NEW YORK, Nov 08 (IPS) - Calling it “so disappointing and disheartening” in social media on 17 October, Dr. Rosie James, a British medical expert, announced that “I was sexually assaulted by a World Health Organization (WHO) staff tonight at the World Health Summit.”

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 08 (IPS) - The COP27 climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh has triggered a negative fallout for Egypt’s authoritarian regime which stands accused of human rights abuses -- and has been widely condemned for its longstanding repressive campaign against dissidents and civil society organizations (CSOs).

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Nov 08 (IPS) - Ahead of the first United Nations environmental summit in Stockholm in 1972, a group of scientists prepared The Limits to Growth report for the Club of Rome. It showed planet Earth’s finite natural resources cannot support ever-growing human consumption.

In a report issued on Tuesday, UN human rights experts outline how discrimination affects black boys and girls worldwide to the extent that they are not considered children, even in the eyes of the law. 

Five UN-appointed independent human rights experts called on Tuesday for Türkiye to stop using counter-terrorism legislation to intimidate human rights defenders and to immediately release Sebnem Korur Fincancı, a senior medic and anti-torture expert.

The second day of COP27’s Climate Implementation Summit saw world leaders raise their voices for concrete action, particularly on adaptation and the thorny issue of loss and damage.

Amidst Sri Lanka’s worst economic crisis since independence, the UN on Tuesday revised its joint Humanitarian Needs and Priorities (HNP) Plan, appealing for more life-saving assistance to aid 3.4 million people.

UN Human Rights High Commissioner Volker Türk on Tuesday appealed for Egypt to free a prominent blogger and activist whose life is in imminent danger following a seven-month hunger strike, that has escalated with the start of the COP27 climate summit being hosted there. 

Overwhelming flooding has affected at least 27.7 million children across 27 countries worldwide, with the number of children affected by flooding in Chad, Gambia, Pakistan and northeast Bangladesh, being the highest in over 30 years.

While a growing number of governments and non-State actors are pledging to be carbon-free, the criteria for net-zero commitments can have loopholes wide enough to “drive a diesel truck through”, the UN Secretary-General decried as his expert group on the matter published its first report on Tuesday.