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Monuments in over 60 cities across Europe displayed messages calling on citizens to vote, one month ahead of the 6-9 June EU elections.

Source : © European Union, 2024 - EP

Monuments in over 60 cities across Europe displayed messages calling on citizens to vote, one month ahead of the 6-9 June EU elections.

Source : © European Union, 2024 - EP

Monuments in over 60 cities across Europe displayed messages calling on citizens to vote, one month ahead of the 6-9 June EU elections.

Source : © European Union, 2024 - EP

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Source : © European Union, 2024 - EP

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Source : © European Union, 2024 - EP

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Source : © European Union, 2024 - EP

(B2) Depuis le 22 avril, le bataillon multinational de la Strategic Reserve Force est déployé à Orasje, au nord de la Bosnie-Herzégovine.

Des patrouilles dans les villages et des entraînements

Formés d’éléments français, roumains et italiens, ils vont patrouiller durant plusieurs semaines, à bord de véhicules blindés légers (VBL), en zone urbaine et dans les campagnes. Cet exercice a deux objectifs officiellement : premièrement, « aller à la rencontre de la population locale pour expliquer les missions de EUFOR », deuxièmement : effectuer avec l’armée de Bosnie-Herzégovine des exercices en commun, de tirs notamment.

Préserver la stabilité dans les Balkans

Au-delà de ces objectifs assez banals en soi, ce déploiement exceptionnel a surtout une vertu stratégique : rappeler la présence militaire européenne de stabilisation du pays pour éviter les tentations sécessionnistes surtout du côté de la Republika Sprska. La décision avait été prise par les ministres des Affaires étrangères des 27, lors d’une réunion d’urgence, le 25 février 2022, au lendemain de la décision russe d’intervenir militairement en Ukraine. À titre de précaution. « Nous allons assister à des provocations dans les Balkans », avait averti le haut représentant de l’UE, Josep Borrell, qui présidait la réunion.

(Nicolas Gros-Verheyde)

The coastal village of Scotts Head, Dominica: The 2023 State of the Climate in Latin America and the Caribbean report is calling for robust early warning systems to safeguard small island developing states from rising sea levels and other impacts of climate change. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS

By Alison Kentish
DOMINICA, May 10 2024 (IPS)

Every year for the last four years, a collaborative effort involving scientists and other experts has assessed the state of the climate in Latin America and the Caribbean. The findings have revealed increasingly alarming trends for the world’s second-most disaster-prone region.

The latest report by the World Meteorological Organization published on May 8, confirmed that 2023 was the hottest year on record. The Atlantic region experienced a rapid rise in sea levels, surpassing the global average and threatening the coastlines of several small island developing states. The spike in temperatures hit agriculture hard, worsening food insecurity, while wildlife populations suffered. Meanwhile, heavy rainfall triggered floods and landslides, with significant fatalities and economic losses across the region. 

“In all types of climatic and environmental variables, records were broken during the year 2023. In terms of the amount of heat in the ocean, sea level rise, ice loss in the Antarctic Sea and the retreat of  glaciers, Latin America and the Caribbean have been seriously affected by the effects of El Niño, which are of course added to those of climate change induced by human presence,” said Professor Celeste Saulo, WMO Secretary General.

The report highlighted Category 5 Hurricane Otis, which hit near Acapulco, Mexico, as one of the strongest hurricanes on record in the Eastern Pacific. It also underscored the impacts of heavy rainfall, such as the deadly landslide in Sao Sebastiao, Brazil, and noted that the Negro River in the Amazon hit record low levels, while low water levels restricted shop traffic in the Panama Canal.

“In 2023, around 11 million people in the region were affected by disasters. Out of all these, climate-related disasters were the majority, resulting in over 20 billion US dollars in economic losses,” Acting Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction, Paola Albrito, told the report’s launch.

“We are unfortunately seeing this play out now in Brazil, where devastating floods have taken almost 100 lives and displaced over 160,000 people to date.”

Albrito told the launch that in order to meet their commitments to the Sustainable Development Goals, countries must reduce the burden of disasters.

“This starts by accelerating the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, in line with the agreed Regional Action Plan, which was updated last year,” she stated.

The UN Disaster risk official is calling for integrated disaster risk reduction into development financing to close funding gaps. Presently, just 1% of official development assistance in Latin America and the Caribbean goes towards disaster prevention.

She urged countries in this Region to take advantage of the opportunity presented by the UN Secretary General’s Early Warnings for All Initiative to enhance multi-hazard warning systems and emphasized the importance of heightened collaboration in disaster preparedness and risk management between the European Union and Latin American and Caribbean intergovernmental organizations to improve response mechanisms and enhance resilience to natural disasters.

The report acknowledges progress made in using meteorological data for health surveillance, particularly in disease monitoring, citing it as a “move towards stronger public health strategies.” The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the importance of this area and the need to address gaps in disease surveillance.

“Climate change is a threat to global health that directly and indirectly affects health, well-being, and health equity. It exacerbates existing public health challenges in the Americas, such as food and water insecurity, air pollution, and the transmission of vector-borne diseases,” said Dr. Jarba Barbosa, Director of the Pan American Health Organization.

One of Barbosa’s first actions as PAHO Director was the relaunch of an initiative for the elimination of more than 30 diseases and health conditions from countries in the Americas. He says social and environmental conditions contribute significantly to elimination efforts, but climate change continues to challenge experts’ understanding of the epidemiology of many of those diseases.

“This is why member states have asked PAHO to develop a new policy to strengthen action of the health sector to respond to climate change with equity. This will be presented to our governing bodies in 2024, so that the Region of the Americas can have climate resilient and low carbon health systems, adopting a climate justice approach to increase equity in health,” he said.

The collaborative effort behind the 4th State of the Climate report involved over 30 national meteorological and hydrological services and regional climate centres, 60 scientists and experts and the support of organizations like the Food and Agriculture Organization and the Pan American Health Organization.

Partners say the report is a valuable resource to enhance regional risk knowledge and provides critical benchmarks for countries to better understand and address the growing climate risks they face.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Excerpt:

The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Latin America and the Caribbean report documents the Region’s struggles with the devastating impacts of climate change, and urges action to reduce the burden of disasters.

Destination touristique populaire en Bosnie-Herzégovine, le lac de Jablanica subit une prolifération massive d'algues brunes qui menace l'ensemble de son écosystème, mais aussi l'économie de la région à l'approche de la saison touristique.

- Articles / Courrier des Balkans, Environnement dans les Balkans, Bosnie-Herzégovine, Environnement

Destination touristique populaire en Bosnie-Herzégovine, le lac de Jablanica subit une prolifération massive d'algues brunes qui menace l'ensemble de son écosystème, mais aussi l'économie de la région à l'approche de la saison touristique.

- Articles / Courrier des Balkans, Environnement dans les Balkans, Bosnie-Herzégovine, Environnement

Novajidrány: A Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén Vármegyei Rendőr-főkapitányság nyomozói négy napon belül őrizetbe vették azt a 28 éves novajidrányi férfit, aki május 4-én délután életveszélyes sérüléseket okozva bántalmazott egy nőt a Novajidrány és Vizsoly közötti útszakaszon, majd elvette a nála lévő értéktárgyakat.

A rendőrségre érkezett bejelentés alapján a járőrök azonnal a helyszínre siettek, ahol a mentők már ellátták a súlyosan sérült nőt. A beszerzett információk alapján megállapították, hogy a gyanúsított brutálisan bántalmazta az áldozatot, majd ellopta a táskáját, a mobiltelefonját és a pénzét.

Intenzív nyomozás után a rendőrök két napon belül azonosították a feltételezett elkövetőt, és elfogatóparancsot adtak ki ellene. A férfit május 8-án Miskolcon fogták el.

A Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén Vármegyei Rendőr-főkapitányság nyomozói nyereségvágyból elkövetett emberölés kísérletének megalapozott gyanúja miatt hallgatták ki a gyanúsítottat, majd őrizetbe is vették. A nyomozás jelenleg is folyamatban van.

The post Őrizetbe vették a novajidrányi férfit, aki brutálisan bántalmazott egy nőt appeared first on Biztonságpiac.

Nouvel échec pour la gauche croate. Le SDP n'a pas repris la main sur les conservateurs du HDZ, tandis que les écologistes de Možemo étaient distancés par les deux partis d'extrême-droite. Analyse croisée.

- Articles / Croatie, H-Alter, Politique intérieure, Croatie droitisation

Nouvel échec pour la gauche croate. Le SDP n'a pas repris la main sur les conservateurs du HDZ, tandis que les écologistes de Možemo étaient distancés par les deux partis d'extrême-droite. Analyse croisée.

- Articles / Croatie, H-Alter, Politique intérieure, Croatie droitisation

Destruction in northern Gaza. Rubble may contain a lot of unexploded ordnance. Credit: UNRWA

By Brett Wilkins
SAN FRANCISCO, USA, May 10 2024 (IPS)

While some Palestine defenders on Wednesday welcomed U.S. President Joe Biden’s threat to withhold bombs and artillery shells from Israel if it launches a major invasion of Rafah, critics noted that an invasion is already underway and accused the American leader of walking back a previous “red line” warning against an Israeli assault on the southern Gaza city.

Biden said for the first time that he’ll stop sending bombs, artillery shells, and other arms to Israel if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu orders a major invasion of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians forcibly displaced from other parts of the embattled Gaza Strip are sheltering alongside around 280,000 local residents.

Referring to Israel’s use of U.S.-supplied 2,000-pound bombs—which can destroy an entire city block and have been used in some of the war’s worst atrocities—Biden told CNN’s Erin Burnett that “civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers.”

Even the U.S. military—which has killed more foreign civilians than any other armed force on the planet since the end of World War II—won’t use 2,000-pound bombs in urban areas. But Israel does, including when it launched a strike to assassinate a single Hamas commander by dropping the munitions on the Jabalia refugee camp last October, killing more than 120 civilians.

“If they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities,” Biden said Wednesday.

Israeli forces have already gone into Rafah, and it was reported Tuesday that Biden was taking the unusual step of delaying shipments of two types of Boeing-made bombs to Israel to send a message to the country’s far-right government.

It was, however, a mixed message, as the president also earlier in the day reaffirmed his support for Israel’s war on Gaza, which the International Court of Justice said is “plausibly” genocidal in a preliminary ruling in January.

Critics noted the shifting and subjective language used by Biden—who previously said that any Israeli invasion of Rafah would constitute a “red line” resulting in unspecified consequences.

“He said invading Rafah was a red line. Israel invaded Rafah anyway, bombing buildings, burning and crushing children to death,” political analyst Omar Baddar said on social media. “Biden is now moving the goal post by adding a completely subjective descriptor: ‘Major.’ Now Israel has a green light to destroy Rafah in slow motion.”

During the course of the seven-month Israeli assault on Gaza—which has killed, maimed, or left missing more than 124,000 Palestinians—Biden has said Israel has killed “too many civilians” with its “indiscriminate bombing,” even as he’s pushed for more and more military aid for the key ally.

Wednesday’s interview came on the heels of Biden’s approval of a $14.3 billion emergency military aid package to Israel, multiple moves to sidestep Congress to fast-track armed assistance, nearly $4 billion in previously authorized annual military aid, and diplomatic cover in the form of several United Nations Security Council vetoes.

Reporting that the Biden administration will delay a highly anticipated report on whether Israel is using U.S. military aid in compliance with international law also drew backlash Tuesday from human rights advocates.

Referring to Israel’s U.S.-funded anti-missile system, Biden continued his supportive rhetoric during Wednesday’s CNN interview, telling Burnett that “we’re going to continue to make sure Israel is secure in terms of Iron Dome and their ability to respond to attacks.”

But the president added that Israel’s use of devastating weaponry against civilians is “just wrong,” and that “we’re not going to supply the weapons and artillery shells.”

Some peace groups welcomed Biden’s threat to withhold bombs and artillery shells from Israel, even while urging him to do more to stop his ally’s genocidal onslaught.

“Biden’s statement is as necessary as it is over overdue,” Jewish Voice for Peace executive director Stefanie Fox said in a statement. “The U.S. already bears responsibility for months of Israeli military has killed, the two million Palestinians being intentionally brought to the brink of famine, the decimation of all universities and almost every hospital in Gaza.”

“Today’s statement shows that Biden can no longer ignore the will of the majority of Americans who want a permanent cease-fire, release of all hostages, and an end to U.S. complicity in Israeli war crimes,” Fox added.

Source: Common Dreams

Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

IPS UN Bureau

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
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Americas Bell Boeing won a $14 million modification to provide continued post-production systems engineering and program management support for the V-22 Common Configuration Readiness and Modernization retrofit program for the Marine Corps. Work will be performed in Ridley Park, Pennsylvania; and Fort Worth, Texas and is expected to be completed in September 2024. Naval Air […]

La capitale tchadienne a été secouée par des détonations et crépitements d’armes lourdes et légères jusqu’au petit matin.

Zord

President Metsola’s visit in Kyiv on Europe Day demonstrated the European Parliament’s continued support and commitment to Ukraine and its European path.

Source : © European Union, 2024 - EP

President Metsola’s visit in Kyiv on Europe Day demonstrated the European Parliament’s continued support and commitment to Ukraine and its European path.

Source : © European Union, 2024 - EP

President Metsola’s visit in Kyiv on Europe Day demonstrated the European Parliament’s continued support and commitment to Ukraine and its European path.

Source : © European Union, 2024 - EP