News headlines in 2023, page 272

As crowds in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) thronged on Thursday to hear Pope Francis’s message of hope and solidarity on day three of his official visit to Central Africa, UN humanitarians warned that aid agencies face growing demands and shrinking funds in DRC - Africa’s biggest hunger crisis.

NORWICH / EDINBURGH / LONDON, Feb 01 (IPS) - In a new book, entitled Humanitarian Journalists: Covering Crises from a Boundary Zone, we document the unique reporting practices of a small but influential group of journalists who defy conventional approaches to covering humanitarian crises.

PORTLAND, USA, Feb 01 (IPS) - China’s announcement on 17 January 2023 that its population had declined for the first time in 60 years has fostered population decline hysteria and promoted more Ponzi demography in many parts of the world.

KARACHI, Feb 01 (IPS) - “If I return to Afghanistan, the Taliban will kill me; I’m prepared to stay in a prison in Karachi than face those ruthless people,” said 24-year-old Afghan refugee, Sabrina Zalmai*, referring to the recent crackdown on hundreds of Afghans residing without proper documents in the metropolis, who are being arrested and then deported back to Afghanistan.

Two UN experts commended the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Wednesday for considering the admission of athletes from the Russian Federation and Belarus in sports competitions as “neutral” contestants. 

Although coastal and freshwater wetlands – such as swamps, mangroves and marshes - contain 40 per cent of all plant and animal species, many are polluted or degraded due to climate change and human development. 

Trafficked medical products kill almost half a million sub-Saharan Africans every year, and action is needed to stem the flow, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) states in its new threat assessment report.

UN agencies have welcomed a pledge by 12 African countries to end AIDS in children by 2030, announced on Wednesday at a meeting in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. 

A UN-led plan to tackle climate change by radically improving the way heat-trapping atmospheric pollutants are measured all over the planet, is being given serious consideration by governments and the international scientific community, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON DC, Jan 31 (IPS) - Meeting our climate change goals will require massive investments in clean energy projects, in both advanced economies and across the Global South.  But financing projects in the latter group of countries requires an increase in foreign capital inflows that will be constrained by currency exchange rate risk. Creating an innovative Exchange Rate Coverage Facility can help to overcome this constraint.