This is the News in Brief from the United Nations. 

Afghanistan: UN launches largest single country aid appeal ever 

The UN and partners have launched a more than $5 billion funding appeal for Afghanistan, to shore up collapsing basic services there. 

Twenty-two million people need assistance inside the country, and 5.7 million more require help beyond its borders, according to humanitarians. 

In Geneva, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths said that $4.4 billion was needed to pay health workers and others directly, not the de facto authorities. 

“This is a stop-gap, an absolutely essential stop-gap measure that we are putting in front of the international community today. Without this being funded, there won’t be a future, we need this to be done, otherwise there will be outflow, there will be suffering.” 

Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, also appealed for $623 million, to support displaced people and host communities in five neighbouring countries. 

Without sufficient action to help Afghanistan and its neighbours now, Mr. Grandi warned that next year, the amount needed could double to $10 billion. 

US saw 20 climate emergencies costing $1 billion-plus in 2021  

Twenty separate billion-dollar weather and climate emergencies hit the United States last year, and 2021 was the fourth warmest year in the US on record, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Tuesday.   

The WMO is now busy crunching those findings from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), together with data from six other leading international weather services around the world, to determine just how warm 2021 was. 

These include the European Union’s Copernicus Earth Observation Programme, which has just announced that 2021 was the fifth warmest year on record, and that the past seven years taken together, have been the seven warmest on record. 

Almost 10,000 people detained in Kazakhstan – OHCHR 

A week after the start of riots in Kazakhstan, the UN rights office, OHCHR, said on Tuesday that nearly 10,000 people remain in detention, according to the authorities. 

With calm returning to the country, OHCHR spokesperson Liz Throssell called for prompt and independent investigations into the unconfirmed deaths of 164 people in the protests – the majority in the main city of Almaty – and reportedly well over a dozen law enforcement officers: 

“All those arrested and detained solely for exercising these rights should be released immediately. Now, of course, we have seen the damage and destruction for example in Almaty, we have seen the burned-out buildings. So clearly among these and we don't have a breakdown of who is in detention - it is a huge number as I say - but clearly there will be some people who have been arrested and are likely to be charged”. 

Ms. Throssell noted that armed individuals appeared to be present during the demonstrations, which were sparked by now-reversed energy price hikes. 

She also urged the Kazakh authorities to grant all detainees access to a lawyer and to allow national ombudspersons to visit places of detention, “to prevent any torture and ill-treatment and to monitor the situation of detainees”. 

Daniel Johnson, UN News.