News headlines in August 2024, page 18

Top UN officials on Friday called for a stand against bigotry “wherever and whenever it appears”, paying tribute to the hundreds of thousands of Roma and Sinti brutally murdered during the Second World War by the Nazis.

Humanitarians appealed on Friday for more resources for war-ravaged Sudan and unimpeded access to people in need, now that famine has been confirmed in parts of the country.

The top UN envoy in the Middle East called on Friday for urgent action to address the “growing risk” of regional escalation following recent deadly attacks in Lebanon, the Syrian Golan Heights and Iran linked to the war in Gaza.

A staggering 175,000 people die from heat-related causes every year in Europe and that figure is set to soar in line with our steadily warming planet. That’s the warning from the UN World Health Organization (WHO), which said on Friday that European countries are seeing temperatures rise at around twice the global average.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 01 (IPS) - The upcoming 79th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which took place on August 6 and 9, 1945, remains a grim reminder of the destructive consequences of nuclear weapons.

LONDON, Aug 01 (IPS) - It’s risky to try to protect the environment in authoritarian Cambodia. Ten young activists from the Mother Nature environmental group have recently been given long jail sentences. Two were sentenced to eight years on charges of plotting and insulting the king. Another seven were sentenced to six years for plotting, while one, a Spanish national banned from entering Cambodia, was sentenced in absentia.

BANGKOK, Thailand, Aug 01 (IPS) - Economic performance in Asia and the Pacific has proved to be quite resilient to the shocks of the past few years – the COVID-19 pandemic, the ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and the cost-of-living crisis. In 2023, the region’s economy drove over 60 per cent of the global economic growth.

Scaling up aid delivery remains a challenge in Gaza as the war reaches the 300-day mark, the head of the UN humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory said on Thursday.

A UN independent human rights expert has welcomed the landmark prisoner swap on Thursday between the United States and Russia, which involved several other countries.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres reiterated his appeal for de-escalation in the Middle East in a phone call with a senior official in Iran, his Spokesperson reported on Thursday.