News headlines in 2022, page 44

DUBLIN, Ireland, Nov 02 (IPS) - Before she was murdered in Honduras in 2016, the Lenca Indigenous woman and human rights defender Berta Cáceres poignantly said: “They are afraid of us because we are not afraid of them.”

URBANA, Illinois, USA, Nov 02 (IPS) - The statistics are stark. The crisis is unprecedented. Yet again, according to the United Nations, famine looms in Somalia, with hundreds of thousands already facing starvation. In addition, droughts, and catastrophic hunger levels have left over 500,000 children malnourished and at risk of dying. This is already nearly 200,000 more than the 2011 famine. Urgent immediate actions must be taken now, both to address the crisis in the short-term and long-term.

MEXICO CITY, Nov 02 (IPS) - A beige line slashes its way through the Mayan jungle near the municipality of Izamal in the southeastern Mexican state of Yucatán. It is section 3, 172 kilometers long, of the Mayan Train (TM), the most important megaproject of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's administration.

A peace deal between the Ethiopian Government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) signed on Wednesday in South Africa, represents “a critical first step” towards ending the brutal two year war, said the UN chief.

Despite severe constraints on access, UN and other humanitarian workers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have begun helping thousands displaced by renewed fighting between the Congolese army and the M23 armed group around the eastern region of North Kivu, close to the border with Rwanda and Uganda.

Responses to climate change must also consider its link to both conflict and the displacement it causes, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, said in a briefing to the Security Council on Wednesday. 

Governments and the international community must take action to protect the people who bring us the news, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in his message on the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists, observed on Wednesday. 

Temperatures in Europe have increased at more than twice the global average over the past 30 years – the highest of any continent in the world. As the warming trend continues, exceptional heat, wildfires, floods and other climate change impacts will affect society, economies and ecosystems, according to a report released Wednesday by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

The UN Secretary-General on Wednesday issued a statement warmly welcoming Russia’s decision to resume its participation in the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which has allowed nearly ten million metric tonnes of vital foodstuffs to be shipped from Ukraine.

Humanity’s basic right to life is being threatened by insufficient action in the face of the climate emergency, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk warned on Wednesday.