News headlines in 2021, page 2

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought “a tsunami of suffering”, taken over 3.4 million lives and 500 million jobs, while wiping trillions of dollars from global balance sheets, Secretary-General António Guterres told business leaders on Thursday, appealing for equitable vaccine distribution worldwide. 

With fears that one of the world’s most active volcanoes could erupt again in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is warning that up to 400,000 – nearly 280,000 children – could be displaced and in need of protection or support, if the current exodus continues.

Annual investments in nature-based solutions will have to triple by 2030, and increase four-fold by 2050, if the world is to successfully tackle the triple threat of climate, biodiversity and land degradation crises, according to a new UN-backed study published on Thursday. 

Only a political solution will end the “senseless and costly cycles of violence” between Israelis and Palestinians, UN Middle East envoy Tor Wennesland said in a briefing to the Security Council on Thursday. 

ACCRA, May 27 (IPS) - Seventeen-year-old Muniratu Adams, a form two student of the Jeyiri D/A Junior High School at Funsi in the Wa East District of the Upper West Region of Ghana, is fortunate to have returned to school this January after the long COVID-19 shutdown.

With a focus for this year’s International Day of UN Peacekeepers on youth, peace and security, the UN chief told a commemorative ceremony on Thursday that “peace cannot be achieved without the active participation of young people”. 

MUMBAI, May 27 (IPS) - “There’s no other option but to return,” said Chitrasen in January 2021, when asked if he would migrate back to the city. The previous year’s pandemic-induced lockdown had left migrant workers stranded in cities and stripped of all their savings. An entire year later, as the second wave of COVID-19 engulfs India, many migrant workers find themselves confronted by a similar situation.

GENEVA, May 27 (IPS) - The writer is Executive Director of UNAIDS and Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations.In this time of intersecting crises – the Covid crisis, the HIV crisis, the inequality crisis, and more – progress on all these crises is being blocked by another crisis: finance.

UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet called on Thursday for a “genuine and inclusive peace process” to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine and a repeat of recent deadly clashes that have been marked by possible war crimes by Israeli security forces.

Odds are increasing that the annual average global temperature will rise beyond 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, in at least one of the next five years, the UN weather agency warns in a new report issued on Thursday.