became floods that washed away centuries-old homes in Europe, triggered landslides in Asia and inundated subways in China. More than 900 people died in the destruction. In North America, the West was battling fires amid an intense drought that is affecting water and power supplies.