News headlines in June 2024, page 14

KARACHI, Jun 12 (IPS) - A dark head emerges, followed by the torso. The balding man heaves himself up, hands on the sides of the manhole, as he is helped by two men. Gasping for breath, the man, who seems to be in his late 40s, sits on the edge, wearing just a pair of dark pants, the same color as the putrid swirling water he comes out from.

Khadija Jallouli, a young Tunisian entrepreneur with a disability, called for redoubling international efforts aimed at integrating people with disabilities and involving them in decisions related to finding solutions to the challenges they face.

This year and last have seen historically high levels of forced displacement worldwide according to the UN refugee agency’s (UNHCR) 2024 flagship Global Trends Report published on Thursday.

Millions of people are teetering on the brink of starvation as conflict rages across many corners of the world. Nowhere is this more evident than in Sudan and Gaza, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths said on Wednesday.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres reiterated his solidarity with the people of Gaza and the global body’s deep commitment to the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) on Wednesday, while also issuing a stark message to the world’s richest nations ahead of the G7 Summit in Italy to do more to help emerging economies crippled by debt repayments.

The international community must continue to pay close attention to the troubling human rights situation in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and find ways to revive dialogue with the Government, the UN Security Council heard on Wednesday.

The UN is becoming increasingly concerned over falling levels of humanitarian funding for civilians across war-torn Ukraine, the head of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) told delegates to the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Berlin on Wednesday.

The right to development is inextricably linked with trade which the world’s poorest countries - now “mired in debt” through no fault of their own - have every right to pursue on much fairer terms, UN chief António Guterres insisted on Wednesday.

Palestinian armed groups and Israeli authorities have both committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during the attack on 7 October and the subsequent military operations, according to a new report by a UN independent human rights body.

NEW YORK, Jun 12 (IPS) - As we commemorate the 103rd anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre this month, organizations and communities should focus on white privilege as it is a critical but often overlooked component of effective racial justice change processes. White privilege, rooted in European-led colonization, provides unearned advantages to white individuals, often unnoticed due to their perception as universal experiences.