Millions of people returning to Afghanistan from neighbouring countries are receiving humanitarian support at the border, but they will need more help to rebuild their lives, according to UN-Habitat, the agency that advocates for sustainable communities.

The Third UN Conference on Landlocked Developing Countries wrapped up earlier Friday in Awaza, Turkmenistan, with delegates adopting a landmark political declaration aimed at speeding up sustainable development and boosting resilience in 32 nations that lack direct access to the sea.

Help is needed urgently to halt a deadly cholera outbreak that is sweeping across Sudan, UN agencies said on Friday, while warning that communities continue to be terrorised by parties to the conflict even as they flee violence.

The UN’s top human rights official insisted on Friday that the Israeli Government must not pursue a complete takeover of the Gaza Strip.

AWAZA, Turkmenistan, August 7 (IPS) - “Progress towards gender equality and equity remains uneven and far too slow. One in four women in landlocked developing countries (LLDCs) live in extreme poverty, and this is nearly 75 million women,” said Rabab Fatima, Secretary-General of the Third United Nations Conference on Landlocked Developing Countries or LLDC3 ongoing in Awaza, Turkmenistan.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, August 7 (IPS) - On August the first, the Italian daily La Repubblica published an interview with David Grossman, Israel’s most renown author and supporter of a “two-state solution”, as well as an outspoken critic of Israel’s violence against Palestinian civilians.

AWAZA, Turkmenistan, August 7 (IPS) - Once relegated to the periphery of Africa’s economic map due to their lack of coastline, the continent’s landlocked developing countries (LLDCs) are now reframing their geographic constraints as gateways to opportunity.

MUMBAI, India, August 7 (IPS) - It’s a quiet code with a loud message: “Ask for Angela.”

RIO DE JANEIRO, August 7 (IPS) - Residents near the port of Itajaí in southern Brazil celebrated the arrival of 7,292 electric and hybrid vehicles from China aboard the ship BYD Shenzhen on May 28 as a “historic event,” with unloading taking four days. 

TOKYO / ASTANA, August 7 (IPS) - Eighty years ago, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki left a lasting reminder to humanity of the inhuman nature of nuclear weapons. Kazakhstan, too, is a nation deeply scarred by nuclear tests conducted during the Soviet era. Having covered the activities of Soka Gakkai International (SGI) in Kazakhstan—including its support for exhibitions and documentary productions on nuclear abolition in Astana—, INPS Japan recently interviewed Zhanna Shayakhmetova, editor-in-chief of The Astana Times, a leading English-language newspaper in the country that continues to convey messages of disarmament and peace to the world. In the interview, Shayakhmetova spoke about the role of religious leaders who will gather in Astana from around the world this September, the importance of passing on memories to younger generations, and the responsibility journalism holds in this endeavor.