Nairobi, Kenya, Feb 21 (IPS) - Struggling with stigma and discrimination in an unaccommodating environment, Nujeen Mustafa knows all too well the difficulties children with disabilities face in emergency and protracted crises.

NEW YORK, Feb 21 (IPS) - A “Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China, issued on February 4, 2020 on International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development”, contains laudable and strong language about commitment to democracy and human rights:

MADRID, Feb 21 (IPS) - “Every two weeks a language disappears taking with it an entire cultural and intellectual heritage. At least 43% of the estimated 6000 languages spoken in the world are endangered. Only a few hundred languages have genuinely been given a place in education systems and the public domain, and less than a hundred are used in the digital world.”

UN-appointed independent rights experts issued a statement on Monday calling on India to end relentless misogynistic and sectarian attacks against an investigative journalist.

NEW YORK, Feb 21 (IPS) - If the Ukraine crisis erupts into war – even intensified limited war in Eastern Ukraine with overt Russian intervention – the consequences will be severe and far-reaching.

Health teams worldwide need much safer working conditions to combat the “dangerous neglect” they have faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, the UN health and labour agencies said on Monday. 

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi urged on Monday for greater protection for refugees and asylum-seekers in Europe.  

The head of the UN’s educational and cultural agency, UNESCO, has called for defending linguistic and cultural diversity in her message to mark International Mother Language Day on Monday. 

A transgender woman in Haiti has said she does not want to die in a man's body, and hopes to leave her native country to fulfill her dream of transitioning from being a man to a woman. Semi Alisha Fermond works with transgender people at Kay Trans Ayiti (the Creole name for Trans House Haiti) and is an activist with the UNDP and UNAIDS-supported organization Community Action for the Integration of Vulnerable Haitians (ACIFVH). 

Internal displacement, regional instability, and climate change have created a refugee crisis in Niger, but an initiative in the town of Ouallam is showing how different communities can work together to survive, and improve the local environment.