The UN Security Council on Friday strongly condemned the latest rise in attacks by the M23 rebel group in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s restive east, which has undermined security and exacerbated an already dire humanitarian situation.

Aid officials called on the Security Council on Friday to step in to stop the carnage in Gaza as the war enters its sixth month amid a man-made famine, Israel’s constant bombardment, targeted killings of aid workers and Palestinians civilians and “zero accountability” for the perpetrators.

Two aid convoys carrying lifesaving supplies have reached Sudan’s Darfurs for the first time in months, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday, as humanitarians try to avert a “hunger catastrophe”, after nearly a year of heavy fighting.

Israel must make meaningful changes in the way it is fighting in Gaza to avoid civilian casualties while also undergoing “a true paradigm shift” in lifesaving aid delivery, the UN chief said on Friday.

The UN’s top human rights body adopted a resolution on Friday condemning the alleged “use of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare in Gaza”, while also calling for an arms embargo on Israel.

STOCKHOLM, Apr 04 (IPS) - In 2020, general elections were held in the Dominican Republic. This took place while the COVID pandemic was becoming an increasingly serious threat, causing severe social and economic disruption. The elections were two months late as a result of the initial chaos COVID caused. The governing Dominican Liberation Party’s 16-year rule ended after the Modern Revolutionary Party’s candidate, Luis Abinader, received a majority of the votes. Elections are now scheduled for May 19 this year and IPS took the opportunity to ask Miguel Ceara Hatton, the country’s Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, how he perceived the past four years' efforts to mitigate a global crisis that now threatens us all, namely climate change and environmental degradation.

SYDNEY, Apr 04 (IPS) - Growing up in a khazan ecosystem, the traditional agricultural practice followed in the south-western Indian state of Goa, Elsa Fernandes would love sitting in a koddo, a woven bamboo structure for storing paddy. Her family members would pour paddy around her and with the growing pile, she would rise to the top and then jump down with joy.

Boxing legend Muhammad Ali took on fights outside the ring for civil rights and against war, bringing strong messages to the UN since the 1970s, so ahead of the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace, we looked back at what he brought to the world.

As a siege imposed by heavily armed gangs on Port-au-Prince, Haiti, stretches into a second month, the UN migration agency sounded an alarm on Thursday about the ever-worsening humanitarian situation.

A $12 million contribution from a UN emergency humanitarian fund will support people impacted by the violence that broke out in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, in March.