World News Summary: Latest in Haiti, plastic tide in Samoa, Baking surge in Ukraine, arbitrary detention in Mexico
More than 700,000 people had to evacuate in the country – more than half of whom are children – with recent violence in the capital Port-au-Prince displacing another 12,000 people in recent weeks.
Food insecurity is at an all-time high, affecting half of Haiti’s population, or about 5.4 million people..
Bag of famine
“For the first time since 2022, we are seeing famine-like conditions in some areas where displaced people are living,” Deputy Spokesperson Stephanie Tremblay emphasized.
Despite these challenges, United Nations agencies and partners continue to provide humanitarian assistance. In the first half of 2024, about 1.9 million people received some form of relief, including food and cash.
Since late February, thousands of hot meals and hundreds of thousands of gallons of water have been distributed to displaced people in the capital.
To Curb Haiti’s Growing Needs, $684 Million Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan has been launched, but it is still only 43% funded.
Samoa faces a plastic tide: Environmental expert
Like other Pacific Small Island States, Samoa is facing a rising tide of plastic, a leading independence expert says.
Marcos Orellana, Special Rapporteur on the toxic environment and human rights, warned on Friday that although Samoa is taking measures to ban certain types of plastic, the country “cannot keep up with the amount of waste plastic is increasing.
The independent rights expert, who does not work for the United Nations, added that Samoa is “at the receiving end (and) of cheap plastic pesticide imports banned in other countries”, along with the used cars and tires.
Mr. Orellana emphasized that Samoa simply “does not have the financial, technical and human resources to adequately deal with” all the waste generated, before calling out plastic manufacturers for not doing enough to Prevent pollution in the first place.
The latest international negotiations on a legally binding instrument on plastic pollution have “gone in the wrong direction”, human rights experts have said, adding that current international negotiations have the risk of “shifting responsibility from plastic-producing Countries to developing Countries that lack the capacity or resources to confront the problem of plastic pollution”. global plastic scourge”.
WFP support for Ukraine’s frontline bakeries
United Nations World Food Program (WFP) is providing $870,000 worth of equipment to help support small bakeries located near Ukraine’s front lines as the Russian invasion continues, the agency said Friday.
WFP partners with local food producers to provide food assistance to frontline areas. In September, these small bakeries provided more than 500,000 loaves of bread for WFP and partners to distribute to communities living near the frontline.
Buy local
More than 80% of WFP’s food assistance in Ukraine is purchased from local suppliers.
In total, WFP will supply more than 60 machines to 14 small bakeries in the Mykolaiv, Kherson, Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv regions.
This includes seven industrial generators, 11 rotary ovens, six dough kneading machines, as well as dough dividers, dough rounders and other similar tools.
“Bread is the lifeblood of Ukrainians – but small bakeries in frontline areas are struggling to maintain production due to war and other challenges,” said Richard Ragan, WFP Country Director in Ukraine. energy awareness”.
He added: “By providing additional equipment, we are not only supporting local businesses in the areas most affected by the war, but also ensuring that people will have enough fresh bread this winter”.
Expert calls for the release of indigenous human rights defenders in Mexico
On Friday, the United Nations independent expert investigated the abuses against human rights defenderMary Lawlor, has warned against the arbitrary detention of indigenous rights defenders in Mexico and the imposition of harsh sentences on them for their peaceful activities in defense of their communities.
the Human Rights Council-The appointed special rapporteur highlights the cases of 10 indigenous defenders subjected to flawed judicial proceedings facing charges “such as murder, in some cases, even if they were not present at the location or area where the crime occurred.”
The combined sentences of 9 of the 10 guards amounted to nearly 300 years in prison, of which Zapotec leader Pablo López Alavez was imprisoned for 14 years without sentencing. In 2017, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention conclude His detention was arbitrary.
Ms. Lawlor condemned what she described as an “abuse of the criminal law” to suppress the efforts of indigenous leaders to protect their land rights and communities against development and exploitation of natural resources. However, the adverse impact of an economic model based on the joint extraction of wealth from the land with organized crime is evident.
Collective harm
She emphasized that criminalizing these defenders not only harms them individually but also undermines the well-being and security of their communities.
While Ms. Lawlor welcomed the recent overturning of the conviction of David Hernández Salazar, she said it only exposed the fabricated nature of his and other defense counsel’s charges.
“I call on the competent authorities to annul the sentences of Kenia Hernández Montalván, Tomás Martínez Mandujano, Saúl Rosales Meléndez, Versaín Velasco García, Agustín Pérez Velasco, Martín Pérez Domínguez, Juan Velasco Aguilar and Agustín Pérez Domínguez, and to annul them. dropped the charges against Pablo López Alavez and released them immediately angry,” Ms. Lawlor said.
The Special Rapporteur, who is not an employee of the United Nations and does not represent any government or organization, is contacting Mexican authorities regarding these concerns.
