News headlines
Artificial intelligence: rooting out bias and stereotypes
- UN News

As online tools using various forms of artificial intelligence become increasingly common, calls are growing for more action to ensure that they do not create or perpetuate stereotypes and gender bias.
Biogas, a Circular Energy, Advances in Brazil Thanks to Local Arrangements
- Inter Press Service

RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct 07 (IPS) - "I don't know of a more sustainable technology for the transformation of society than biogas," said Professor Alex Enrich-Prast, an activist for this energy alternative with a highly diversified and decentralised expansion in Brazil.
Republicans Blame Women for America’s Low Birth Rate
- Inter Press Service

PORTLAND, USA, Oct 07 (IPS) - Countries around the world are experiencing low birth rates. In 2022, more than one hundred countries, representing two-thirds of world's population, experienced fertility rates below the replacement level of 2.1 births per woman.
‘The Focus Should Be on Holding Social Media Companies Accountable, Not Punishing Individual Users’
- Inter Press Service

Oct 07 (IPS) - CIVICUS discusses the recent Twitter/X ban in Brazil with Iná Jost, lawyer and head of research at InternetLab, an independent Brazilian think tank focused on human rights and digital technologies.
A Growing New Battle: Nuclear Weapons vs Conventional Arms
- Inter Press Service

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 07 (IPS) - The warnings from the United Nations and from anti-nuclear activists are increasingly ominous: the world is closer to a nuclear war—by design or by accident—more than ever before.
“Escalation Dominance” . . . and the Prospect of More Than 1,000 Holocausts
- Inter Press Service

SAN FRANCISCO, USA, Oct 07 (IPS) - Everything is at stake. Everything is at stake with nuclear weapons. While working as a nuclear war planner for the Kennedy administration, Daniel Ellsberg was shown a document calculating that a U.S. nuclear attack on communist countries would result in 600 million dead. As he put it later: "A hundred Holocausts."
Empowering Change & Resilience: Social Protection in the Age of Megatrends
- Inter Press Service

BANGKOK, Thailand, Oct 07 (IPS) - Social protection systems are essential to achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
However, social protection is insufficient across Asia and the Pacific, and the region is at risk from megatrends: climate change, demographic shifts and digitalization. Tens of millions of people have been pushed into extreme poverty since COVID-19, reversing past gains, and many millions more live precariously just above the poverty line.
Gazans in the north trapped with nowhere to go, as fighting intensifies
- UN News

UN humanitarians have warned that conditions in northern Gaza are deteriorating rapidly, with over 400,000 people facing Israeli evacuation orders amid ongoing airstrikes and ground operations.
Sudan: ‘Children should be safe everywhere’, says UNICEF, as fears grow for El Fasher
- UN News

The UN aid coordination office, OCHA, voiced deep concern on Monday over the siege of El Fasher in Sudan’s North Darfur, where continued clashes are putting the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians in the region at risk.
WHO calls for action to halt rise in hearing loss in Africa
- UN News

The number of people in Africa living with hearing loss could rise to 54 million by 2030, up from 40 million today, unless urgent measures are taken, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a report published on Monday.

