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A Parliament delegation arrives in Baku today to participate in the COP29 climate change conference, which aims to define a new collective goal for financing climate action.
Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety

Source : © European Union, 2024 - EP

A Parliament delegation arrives in Baku today to participate in the COP29 climate change conference, which aims to define a new collective goal for financing climate action.
Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety

Source : © European Union, 2024 - EP

A Parliament delegation arrives in Baku today to participate in the COP29 climate change conference, which aims to define a new collective goal for financing climate action.
Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety

Source : © European Union, 2024 - EP

A Parliament delegation arrives in Baku today to participate in the COP29 climate change conference, which aims to define a new collective goal for financing climate action.
Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety

Source : © European Union, 2024 - EP

Die Schwiezer Curlerinnen wahren ihre makellose Bilanz an der EM in Finnland. Auch Italien, der letztjährige Finalgegner, kann das Quartett um Silvana Tirinzoni nicht bezwingen.

Alessandra Meyer-Wölden profitiert von der Trennung zwischen Amira Aly und Oliver Pocher. Die Ex-Frau des Komikers gibt zu, dass sich durch den gemeinsamen Podcast mit Pocher neue berufliche Möglichkeiten eröffnet haben.

Die Saison 2024 in der MotoGP, der Moto2 und der Moto3 sorgte für viele Emotionen und Überraschungen. Alle Infos zu Fahrern, Teams, Renndaten und die aktuellen Weltmeister gibt’s hier.

Turbulenzen im österreichischen Fussball: Zum einen verpasst das Team von Ralf Rangnick den direkten Nations-League-Aufstieg, zum anderen herrscht ein Machtkampf im Verband. Der Nationalcoach stellt klar, wie er zum ÖFB-Präsidenten Mitterdorfer steht.

Le secrétaire général de l’ONU António Guterres a appelé dimanche 17 novembre les dirigeants des pays du G20 à assumer leur « leadership » pour aboutir à un « résultat positif » dans les négociations de la conférence sur le climat COP29 à Bakou.

It has to be more attractive by focusing on the critical needs of member states says senior EU official.

Des centaines de Romands ayant investi dans l’entreprise bâloise, spécialisée dans les installations photovoltaïques, craignent de ne pouvoir récupérer leur argent.

A victory for the ruling party gives the president a strong mandate to implement promised reforms.

Benjamin hat sich für eine Stelle online beworben. Doch schnell stellt die HR-Managerin fest, dass sich der Kandidat nicht so viel Mühe gegeben hat.

The United Nations delivers critical power generators to southern Gaza in an attempt to recalibrate water sanitation systems following damage from extensive Israeli bombardment. Credit: UNICEF/Mohammed Nateel

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 18 2024 (IPS)

A new report from Human Rights Watch (HRW) postulates that Israeli military practices in the Gaza Strip constitutes as war crimes. Released on November 14, the new report details the scale of destruction in the Gaza Strip over a 13-month period, during which time the Israeli Defense Forces’ (IDF) undertook a campaign to enact “deliberate, controlled demolitions of homes and civilian infrastructure” that were conducted to drive millions of Gazans out of their homes and inflict as much damage as possible.

The United Nations Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories has said that “The Israeli military’s use of AI-assisted targeting, with minimal human oversight, combined with heavy bombs, underscores Israel’s disregard of its obligation to distinguish between civilians and combatants and take adequate safeguards to prevent civilian deaths.”

HRW also urged the International Criminal Court (ICC) to conduct an investigation. To properly abide by international humanitarian law, it is imperative for Israeli authorities to announce evacuation orders ahead of bombardments to minimize civilian harm. According to the report, the orders were “inconsistent, inaccurate, and frequently not communicated to civilians with enough time to allow evacuations or at all”.

Additionally, designated escape routes were regularly subjected to bombardment from the IDF. The widening of “buffer zones”, which are the areas between the Israeli-Palestinian border that are blocked off from Gazans, has been predicted to permanently displace thousands.

“The Israeli government cannot claim to be keeping Palestinians safe when it kills them along escape routes, bombs so-called safe zones, and cuts off food, water, and sanitation. Israel has blatantly violated its obligation to ensure Palestinians can return home, razing virtually everything in large areas,” says Nadia Harman, a migrant rights researcher at HRW.

On November 17, the IDF conducted an airstrike on a residential building housing six refugee families in Beit Lahiya. Gaza’s Ministry of Health confirmed that there were at least 72 civilian casualties from this attack, 30 percent of which were children. It is believed that many more civilians are still trapped underneath the rubble. This attack came only a few hours after two separate airstrikes killed 14 people in the nearby Nuseirat and Bureij refugee camps.

The IDF’s continued blockage of humanitarian aid has drawn immense criticism from humanitarian organizations and world representatives alike. According to the UN Special Committee, sustained military impediment of humanitarian aid, as well as targeted attacks on aid personnel indicates that Israel is “intentionally causing death, starvation and serious injury, using starvation as a method of war and inflicting collective punishment on the Palestinian population.”

Canada’s Foreign Minister Melanie Joly and International Development Minister Ahmend Hussen expressed their concerns for the millions of displaced Gazans, especially as the harsh winter months approach, which are expected to exacerbate living conditions. “This means that civilians – men, women and children – are dying because of the lack of humanitarian assistance allowed into Gaza,” they added.

According to a report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the humanitarian situation in Gaza is dire and rapidly accelerating. It is predicted that famine is highly concentrated among populations residing in the northern sections of Gaza, which has been the most militaristically restricted. IPC describes Gaza’s current state as the “worst-case scenario”, adding that malnutrition, starvation, and disease are growing rampant in displacement shelters.

The Famine Review Committee (FRC) has warned that without effective action or intervention from those with influence, the scale of this “looming catastrophe” would likely “dwarf anything […] seen so far in the Gaza Strip since 7 October 2023”.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Schock für die Familie von Prinz William. Während er und seine Liebsten friedlich in ihren Betten lagen, verschafften maskierte Einbrecher Zugang zum Gelände von Schloss Windsor – ganz in der Nähe vom Zuhause der Familie des Thronfolgers.

Frankreich wird das Freihandelsabkommen zwischen der EU und dem Mercosur in seiner derzeitigen Form nicht unterzeichnen, gab Präsident Emmanuel Macron am Sonntag (17. November) bekannt. Französische Landwirte hatten am Wochenende eine große Protestbewegung gestartet.

Credit: Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition (ASOC)

By Holly Curry
WASHINGTON, Nov 18 2024 (IPS)

It is a hectic week for UN environmental conservation talks with simultaneous meetings occurring around the world: Climate change negotiations are entering their second week in Baku, Azerbaijan and the G20 takes place in Rio de Janeiro November 18-19—so, it’s understandable other important issues could get lost in the mix.

But that doesn’t mean they are any less deserving of attention. Consider the effort to protect the Southern Ocean, the vast and icy body of water encircling Antarctica and home to the world’s largest populations of krill, a shrimp-like crustacean that penguins, seals, whales, and seabirds depend on for food.

Last month, while delegates to the 2022 Kunming-Montreal Biological Framework met for the first time to take stock of their goal to protect 30 percent of the ocean by 2030, talks at the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) in Hobart, Tasmania collapsed over a dispute about krill fishing limits, casting uncertainty over the group’s commitment to establish a representative network of marine protected areas (MPAs) in the Southern Ocean.

While the outcome barely made headlines, which is typically the case for CCAMLR meetings, scientists are now bracing for summer in the Southern Hemisphere. Last July, at the peak of the antipodean winter, a heat wave swept Antarctica with temperatures around 25 degrees Celsius above the winter average.

The anomaly follows nearly a decade of decreases in the average maximum extent of sea ice with potentially catastrophic implications for global sea level rise and the region’s fragile ecosystems.

For example, iconic emperor penguin populations have been exhibiting a disconcerting response to the unprecedented changes. The species relies almost exclusively on sea ice as a breeding habitat and forages on krill. If the current warming trend continues unabated, the penguins face a decline of over 90 percent this century.

A 2023 study found that ocean warming and acidification are impacting krill behavior and population dynamics in the Southern Ocean, including a southward migration toward colder waters. A drop in krill numbers not only threatens the region’s megafauna that depend on it, but also the global carbon cycle.

It is estimated that the region’s krill sequester around 23 million tonnes of the heat-trapping gas, equivalent to carbon services provided by the planet’s blue carbon habitats, marshes, mangroves, and seagrass.

Moreover, a CCAMLR report published earlier this year documented a steady increase in the amount of krill harvested over the past decade.

The annual average landings of krill from 2019 to 2023 were 415,800 tonnes, compared to 266,000 tonnes for the previous five years. This season, 14 vessels, including four ships each from China and Norway, three from South Korea and one each from Chile, Russia and Ukraine, registered for the fishery compared to nine in 2023.

Time and again, research has shown that fully protected MPAs, where fishing and other commercial activities are prohibited, are one of the best steps governments can take to help marine life build genetic diversity and biomass, making them more resilient to fishing and climate change. There is also a spillover effect that benefits adjacent ecosystems as well as commercial fishing.

That is not to say that a host of issues confronting the Kunming-Montreal framework, COP29, and the G20 are less important, but those agreements are on track for medium-to-long term action, while final approval for Antarctica’s MPA network is tantalizingly close.

Decades of research has already identified areas that will deliver the most conservation benefit per square-kilometer and, as part of the Antarctic Treaty System, CCAMLR decisions needn’t go through a laborious ratification process. The body’s 26 member countries and the European Union only have to give the proposals a thumbs up.

At last count, only 8.35 percent of the global ocean is currently protected. If CCAMLR approved all four proposals ready for immediate implementation—East Antarctic; Weddell Sea, Phase 1; Antarctic Peninsula, Domain 1; and, Weddell Sea, Phase 2—they would protect 26 percent of the Southern Ocean and nearly 3 percent of the global ocean. It would be the largest single act of ocean conservation in history and represent a major contribution toward achieving the global 30×30 goal.

It has become apparent that Antarctic marine protections urgently require high level attention from leaders before the crisis slips out of hand. In 2023, the G20 endorsed expanding MPA’s in Antarctica. They now have an opportunity to give the process a boost by calling for the approval of the aforementioned MPA proposals no later than 2026 in their “Leaders’ Declaration”.

The world depends on a healthy Southern Ocean, and the future of the Southern Ocean requires leadership now.

Holly Parker Curry is the MPA Campaign Director for the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition (ASOC).

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Nicht alle Spieler werden mit dem zukünftigen Nationaltrainer Thomas Tuchel warm werden, sagt Englands Captain Harry Kane. Trotzdem freut sich der Bayern-Stürmer auf die Zusammenarbeit mit seinem Ex-Coach.

Brandy Butler, die Veranstalterin der Zürcher «Drag-Lesungen», wird vorerst keine Vorlesestunden für Kinder mehr durchführen. Der Anlass mit Drag Queens und Kings wurde von der rechtsextremen «Jungen Tat» gestört und von der SVP kritisiert.