News headlines in 2021, page 215

NEW DELHI, India, Apr 15 (IPS) - On 12 January this year, somewhere in the outskirts of the capital, New Delhi, 24 year old Dalit activist Nodeep Kaur was arrested by the Haryana police for protesting outside a factory. During the lockdown in 2020, Nodeep joined a local workers’ rights organization called Mazdoor Adhikar Sangathan (MAS) in the Kundli Industrial Area in Haryana. In January Nodeep was accused of allegedly manhandling management and staff of an industrial area during a protest and also assaulting the police team.

Eight Egyptian architects have been awarded the job of restoring the historic Al-Nouri Mosque complex in Mosul, Iraq, the UN cultural chief announced on Thursday. 

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), together with the African Union (AU) Commission, launched a new continent-wide framework on Thursday, to boost trade and improve food security. 

A lack of new treatments for common infections has left people dangerously exposed to the “world’s most dangerous bacteria”, the UN health agency said on Thursday. 

SAN LUIS LA HERRADURA, El Salvador, Apr 14 (IPS) - A score of coastal communities in El Salvador are staking their bets on sustainable development as a form of life that does not overexploit natural resources diminished by years of government neglect and a lack of environmental awareness, using instruments ranging from ecological cookstoves to mangrove reforestation.

The UN is set to launch a funding appeal to support Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, where ongoing volcanic “explosions” continue to disrupt life in the Caribbean island nation and nearby countries, a top official in the region said on Wednesday. 

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 14 (IPS) - A new Cold War – this time, between the US and China —is threatening to paralyze the UN’s most powerful body, even as military conflicts and civil wars are sweeping across the world, mostly in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.

A so-called “Rewards for Justice” programme in the United States is violating the human rights of some of the individuals it targets, independent UN human rights experts said on Wednesday. 

“Prevention is the best and only cure” to stem the multiple, devastating and enduring consequences faced by survivors of sexual violence in conflict, especially as a brutal tactic of war, a senior UN official told the Security Council on Wednesday.  

Violence attributed to Israeli settlers against Palestinians living in the West Bank has worsened in recent months, amidst “an atmosphere of impunity”, UN-appointed independent rights experts said on Wednesday.