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UN relief chief stresses need to stay and deliver for all Afghans

Humanitarians have stayed and delivered in Afghanistan in the year since the Taliban takeover, and it is imperative that the international community continues to do the same while the de facto authorities must also do their part, the Security Council heard on Monday.
UN Humanitarian Coordinator Martin Griffiths, who briefed ambassadors, reported on the ongoing hardships and uncertainty facing Afghans, nearly half of whom – 24 million people – require aid relief to survive.
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Nero Fiddling While Rome Burns: Weapons Deals During the Climate Crisis in Pakistan
by Danaka Katovich
On August 30, 2022 one third of Pakistan was underwater due to catastrophic flooding. A little over a week later on September 7, while the situation in Pakistan was still dire, the United States Department of State announced a sale of an F-16 warplane sustainment to Pakistan in which the leaders of Pakistan agreed to pay the U.S. $450 million to keep its F-16 fleet up and running. On the same day, Prime Minister of Pakistan Shehbaz Sharif said that parts of his country were “like a sea” as the death toll of the floods rose to 1,343. Over 200 more people have been reported dead since that count, with 33 million people in Pakistan affected by the disaster.
All over the world we are seeing the devastating effects of climate change. Another hurricane has hit Puerto Rico causing flooding and a loss of electricity. Wildfires rage through California. Heat waves of historic magnitude have affected several places globally in the past few months.
‘Very survival’ of Iraqi State at risk, UN mission warns, as Guterres calls for calm and restraint

Several were reported killed during Monday’s clashes after supporters flooded into the presidential palace.
Immediate de-escalation
Mr. Guterres urged all involved “to take immediate steps to de-escalate the situation” and avoid further violence.
First Person: Sharing indigenous knowledge with tourists
After successfully reclaiming her people’s territory in Northern Argentina, Celestina Ábalos turned to tourism to share and promote her indigenous culture. UN entrepreneurship training during the COVID-19 pandemic helped her business to grow.
Indigenous entrepreneur Celestina Ábalos runs a tourism business in the UNESCO World Heritage site of Quebrada de Humahuaca in Jujuy province, northern Argentina, sharing her community’s culture and knowledge of medicinal herbs.
“I am a child of Pachamama, Mother Earth. Earth is everything to us. It is life. We cannot conceive of ourselves without her. My community dates back 14,000 years. On behalf of 60 families, I led a 20-year fight for the right to land, education and freedom.
We used to live under a rental system where we had a landlord who delineated the spaces for us to occupy and to live in, both for sowing crops and raising cattle. It was a life very much governed by what the master said, by the space you had to occupy, and by what I saw my parents having to pay at the end of each year. These were very powerful moments for a teenager.
Through the process of reclaiming our territory I began to think more about how to make my history and the history of my people known. I have always seen, and I continue to see in the media, the stigma that is placed on us indigenous peoples. I wanted to show and make the other side of the story known. That motivated me but I was thinking: “How do I do it, how do I show this?”
Democracy is a core value of the United Nations.

United Nations activities in support of democracy are carried out through the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF), the Department of Peace Operations (DPO), the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA), the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR),and the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), among others.