El Niño event could push global temps to new warming record
WMO says the warming effect on global temperatures usually plays out in the year after an El Niño event develops.
Global Issues
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Faking content is getting easier. Digging for truth is getting harder.
There's a growing industry and more tools for producing and distributing disinformation. Meanwhile, authorities are getting more aggressive and hostile toward journalists.
UNICEF raises alert over lagging confidence in childhood vaccines
Public perception of the importance of vaccines for children fell during the pandemic in 52 of 55 countries studied.
The great Twitter cull looms for leaders and organizations
Hundreds of accounts of world leaders and their institutions, plus 40 organizations and their leaders, were to be demoted.
Cost of gender inequalities in food and agriculture put at 1% global GDP
Closing the gender gap in productivity and wages would boost GDP by nearly $1 trillion and cut hunger for 45 million people.
Developing nations forecast to lose $800B from debt and slowdown
UNCTAD expects global growth in 2023 to drop to 2.1%, but only if financial fallout from higher interest rates is contained.
At 75, U.N. health agency is lightning rod for equity and cooperation
As WHO celebrated its 75th anniversary – commemorating World Health Day and the day its constitution took effect – the COVID-19 pandemic's lessons were inescapable.
Slower trade growth projected in 2023 mainly due to war in Ukraine
Trade growth is expected to slow to 1.7% due to Russia's war in Ukraine, high inflation, tight monetary policy and uncertainty.
Red Cross finds around half of all armed groups are state-supported
New ICRC guidelines are meant to protect innocent civilians and detainees against violence by non-state armed groups.
Putin, charged with war crimes, takes over U.N.'s most powerful arm
Russia's status as U.N. Security Council president is bound up in a frozen-in-time power structure dating to World War II.
Stockpiles of nuclear weapons available for use increased in 2022
Nuclear warheads available to nations for deployment reached 9,576 at the start of 2023, up from 9,440 a year earlier.
Nations back ambitious clean water and sanitation goals this decade
The voluntary commitments fall far short of a legally binding agreement like the 2015 Paris Agreement for climate change.
New IPCC report urges 'hope' and climate justice for most vulnerable
Almost half the world’s population lives in regions highly vulnerable to climate change, where deaths were 15 times higher in the past decade.
Study says bottled water industry undercuts safe drinking water for all
The bottled water industry is expected to grow to $500 billion a year in sales but isn't aligned with the U.N.'s Global Goals.
WHO chief calls 3-year pandemic 'a chaotic patchwork of responses'
WHO's chief offered three lessons the world must learn to be able to effectively cope with future global health crises.
U.N. panel prepares last report of series to shape climate policy
The head of the U.N. panel of climate experts called for quick action because 'inaction and delays are not listed as options.'