News headlines in 2021, page 228

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 30 (IPS) - The conflict in Syria is now ten years old. A decade of death, destruction, displacement, disease, dread and despair. I have spoken to Syrians in many parts of the country in recent weeks.

SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Mar 30 (IPS) - COVID-19 has set back the uneven progress of recent decades, directly causing more than two million deaths. The slowdown, due to the pandemic and policy responses, has pushed hundreds of millions more into poverty, hunger and worse, also deepening many inequalities.

A new report on pandemics and cities from UN-Habitat, points the way to how hard-hit urban centres can reduce the impact of future outbreaks and become more equitable, healthy and environmentally friendly.

Now is not the moment to reduce humanitarian aid to Syria, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator told the Security Council on Monday, stressing that after 10 years of conflict, more support was needed to avoid further “dramatic and widespread” deterioration. 

Independent UN human rights experts have urged companies to closely scrutinize their supply chains following concerns over the alleged detention and forced labour of Muslim Uyghurs in China, according to a statement issued on Monday. 

The Secretary-General welcomed a recommitted and re-engaged United States administration to United Nations Headquarters on Monday, albeit virtually, calling on it to play a leadership role in drawing up a global vaccination plan to beat COVID-19, and make the upcoming COP26 a watershed moment for climate action.

Three years since the UN Secretary-General launched his Action for Peacekeeping (A4P) initiative to strengthening peacekeeping operations worldwide, “significant progress” has been made “but our work is far from done”, the peacekeeping chief said on Monday. 

Achieving equal rights for women is “the unfinished human rights struggle of this century”, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in remarks to the Generation Equality Forum which began online from Mexico City on Monday. 

A new report from the UN agency dedicated to ending HIV and AIDS ( UNAIDS) has shown that investing $29 billion a year to HIV response in low and middle income countries by 2025, will put the world back on track to eradicate the virus as a public health threat by 2030.

Though significant steps have been taken to prevent debt crises across the world sparked by the COVID-19 crisis, they have not been sufficient to restore economic stability in many developing countries, according to a policy brief issued by the UN Secretary-General on Monday.