News headlines in 2021, page 125

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.

A young peace campaigner from Cameroon who turned his back on the violence prevalent in his hometown and became a youth civil society activist, has been telling the United Nations about how he is helping other young people to reject conflict, and take a greater role in building peace in the country.

Bulawayo, ZIMBABWE, Aug 11 (IPS) - Ndaba Dube, a Bulawayo resident, says he built himself a home on a small piece of land after the authorities kept him on the housing waiting list for more than two decades. The land he chose is in an old township established before Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980.