News headlines in 2022, page 263

MUMBAI, India, Feb 18 (IPS) - Coal—considered to be one of the most polluting fossil fuels and, therefore, one of the biggest contributors to climate change—took centre stage at COP 26. A last-minute intervention by India during the negotiations resulted in a crucial amendment to the coal pledge in the Glasgow Climate Pact.

The consequences of colonialism are “still being felt to this day”, Chef de Cabinet Courtenay Rattray told the Special Committee on Decolonization on Friday. 

Attacks on kindergartens and schools have been a sad reality for children in eastern Ukraine over the last eight years, the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, said on Friday. Since the beginning of the conflict, more than 750 schools have been damaged.

Despite some signs of progress in ending the political, economic and humanitarian crisis that has worsened across Haiti since the assassination of its president last year, the situation there remains “fraught and highly polarized”, the UN envoy to the country told the Security Council on Friday.

Thousands of Eritrean refugees sheltering at a camp in the Ethiopian Afar region, have fled following a deadly attack on the facility earlier this month, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said on Friday.

With tensions continuing to mount over the Ukraine crisis, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Friday that he still believed military conflict in Europe “will not happen” – although if it did, “it would be catastrophic”.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 18 (IPS) - A former Indian ambassador once told an American audience that one of the biggest misconceptions about the Indian Ocean is that it belongs to India. “Not so, but we wish we did”, he said, amidst laughter.

Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia will be the first countries on the African continent to receive the technology needed to produce game-changing mRNA vaccines, which have proved crucial to the fight against COVID-19, the head of the UN health agency said on Friday.

GENEVA, Feb 17 (IPS) - When we think about global crises, road safety isn’t one that comes to mind. The reality is that unsafe roads is a health crisis gone rogue. 

MADRID, Feb 17 (IPS) - Once completed in 2030, it could well be considered the world’s eighth wonder, this time natural. It is the African-led Great Green Wall or the largest living structure on the planet – an 8.000 kilometres natural hit stretching across the entire width of the continent.