News headlines in 2022, page 112

SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 16 (IPS) - Half a century after the 1970s’ stagflation, economies are slowing, even contracting, as prices rise again. Thus, the World Bank warns, “Surging energy and food prices heighten the risk of a prolonged period of global stagflation reminiscent of the 1970s.”

In March, Reuters reported, “With surging oil prices, concerns about the hawkishness of the Federal Reserve and fears of Russian aggression in Eastern Europe, the mood on Wall Street feels like a return to the 1970s”.

Although $4.4 billion is required to fund humanitarian operations in Afghanistan, $1.8 billion has been received so far, or roughly 40 per cent, a senior UN official told journalists in New York on Monday, warning of the dire consequences as winter approaches. 

The intergovernmental conference to draft the first-ever treaty on the ocean’s biological diversity opened its fifth and likely final session on Monday.

UN troop rotations in the peacekeeping mission in Mali (MINUSMA) resumed on Monday with a new approval mechanism one month after they were suspended by the ruling junta, which accused 49 Ivorian soldiers of entering the country without permission. 

The Security Council has a joint responsibility to help Yemen take the “necessary and decisive steps towards peace,” the country’s UN Special Envoy told the ambassadors on Monday.

A year of Taliban rule in Afghanistan has led to a deterioration in the lives of women and girls, affecting all aspects of their human rights, three UN agencies reported on Monday.  

PESHAWAR, Aug 15 (IPS) - Afghan refugees living in Pakistan face a host of problems, ranging from seeking medical treatment to shelter, business, police harassment and violence. Many of those affected have been there for four decades.

NEW YORK, Aug 15 (IPS) - In the year that has passed since the Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan we have seen daily and continuous deterioration in the situation of Afghan women and girls. This has spanned every aspect of their human rights, from living standards to social and political status.

SAN SALVADOR, Aug 15 (IPS) - Practicing journalism in Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador is becoming increasingly difficult in the face of the persecution of independent media outlets by neo-populist rulers of different stripes, intolerant of criticism.

A year on from the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, the senior UN official in the country, Resident Coordinator Ramiz Alakbarov, describes his fears for girls’ lives, and calls for women to play a full role in reviving the Afghan economy.