Small island developing States (SIDS) gathered in Antigua and Barbuda this week for the SIDS4 conference should not be afraid to stand up to companies seeking short-term profit at the long-term expense of human health and the environment – especially in the tourism sector.
Youth activists have been meeting on the twin island nation of Antigua and Barbuda this weekend to ensure their voices and call for action is heard loud and clear by world leaders assembling for the SIDS4 conference.
With their personal “wall of commitment” around 80 passionate young changemakers attending the SIDS Global Children and Youth Action Summit have been committing themselves to more action and taking the long view that the climate crisis is make or break for their generation of small islanders.
Following the 7 October terror attacks led by Hamas, thousands of Palestinians have been detained in what the Israeli Government has dubbed an “incarceration emergency” allowing them to fill prisons beyond official capacity.
UN agencies and their partners are providing support to thousands of people from the Kharkiv region in Ukraine who have been evacuated from frontline areas where intensive Russian air strikes continue.
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said vulnerable boys and girls are among those arriving at a humanitarian hub in the main city, Kharkiv.
They include children with disabilities and those who had been living with foster families and will now need to be placed in new homes.
Without immediate action to protect biodiversity, a million species could be at risk, warns David Cooper, Acting Executive Secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.
Due to unprecedented threat levels, he told UN News that coral reefs, amphibians, pollinating insects, and many large mammals are all on the brink of extinction due to rising temperatures, deforestation, pollution, and other factors.
As the war in Gaza continues, health facilities and healthcare workers are struggling to provide care to civilians amidst unfavourable circumstances, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) team lead for emergencies communications Nyka Alexander said on Monday.
In an interview with UN News’s Khaled Mohamed, she said nowhere is safe in the enclave with only one third of its hospitals – about 12 out of 36 – still functioning at limited capacity.
The Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda is leading the charge for more climate action paving the way for “resilient prosperity” as host of this month’s upcoming International Conference on Small Island Developing States, SIDS4.
In an exclusive interview with UN News’s Shanaé Harte, Gaston Browne said the very survival of small island nations is increasingly at stake due to rising waters, extreme weather, crushing debt and lack of basic resources.
People living in countries rich in the minerals needed for the transition to a net-zero carbon global economy could find themselves victims of a new “resource curse”, remaining in poverty despite the new-found wealth of their leaders.
Civilians in Gaza have been dealing with conflict and crises for seven months – a catastrophe that no word in the dictionary could describe, according to Yasmina Guerda, a Humanitarian Affairs Officer with the UN emergency relief coordination agency, OCHA.
In an interview with UN News’s Jerome Bernard, Ms. Guerda spoke about the unmissable destruction, the lack of basic necessities for civilians, and their daily battle to survive.
Daily attacks by the Russian military in Ukraine have damaged dozens of towns and villages in the south and east of the country but also in central areas - including the city of Dnipro, which was shelled again early this Friday, UN humanitarians said.
An array of military hardware has been deployed against heavily populated areas, such as drones and a new, frightening threat: relatively inexpensive glide bombs that can fly up to 80 kilometres and cause heavy damage.
