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Süsse Neuigkeiten aus Österreich: Willi Gabalier, der ältere Bruder von Volks-Rock'n'Roller Andreas Gabalier, und seine Ehefrau Christina erwarten ihr erstes Kind.

Sanju Samson and Tilak Varma hit unbeaten centuries to lead India to a 135-run thrashing of South Africa in Johannesburg and a 3-1 T20 series victory.

Vier bis fünf Milliarden Franken jährlich kostet die 13. AHV-Rente ab 2026. Bundesrätin Elisabeth Baume-Schneider wollte dafür Lohnbeiträge und Mehrwertsteuer erhöhen. Mit der Kombilösung kam sie im Bundesrat aber nicht durch. Die Hintergründe.

Kult-Regisseur David Lynch kann aufgrund einer chronischen Lungenkrankheit nur noch selten das Haus verlassen. Trotzdem bereut er es nicht, lange Zeit seines Lebens geraucht zu haben.

Kamala Harris hat bei afroamerikanischen Wählern schlechter abgeschnitten als Joe Biden vor vier Jahren. Luxushotel-Besitzer Donald Trump konnte viele Geringverdiener für sich gewinnen. Was bei den US-Wahlen geschehen ist, verlangt nach Erklärungen. Blick liefert sie.

Conan O'Brien ist der neue Oscar-Gastgeber. Der Comedian und ehemalige Late-Night-Host wird im März durch die Verleihung der wichtigsten Filmpreise der Welt führen.

Halle Berry begeistert in Saudi-Arabien in ihrem Oscar-Kleid von 2002. Die 57-jährige Schauspielerin präsentiert die ikonische Robe bei einer Elie-Saab-Show und sieht dabei kaum gealtert aus.

In Sursee gewinnt Noè Ponti überlegen 100-m-Delfin-Gold an den Schweizer Kurzbahn-Meisterschaften.

Sierra Leone forward Kei Kamara says Cameroon legend Roger Milla is the inspiration for his latest international comeback.

Wenn es um die Verhütung geht, sind die Frauen meist verantwortlich. Doch auch die Männer können ihren Beitrag leisten. Stichwort: Vasektomie. Am heutigen Welttag der Vasektomie schildern zwei Schweizer ihre Erfahrungen und die Gründe, die sie dazu veranlasst haben.

Babyglück bei deutschem Tiktok-Star: Lisa Mantler hat ihr erstes Kind geboren. Auf Instagram posten die frisch gebackenen Eltern einen herzigen Schnappschuss von ihrem Nachwuchs.

Kigyulladt egy ház pénteken Perbenyikben, egy 68 éves férfi életét vesztette. A holttestet a tűzoltók találták meg az egyik szobában.

Die Traditionsfirma steht am Abgrund. Dabei schien der Solarspezialist doch gut gerüstet für den Solarboom. Was ist passiert? Blick sucht nach Ursachen für die Krise.

Le directeur général des estimations et politiques au ministère des Finances, Kamel Meraghni, a révélé une augmentation substantielle du revenu disponible des ménages algériens. Entre […]

L’article Hausse des revenus des ménages en Algérie : un signe de stabilité économique ? est apparu en premier sur .

In the United States, in 2024 alone, there have been 24 climate change associated events with losses exceeding $1 billion each. Credit: Shutterstock.

By Esther Ngumbi
URBANA, Illinois, US, Nov 15 2024 (IPS)

The United Nations recently released the 2024 Nationally Determined Contributions synthesis report, just weeks before presidents, global leaders, climate scientists and activists convene in Azerbaijan for the 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference. The report reveals that current national climate plans are not sufficient.

This is particularly alarming considering how many countries, including the United States, were negatively and economically impacted by climate change associated disasters this year, including flooding, extreme heat, drought, and pest out breaks.

In the United States, in 2024 alone, according to NOAA, there have been over 24-billion-dollar climate change associated events that have causes losses exceeding $1 billion. Also in the United States, damage by flooding averages $46 billion a year. In Western Africa, flooding disrupted the lives of millions and resulted in overwhelming losses. In the greater Horn of Africa, millions are facing food insecurity and acute hunger due to repeated droughts.

Funding flooding research would help to cut down the devastating impacts flooding has on agricultural crops and the financial burdens that come about after flooding including government and insurance payouts to those that are impacted

Flooding, that ranks in the top three of the disasters, according to NOAA, has particularly hit hard in 2024. It has caused destruction not only of human lives but of livestock, poultry, and agricultural plants.  Yet, to date, flooding news has only focused on the impacts flooding has on humans and not plants. Yet the recent flooding events in Spain, for example, have negatively impacted agriculture.

Worse still is the fact that many of these climate-change associated events often happen concurrently, producing catastrophic and compounding  effects  on livelihoods and economies.

Conversations surrounding COP29 will heavily focus on climate finance and the need to grow the finances being committed for climate change action. While finance can help reduce the impacts these climate disasters have on livelihoods and economies, those investments need to be coupled with investments exclusively dedicated to climate research.

Investing in emerging climate disasters such as flooding today will be crucial and boost climate resilience. Otherwise, in the future, food shortages will become more common and food prices more volatile, with the potential to exacerbate conflict over scarce resources.

Funded flooding research will not only provide foundational answers about the impacts of flooding, but also solutions.  These multifaceted solutions range from identifying and breeding flooding tolerant crops, and finding sustainable products that can be applied to help plants and soils to recover well and boost their ability to defend themselves from pests, pathogens and plant viruses following flooding.

Similarly, flooding research could also identify combinations of crops that can be planted together to suppress flooding impacts while finding regenerative agricultural practices that do help to mitigate flooding impacts on plants.

Financial investments in flooding research are necessary. These can come through governments’ national science funding agencies.

In the United States, for example, the National Science Foundation, NOAA, and United States Department of Agriculture are big funders of research. To ensure that these emerging climate change associated stressors, particularly flooding and its impacts on agricultural crops are addressed via research, special proposal calls can be advertised and funds set aside to specifically fund flooding related research.

There are indicators that we are moving in the right direction. Recently, the BIDEN-Harris administration, through NOAA funded over $22.78 M to advance research of water-related climate impacts .

However, though encouraging most of the funded projects are on modelling and improving prediction of flooding.

For example, $7.6 M was awarded to fund work to create street-level maps of potential flood, improve models of how water cycles through nations rivers, all of which will help communities and businesses better understand the effects of extreme rainfall.

None of the projects focused on understanding and predicting the impacts flooding will have on agricultural plants or finding solutions to conquer the negative impacts flooding has on plants, soils and beneficial microbes that underpin plant health and productivity. These are areas that must be funded, too.

Funding flooding research and research surrounding building climate resilience would help ensure that lives are saved, infrastructure-related damage is cut down. Importantly, funding flooding research would help to cut down the devastating impacts flooding has on agricultural crops and the financial burdens that come about after flooding including government and insurance payouts to those that are impacted.

A 2024 climate resiliency report revealed that for every $1 invested in preparing for climate change associated disasters saves communities $13 in damages and economic impacts.

Similarly, according to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, every $1 invested in prevention and preparedness can save up to US$15 in damages and economic costs.

Research has continued to provide sustainable solutions to climate change-associated disasters. Investing in flooding research today will prepare us for tomorrow and a future where flooding events are expected to increase.

 

Esther Ngumbi, PhD is Assistant Professor, Department of Entomology, African American Studies Department, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Die turbulente Beziehung zwischen Mauro Icardi und dem argentinischen Model Wanda Nara ist um ein Kapitel reicher. Die TV-Moderatorin hat den Galatasaray-Star der häuslichen Gewalt beschuldigt.

Pavel Traubner professzor távozása nagy veszteség a szlovák egészségügy és az egész társadalom számára, közölte Peter Pellegrini államfő.

Richard Bennett, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, briefs reporters at UN Headquarters. Credits: UN Photo/Mark Garten

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 15 2024 (IPS)

It has been three years since the 2021 Taliban offensive and the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan continues to grow more dire. Human rights violations are committed by the Taliban insurgent group on a frequent basis, with gender-based discrimination and violence being regular occurrences for millions of Afghan women. Gender inequalities are pervasive, with freedom of speech and mobility being significantly limited. The humanitarian crisis is exacerbated by widespread impunity enjoyed by members of the Taliban.

Shortly after the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, a number of fundamental rights were stripped from over 14 million women that reside in the country. In 2023, the United Nations (UN) dubbed Afghanistan as the most socially and culturally repressive nation for women’s rights in the world.

The Taliban has imposed widespread violations of economic independence for all Afghan women. Women have been removed from their positions in all sectors of the workforce, with limited exceptions in healthcare and education. However, most employers opt to hire men in these fields. Women-owned businesses such as hair salons were forcibly shut down.

“This isn’t about getting your hair and nails done. This is about 60,000 women losing their jobs. This is about women losing one of the only places they could go for community and support after the Taliban systematically destroyed the whole system put in place to respond to domestic violence,” says Heather Barr, associate women’s rights director for Human Rights Watch (HRW).

According to a study conducted by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), after the Taliban enforced these work restrictions, Afghanistan’s economic output fell by over 20 percent, making it one of the poorest countries in the world. Banning women from work has also raised rates of poverty significantly, with 96 percent of the entire population being at risk of falling below the poverty line.

Additionally, millions of girls and women have experienced their rights to education being stripped away after the Taliban took rule. Currently, Afghanistan is the only country in the world where women and girls are barred from secondary and higher education. According to a report from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), there are approximately 2.5 million girls who lack access to schooling, which equates to 80 percent of Afghanistan’s population of young girls.

In the three years since the Taliban took power once more, they have erased decades of progress for education in Afghanistan, greatly threatening the future generation. “One thousand days out of school amounts to 3 billion learning hours lost or 1.5 million girls. This systematic exclusion is not only a blatant violation of their right to education, but also results in dwindling opportunities and deteriorating mental health. The rights of children, especially girls, cannot be held hostage to politics. Their lives, futures, hopes and dreams are hanging in the balance,” said Executive-Director for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Catherine Russell.

Freedom of mobility for women in Afghanistan has also been severely restricted. One of the 80 edicts established by the Taliban that target women’s rights bans all women from visiting public locations without the accompaniment of a male chaperone, referred to as a mahram. “The cumulative effect of the Taliban’s edicts and behaviors has largely resulted in the imprisonment of women within the walls of their homes,” said UN Women.

A dress code has also been implemented in the 80 Taliban edicts. If Afghan women are to leave their homes, they are expected to be covered from head-to-toe, with only their eyes exposed, usually in a burqa. Women are also prohibited from speaking in public. These decrees were met with significant backlash from Afghan women, humanitarian organizations, and world leaders alike. When asked for the reasoning behind this order, Khaled Hanafi, Taliban’s acting minister for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice, explained, “we want our sisters to live with dignity and safety”.

“The Taliban are really taking a very significant step in terms of stripping away what autonomy still remains for women and girls. They’re creating a situation where it’s not even in the hands of women and girls themselves to make a decision about whether they’re going to resist the Taliban on this, what types of risks they’re willing to take with their own safety,” Barr said.

Over the past three years, rates of forced and child marriages have risen sharply. According to a report from UNICEF, the lack of education for women and girls has caused an increase in reported child marriage.

“As most teenage girls are still not allowed to go back to school, the risk of child marriage is now even higher. Education is often the best protection against negative coping mechanisms such as child marriage and child labour,” Henrietta Fore, former UNICEF Executive-Director, had said on the situation. Estimates from UNICEF also indicate that 28 percent of Afghan women aged 15-49 years old were married off in exchange for a dowry. There are also reports of girls as young as 20 days old being sold off.

Women who have protested these laws have been subjected to a host of human rights violations including enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention, and physical torture. For women who have had the vast majority of their civil rights taken away, the banning of peaceful protests and freedom of speech has been described as a crushing blow.

Nausheen, an Afghan women’s rights protester, spoke to BBC reporters of the conditions the Taliban subjected her to when they detained her one year prior. “The Taliban dragged me into a vehicle saying ‘Why are you acting against us? This is an Islamic system.’ They took me to a dark, frightening place and held me there, using terrible language against me. They also beat me. When we were released from detention we were not the same people as before and that’s why we stopped protesting. I don’t want to be humiliated any more because I’m a woman. It is better to die than to live like this,” she said.

HRW reported cases of women being detained in poorly ventilated rooms, with little access to food, water. Furthermore, many women reported being denied contact with their families. According to Amnesty International, “UNAMA (United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan” recorded 1,600 incidents of detention-related human rights violations between January 2022 and July 2023, half of them constituting torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment”.

The Taliban has enjoyed vast levels of impunity for their crimes against women for decades. This seems most evident in the last three years, despite their claims to work closely with the international community to ensure the wellbeing and protection of rights for all Afghans. Despite condemnation and pressure from the international community to reverse their bans on girls’ education and women’s rights, largely the Taliban has only continued to double down and introduce increasingly restrictive laws limiting the spaces for half of the population. Afghan women and girls have faced dire conditions at the hands of Taliban personnel and have had their fundamental rights taken away from them. Access to justice has been denied for thousands of victims due to the Taliban abolishing existing laws that would lead to them being investigated or persecuted. HRW has pointed out that the existing legislature was replaced with a “narrow interpretation of sharia law”, with previous judicial personnel being fired in favor of candidates that support the Taliban’s policies.

The international community has urged the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to look into these violations of international humanitarian law.

“Afghan women and girls have faced some of the harshest consequences of Taliban rule, and they have led the difficult fight to protect rights in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, their pleas to the international community to stand by them have not been answered,” said Barr.

In an address to the UN Human Rights Council back in June, Richard Bennett, the special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, warned of the severe social implications of a lack of justice for human rights violations committed by the Taliban. “Failure to effectively tackle the cycle of impunity only emboldens the Taliban’s oppressive regime and reduces the possibility of genuine & durable peace in Afghanistan and beyond,” he said. Bennet has also supported calls for the UN to recognize gender apartheid in Afghanistan as a crime under international law.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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