BAKU, Nov 15 (IPS) - Directly destroying schools and learning materials, climate shocks are increasingly taking away the right to education. A staggering 400 million students globally experienced school closures from extreme weather since 2022. As COP29 negotiations deepen, defining a sustainable financial path to learning for vulnerable children, particularly those caught up in crises and conflict, is critical and urgent.

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 15 (IPS) - US President Donald Trump's return to the White House on January 20 next year may be another calamity for the United Nations—particularly if the second term turns out to be a re-run of his first presidency (2017-2021).

Trump's past track record included the US withdrawal from the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO); threats against member states voting for anti-Israeli resolutions and slashing funds to a 72-year-old UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

MOSCOW, Nov 15 (IPS) - At the first ministerial conference of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum in the southern coastal city of Sochi, seeking to deepen political and business ties with African countries, Russian President Vladimir Putin in his message and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in his powerful speech underlined Russia's security support to fight terrorism and extremism across Africa.

A UN human rights expert on Friday strongly condemned the jailing of a 68-year-old paediatrician in Moscow, describing the case as another example of Russia’s “systematic suppression of dissenting voices”.

UN independent human rights experts on Friday called on Mozambican authorities to prevent and end ongoing violence and repression of demonstrators in the wake of contentious general elections last month.

Every year, the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence (GBV) campaign led by UN Women serves as a powerful reminder of the widespread violence women and girls face worldwide.

The top UN health official gave a sobering reality check as the Fourth Global High-Level Ministerial Meeting on Antimicrobial Resistance began Friday in Jeddah: “AMR doesn't just threaten to make the medicines on which we depend less effective; it’s happening now.”

Mexican actor, producer and director Diego Luna took a break from the big screen on Thursday to highlight the dangers faced by journalists in his country and beyond, condemning murders of reporters everywhere as “a scandal”.

In the nearly 1,000 days since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, thousands of civilians have been killed, the country’s energy capacity is on the brink of collapse and drones terrify communities on the frontline, the UN’s top aid official in the country said on Friday

The UN environment agency chief warned the COP29 climate summit in Baku on Friday that methane emissions must come down – “and come down fast” –to have any chance of controlling global warming.