LONDON, Feb 07 (IPS) - Alexander Lukashenko will soon begin his seventh term as president of Belarus. The official result of the 26 January election gave him 86.8 per cent of the vote, following an election held in a climate of fear. Only token opposition candidates were allowed, most of who came out in support of Lukashenko. Anyone who might have offered a credible challenge is in jail or in exile.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 07 (IPS) - Over the past few years, climate shocks have become more frequent and have devastated economies and agriculture systems, exacerbating widespread malnutrition and hunger. It has become increasingly apparent that the utilization of sustainable agriculture practices and disaster risk management systems are crucial to fulfill growing needs as natural resources continue to dwindle.

NEW YORK, Feb 07 (IPS) - Even after Trump declared that he wanted to take back the Panama Canal, acquire Greenland by force, if necessary, and rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, I could not, like many others, imagine that his madness could reach a new unfathomable height.

DAR ES SALAAM, Feb 07 (IPS) - At 9 a.m. on Monday, Mariam Msemwa clutched her clinic card tightly as she stood in line at Bagamoyo District Hospital’s HIV Clinic in Tanzania’s coastal region. The 19-year-old had been here many times before, picking up monthly doses of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs that kept her alive. But today was different. When she reached the counter, the nurse flatly told her. “There’s no more free medication, ” she said. “You’ll have to buy it yourself.”

Continued clashes in South Kivu in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are triggering mass displacement and causing civilian casualties, UN humanitarian affairs office OCHA said on Friday.

The civilian death toll in Sudan has surged dramatically, with at least 275 people killed between 31 January and 5 February, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, reported on Friday.

UN peacekeeping must be fit for purpose as the nature of conflict evolves in the 21st century along with new weapons technology, more than 60 nations heard this week at a global forum on the future of peace operations, taking place in Indonesia.

Armed groups in Haiti are inflicting “unimaginable horrors” on children, turning their “bodies into battlegrounds”, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Friday condemned an executive order signed by United States President Donald Trump imposing punitive sanctions, countering that the order sought to “harm its independent and impartial judicial work.”

The head of UN Palestine refugee agency UNRWA underscored its commitment to assist a population whose rights “continue to be violated”.