United News of Bangladesh

The U.N. food chief warned Thursday that the world is facing “a global emergency of unprecedented magnitude,” with up to 345 million people marching toward starvation — and 70 million pushed closer to starvation by the war in Ukraine. David Beasley, executive director of the U.N. World Food Program, told the U.N. Security Council that the 345 million people facing acute food insecurity in the 82 countries where the agency operates is 2½ times the number of acutely food insecure people before the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020. He said it is incredibly troubling that 50 million of those people in 45 countries are suffering from very acute malnutrition and are “knocking on famine’s door.” “What was a wave of hunger is now a tsunami of hunger,” he said, pointing to rising conflict, the pandemic’s economic ripple effects, climate change, rising fuel prices and the war in Ukraine. Since Russia invaded its neighbor on Feb. 24, Beasley said, soaring food, fuel and fertilizer costs have driven 70 million people closer to starvation. Despite the agreement in July allowing Ukrainian grain to be shipped from three Black Sea ports that had been blockaded by Russia and continuing efforts to get Russian fertilizer back to global markets, “there is a real and dangerous risk of multiple famines this year,” he said. “And in 2023, the current food price crisis could develop into a food availability crisis if we don’t act.” The Security Council was focusing on conflict-induced food insecurity and the risk of famine in Ethiopia, northeastern Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen. But Beasley and U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths also warned about the food crisis in Somalia, which they both recently visited, and Griffiths also put Afghanistan high on the list.   “Famine will happen in Somalia,” Griffiths said, and “be sure it won’t be the only place either.” He cited recent assessments that identified “hundreds of thousands of people facing catastrophic levels of hunger,” meaning they are at the worst “famine” level. Beasley recalled his warning to the council in April 2020 “that we were then facing famine, starvation of biblical proportions.” He said then the world “stepped up with funding and tremendous response, and we averted catastrophe.” “We are on the edge once again, even worse, and we must do all that we can — all hands on deck with every fiber of our bodies,” he said. “The hungry people of the world are counting on us, and … we must not let them down.” Griffiths said the widespread and increasing food insecurity is a result of the direct and indirect impact of conflict and violence that kills and injures civilians, forces families to flee the land they depend on for income and food, and leads to economic decline and rising prices for food that they can’t afford. After more than seven years of war In Yemen, he said, “some 19 million people — six out of 10 — are acutely food insecure, an estimated 160,000 people are facing catastrophe, and 538,000 children are severely malnourished." Beasley said the Ukraine war is stoking inflation in Yemen, which is 90% reliant on food imports. The World Food Program hopes to provide aid to about 18 million people, but its costs have risen 30% this year to $2.6 billion. As a result, it has been forced to cut back, so Yemenis this month are getting only two-thirds of their previous rations, he said. Beasley said South Sudan faces “its highest rate of acute hunger since its independence in 2011” from Sudan. He said 7.7 million people, over 60% of the population, are “facing critical or worse levels of food insecurity.” Without a political solution to escalating violence and substantial spending on aid programs, “many people in South Sudan will die,” he warned. In northern Ethiopia’s Tigray, Afar and Amhara regions, more than 13 million people need life-saving food, Griffiths said. He pointed to a survey in Tigray in June that found 89% of people food insecure, “more than half of them severely so.” Beasley said a truce in March enabled WFP and its partners to reach almost 5 million people in the Tigray area, but resumed fighting in recent weeks “threatens to push many hungry, exhausted families over the edge.” In northeast Nigeria, the U.N. projects that 4.1 million people are facing high levels of food insecurity, including 588,000 who faced emergency levels between June and August, Griffiths said. He said almost half of those people couldn’t be reached because of insecurity, and the U.N. fears “some people may already be at the level of catastrophe and already dying.” Griffiths urged the Security Council to “leave no stone unturned” in trying to end these conflicts, and to step up financing for humanitarian operations, saying U.N. appeals in those four countries are all “well below half of the required funding.”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said without a free press, democracy cannot survive and without freedom of expression, there is no freedom. "On Democracy Day and every day, let us join forces to secure freedom and protect the rights of all people, everywhere," he said in a message marking the International Day of Democracy that falls on September 15. Today marks the 15th anniversary of the International Day of Democracy. "Yet across the world, democracy is backsliding," said the UN chief, adding that civic space is shrinking.  He said distrust and disinformation are growing, and polarization is undermining democratic institutions. READ: Overseas aid cuts imperil SDGs: UN chief "Now is the time to raise the alarm. Now is the time to reaffirm that democracy, development, and human rights are interdependent and mutually reinforcing," Guterres said.  Now is the time to stand up for the democratic principles of equality, inclusion, and solidarity, he said.  "This year, we focus on a cornerstone of democratic societies – free, independent, and pluralistic media," Guterres said. Attempts to silence journalists are growing more brazen by the day – from verbal assault to online surveillance and legal harassment – especially against women journalists, he mentioned. Media workers face censorship, detention, physical violence, and even killings – often with impunity, said the UN chief.  "Such dark paths inevitably lead to instability, injustice and worse," he mentioned

Armenia and Azerbaijan negotiated a cease-fire to end a flare-up of fighting that has killed 155 soldiers from both sides, a senior Armenian official said early Thursday. Armen Grigoryan, the secretary of Armenia’s Security Council, announced the truce in televised remarks, saying it took effect hours earlier, at 8 p.m. (1600 GMT) Wednesday. A previous cease-fire that Russia brokered Tuesday quickly failed. Several hours before Grigoryan’s announcement, Armenia’s Defense Ministry reported that shelling had ceased but it didn’t mention the cease-fire deal. There was no immediate comment from Azerbaijan’s government. The cease-fire declaration followed two days of heavy fighting that marked the largest outbreak of hostilities between the two longtime adversaries in nearly two years. Late Wednesday, thousands of protesters took to the streets of Armenia’s capital accusing Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of betraying his country by trying to appease Azerbaijan and demanding his resignation. Armenia and Azerbaijan traded blame for the hostilities, with Armenian authorities accusing Baku of unprovoked aggression and Azerbaijani officials saying their country was responding to Armenian shelling. Also read; Armenia, Azerbaijan report 99 troops killed in border clash Pashinyan said 105 of his country’s soldiers had been killed since fighting erupted early Tuesday, while Azerbaijan said it lost 50. Azerbaijani authorities said they were ready to unilaterally hand over the bodies of up to 100 Armenian soldiers. The ex-Soviet countries have been locked in a decades-old conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, which is part of Azerbaijan but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a separatist war there ended in 1994. During a six-week war in 2020, Azerbaijan reclaimed broad swaths of Nagorno-Karabakh and adjacent territories held by Armenian forces. More than 6,700 people died in the fighting, which ended with a Russia-brokered peace deal. Moscow deployed about 2,000 troops to the region to serve as peacekeepers under the deal. Pashinyan said Wednesday that Azerbaijani forces have occupied 10 square kilometers (nearly 4 square miles) of Armenia’s territory since the fighting began. He told lawmakers that his government has asked Russia for military support under a friendship treaty between the countries, and also requested assistance from the Collective Security Treaty Organization. “Our allies are Russia and the CSTO,” Pashinyan said, adding that the collective security pact states that an aggression against one member is an aggression against all. “We don’t see military intervention as the only possibility, because there are also political and diplomatic options,” Pashinyan said, speaking in his nation’s parliament. He told lawmakers that Armenia is ready to recognize Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity in a future peace treaty, provided that it relinquishes control of areas in Armenia its forces have seized. “We want to sign a document, for which many people will criticize and denounce us and call us traitors, and they may even decide to remove us from office, but we would be grateful if Armenia gets a lasting peace and security as a result of it,” Pashinyan said. Some in the opposition saw the statement as a sign of Pashinyan’s readiness to cave in to Azerbaijani demands and recognize Azerbaijan’s sovereignty over Nagorno-Karabakh. Thousands of angry protesters quickly descended on the government’s headquarters, accusing Pashinyan of treason and demanding he step down. Pashinyan angrily denied reports alleging that he had signed a deal accepting Azerbaijani demands as an “information attack.” Grigoryan, the Security Council’s secretary, denounced the protests in Yerevan, describing them as an attempt to destroy the state. Arayik Harutyunyan, the leader of Nagorno-Karabakh, reacted to the uproar by saying that the region will not agree to come into the Azerbaijani fold and will continue pushing for its independence. As tensions rose in Yerevan, Moscow has engaged in a delicate balancing act in seeking to maintain friendly ties with both nations. It has strong economic and security ties with Armenia, which hosts a Russian military base, but also maintains close cooperation with oil-rich Azerbaijan. Some observers saw the outbreak of fighting as an attempt by Azerbaijan to force Armenian authorities into faster implementation of some of the provisions of the 2020 peace deal, such as the opening of transport corridors via its territory. “Azerbaijan has bigger military potential, and so it tries to dictate its conditions to Armenia and use force to push for diplomatic decisions it wants,” Sergei Markedonov, a Russian expert on the South Caucasus region, wrote in a commentary. Markedonov noted that the current flare-up of hostilities comes just as Russia has been forced to pull back from areas in northeastern Ukraine after a Ukrainian counteroffensive, adding that Armenia’s request for assistance has put Russia in a precarious position. Russian President Vladimir Putin and leaders of other CSTO members discussed the situation in a call late Tuesday, urging a quick cessation of hostilities. They agreed to send a mission of top officials from the security alliance to the area. On Friday, Putin is set to hold a meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, where they both plan to attend a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a security grouping dominated by Russia and China. The Armenian government said that Pashinyan, who also was due to attend the summit, would not show up because of the situation in the country. In Washington, a group of lawmakers supporting Armenia lobbied the Biden administration. U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, the influential Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and four other members of Congress called on the White House and State Department to “unequivocally condemn Azerbaijan’s actions and cease all assistance” to Azerbaijan.

The coffin of Queen Elizabeth II left Buckingham Palace for the last time Wednesday, borne on a horse-drawn carriage and saluted by cannons and the tolling of Big Ben, in a solemn procession through the flag-draped, crowd-lined streets of London to Westminster Hall. There, a steady stream of mourners paid their respects to Britain’s longest-reigning monarch. As the cortege left the palace, her son, King Charles III, and his siblings and sons marched behind the coffin, which was topped by a wreath of white roses and her crown resting on a purple velvet pillow. The military procession underscored Elizabeth’s seven decades as head of state as the national mourning process shifted to the grand boulevards and historic landmarks of the U.K. capital. At 900-year-old Westminster Hall, where the queen will lie in state until her funeral Monday, crowds shuffled past her coffin well into the night. They moved silently down the steps of the hall under a great stained glass window, then past the coffin that was covered with the Royal Standard and had been placed on a raised platform known as a catafalque by eight pallbearers. There were couples and parents with children, veterans with medals clinking on navy blue blazers, lawmakers and members of the House of Lords. Some wore black or suits and ties, others jeans and sneakers, and all had waited hours to stand in front of the coffin for a few moments Many bowed or curtseyed and some were in tears. Thousands who had waited for the procession for hours along The Mall outside the palace and other locations along the route held up phones and cameras, and some wiped away tears, as the casket rolled by. Applause broke out as it passed through Horse Guards Parade. Thousands more in nearby Hyde Park watched on large screens. The coffin was topped with the Imperial State Crown — encrusted with almost 3,000 diamonds — and a bouquet of flowers and plants, including pine from the Balmoral Estate, where Elizabeth died on Sept. 8 at the age of 96. Two officers and 32 troops from the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards in red uniforms and bearskin hats walked on either side of the gun carriage. The 38-minute procession ended at Westminster Hall, where Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby led a service attended by Charles and other royals. “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you,” Welby read from the Book of John. After a short service, the captain of The Queen’s Company 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, assisted by a senior sergeant, laid the royal standard of the regiment on the steps of the catafalque. Four officers from the Household Cavalry -– two from the Life Guards and two from the Blues Royals -– began the vigil, taking their places at each corner and bowing their heads. Thousands had queued up along the banks of the River Thames, waiting to enter the hall and pay their respects to the only monarch most Britons have ever known after her 70 years on the throne. Esther Ravenor, a Kenyan who lives in the U.K. said she was humbled as she watched the procession. “I love the queen, I love the royal family, and you know, I had to be here,” she said. “She is a true role model. She loved us all, all of us. Especially someone like me, a migrant woman coming to the U.K. 30 years ago, I was allowed to be here and to be free and safe, so I really honor her. She was a big part of my life.” Maj. Gen. Christopher Ghika, of the Household division, who organized the ceremonial aspects of the queen’s funeral, said it was “our last opportunity to do our duty for the queen, and it’s our first opportunity to do it for the king, and that makes us all very proud.” Troops involved in the procession had been preparing since the queen died. So had the horses of the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery. Sgt. Tom Jenks said the horses were specially trained, including how to handle weeping mourners, as well as flowers and flags being tossed in front of the procession. Heathrow Airport temporarily halted flights, saying it would “ensure silence over central London as the ceremonial procession moves from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall.” Also read: Queen's casket arrives at Buckingham Palace President Joe Biden spoke Wednesday with Charles to offer his condolences, the White House said. Biden recalled “the Queen’s kindness and hospitality” she hosted them and the first lady at Windsor Castle in June, the statement said. “He also conveyed the great admiration of the American people for the Queen, whose dignity and constancy deepened the enduring friendship and special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom.” Crowds have lined the route of the queen’s coffin whenever it has been moved in its long journey from Scotland to London. On Tuesday night, thousands braved a typical London drizzle as the hearse, with interior lights illuminating the casket, drove slowly from an air base to Buckingham Palace. Earlier, in Edinburgh, about 33,000 people filed silently past her coffin in 24 hours at St. Giles’ Cathedral. The line of people snaking along the banks of the River Thames to enter Westminster Hall, the oldest building in Parliament, was nearly 3 miles long in the afternoon, according to a government tracker. The hall is where Guy Fawkes and Charles I were tried, where kings and queens hosted magnificent medieval banquets, and where ceremonial addresses were presented to Queen Elizabeth II during her silver, golden and diamond jubilees. Chris Bond, from Truro in southwest England, was among those waiting to see the queen’s coffin. He also attended the lying in state of the queen’s mother in 2002. “Obviously, it’s quite difficult queuing all day long, but when you walk through those doors into Westminster Hall, that marvelous, historic building, there was a great sense of hush and one was told you take as much time as you like, and it’s just amazing,” he said. “We know the queen was a good age and she served the country a long time, but we hoped this day would never come,” he added. Chris Imafidon, secured the sixth place in the queue.   “I have 1,001 emotions when I see her,” he said. “I want to say, God, she was an angel, because she touched many good people and did so many good things.”

Hand on heart, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy watched his country’s flag rise Wednesday above the recaptured city of Izium, making a rare foray outside the capital that highlights Moscow’s embarrassing retreat from a Ukrainian counteroffensive. Russian forces left the war-scarred city last week as Kyiv’s soldiers pressed a stunning advance that has reclaimed large swaths of territory in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region. As Zelenskyy looked on and sang the national anthem, the Ukrainian flag was raised in front of the burned-out city hall. After almost six months under Russian occupation, Izium was left largely devastated, with apartment buildings blackened by fire and pockmarked by artillery strikes. A gaping hole and piles of rubble stood where one building had collapsed. “The view is very shocking, but it is not shocking for me,” Zelenskyy told journalists, “because we began to see the same pictures from Bucha, from the first de-occupied territories … the same destroyed buildings, killed people.” Bucha is a small city on Kyiv’s outskirts from which Russian troops withdrew in March. In the aftermath, Ukrainian authorities discovered the bodies of hundreds of civilians dumped in streets, yards and mass graves. Many bore signs of torture. Read:Last reactor at Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant shut to avoid radiation Prosecutors said they so far have found six bodies with traces of torture in recently retaken Kharkiv region villages. The head of the Kharkiv prosecutor’s office, Oleksandr Filchakov, said bodies were found in Hrakove and Zaliznyche, villages around 60 kilometers (35 miles) southeast of Kharkiv city. “We have a terrible picture of what the occupiers did. ... Such cities as Balakliia, Izium, are standing in the same row as Bucha, Borodyanka, Irpin,” said Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin, listing places where the Ukrainians have alleged Russian forces committed atrocities. Local authorities have made similar claims in other areas Russia previously held, but it was not immediately possible to verify their information. They have not yet provided evidence of potential atrocities on the scale described in Bucha, where the number and conditions of civilian casualties prompted international demands to press war crimes charges against Russian officials. As he was returning from the front early Thursday, a passenger car collided with Zelenskyy’s vehicle in a motorcade in Kyiv, but he wasn’t seriously hurt, his spokesman said on Facebook. Spokesman Sergii Nikiforov said the driver of the other vehicle received first aid from Zelenskyy’s medical team and was taken by ambulance. Medics examined the president, who suffered no serious injuries in the accident, Nikiforov wrote. He did not specify what injuries Zelenskyy, 44, might have suffered. Moscow’s recent rout in northeastern Ukraine was its largest military defeat since Russian troops withdrew from the Kyiv area months ago. On the northern outskirts of Izium, the remains of Russian tanks and vehicles lay shattered along a road. As Zelenskyy visited, his forces pressed their counteroffensive, de-mined retaken ground and investigated possible war crimes. He said that “life comes back” as Ukrainian soldiers return to previously occupied villages. The Ukrainian governor of the eastern Luhansk region, Serhiy Haidai, said Ukrainian soldiers were preparing to retake the area, which borders the Kharkiv region and was has been mostly under Russian control since July. Intense shelling of Ukrainian forces continued, he said. Haidai told The Associated Press that Ukrainian troops were flying Ukrainian flags in the cities of Svatove and Starobilsk. But in Kreminna, another city where Ukrainians raised their flag, Russians returned Wednesday and “tore down the (Ukrainian) flags and are demonstrably showing that they’re there,” Haidai said. A Russia-allied separatist military leader confirmed the Ukrainian advance on the Luhansk region. Andrei Marochko, a local militia officer, said on Russian TV that the situation was “really difficult.” “In some places, the contact line has come very close to the borders of the Luhansk People’s Republic,” Marochko said, referring to the independent state the separatists declared eight years ago. The counteroffensive has left more weapons in Ukrainian hands. Russian forces likely left behind dozens of tanks, armored personnel carriers and other heavy weaponry as they fled Ukraine’s advance in the east, a Ukrainian think tank said Wednesday. The Center for Defense Strategies said one Russian unit fleeing the Izium area left behind more than three dozen T-80 tanks and about as many infantry fighting vehicles. Another unit left 47 tanks and 27 armored vehicles, it said. The center said Russian forces tried to destroy some of the abandoned vehicles through artillery strikes as they fell back. Typically, armed forces ruin equipment left behind so their opponent can’t use it. However, the chaos of the Russian withdrawal apparently forced them to abandon untouched ammunition and weapons. With the recent Ukrainian gains, a new front line has emerged along the Oskil River, which largely traces the Kharkiv region’s eastern edge, a Washington-based think tank, the Institute for the Study of War, said Wednesday. “Russian troops are unlikely to be strong enough to prevent further Ukrainian advances along the entire Oskil River because they do not appear to be receiving reinforcements, and Ukrainian troops will likely be able to exploit this weakness to resume the counteroffensive across the Oskil if they choose,” the institute said. In other areas, Russia continued its attacks, causing more casualties in a war that has dragged on for nearly seven months. Two people were killed and three wounded after Russia attacked Mykolaiv with S-300 missiles overnight, regional governor Vitaliy Kim said. The Nikopol area, across a river from the shutdown Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, was shelled three times during the night, with no injuries immediately reported, regional governor Valentyn Reznichenko said. Fighting also raged in the eastern Donetsk region, where shelling killed five civilians and wounded 16. Together, Luhansk and Donetsk make up the Donbas, an industrial area that Moscow set out to capture following an unsuccessful attempt to invade Kyiv. Russian troops are targeting critical infrastructure. Eight cruise missiles aimed at water equipment hit Zelenskyy’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih, a city on the Inhulets River 150 kms (93 miles) southwest of Dnipro, the deputy head of the president’s office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, reported on his Telegram channel. Zelenskyy said the strikes appeared to be an attempt to flood the city and that a dam on a reservoir was hit. Video posted online showed elevated water levels on the Inhulets and flooded city streets, and evacuations of residents were suggested. U.S. President Joe Biden observed Wednesday that Ukrainian forces have made “significant progress” in recent days but added, “I think it’s going to be a long haul.”   While criticism of the invasion seems to be increasing in Russia, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said after a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, “Unfortunately, I cannot tell you that the realization has grown over there by now that this was a mistake to start this war.” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Wednesday that he had spoken with Putin about exporting Russian fertilizer through Ukraine’s Black Sea ports to address a famine threat. The U.N. chief said at a news conference in New York that high prices for fertilizer have reduced the planting of crops, making it critical to increase Russian exports of ammonia — a key fertilizer ingredient — by shipping it through Black Sea ports now used to transport grain from Ukraine. Western military and economic support has allowed Ukraine to keep fighting since Russia invaded on Feb. 24, and the Ukrainian government received more assistance Wednesday. An international group of creditors, including the U.S., finalized a deal to suspend Ukraine’s debt service through the end of 2023, helping the country ease liquidity pressures and increase social, health and economic spending.

The head of the World Health Organization said Wednesday that the number of coronavirus deaths worldwide last week was the lowest reported in the pandemic since March 2020, marking what could be a turning point in the years-long global outbreak. At a press briefing in Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the world has never been in a better position to stop COVID-19. “We are not there yet, but the end is in sight,” he said, comparing the effort to that made by a marathon runner nearing the finish line. “Now is the worst time to stop running,” he said. “Now is the time to run harder and make sure we cross the line and reap all the rewards of our hard work.” In its weekly report on the pandemic, the U.N. health agency said deaths fell by 22% in the past week, at just over 11,000 reported worldwide. There were 3.1 million new cases, a drop of 28%, continuing a weeks-long decline in the disease in every part of the world. Still, the WHO warned that relaxed COVID testing and surveillance in many countries means that many cases are going unnoticed. The agency issued a set of policy briefs for governments to strengthen their efforts against the coronavirus ahead of the expected winter surge of COVID-19, warning that new variants could yet undo the progress made to date. “If we don’t take this opportunity now, we run the risk of more variants, more deaths, more disruption, and more uncertainty,” Tedros said. The WHO reported that the omicron subvariant BA.5 continues to dominate globally and comprised nearly 90% of virus samples shared with the world’s biggest public database. In recent weeks, regulatory authorities in Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere have cleared tweaked vaccines that target both the original coronavirus and later variants including BA.5. Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead on COVID-19, said the organization expected future waves of the disease, but was hopeful those would not cause many deaths. Meanwhile in China, residents of a city in the country’s far western Xinjiang region have said they are experiencing hunger, forced quarantines and dwindling supplies of medicine and daily necessities after more than 40 days in a lockdown prompted by COVID-19. Hundreds of posts from Ghulja riveted users of Chinese social media last week, with residents sharing videos of empty refrigerators, feverish children and people shouting from their windows. On Monday, local police announced the arrests of six people for “spreading rumors” about the lockdown, including posts about a dead child and an alleged suicide, which they said “incited opposition” and “disrupted social order.” Leaked directives from government offices show that workers are being ordered to avoid negative information and spread “positive energy” instead. One directed state media to film “smiling seniors” and “children having fun” in neighborhoods emerging from the lockdown. The government has ordered mass testing and district lockdowns in cities across China in recent weeks, from Sanya on tropical Hainan island to southwest Chengdu, to the northern port city of Dalian. Also read: Global Covid cases near 615 million

The European Union unveiled plans Wednesday to ban products made with forced labour, in an effort to crack down on a modern-day form of slavery that a UN agency estimated affects more than 27 million people worldwide. The European Commission, which proposes EU laws, said the policy would remove from the 27-nation bloc’s markets all products made with forced labour. It would also stop them from being made in the world’s biggest trading bloc or shipped through it. The move does not target specific companies, industries or countries. “Our aim is to eliminate all products made with forced labour from the EU market, irrespective of where they have been made. Our ban will apply to domestic products, exports and imports alike,” commission Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis said. The EU’s executive arm defines forced labour as a situation where a person is coerced to work through violence or intimidation, or in more indirect ways by having their debt manipulated, their identity papers stolen or being threatened with denunciation to immigration authorities. Under the plans, the commission would set up and operate a public database containing information about suspect products and practices. EU countries would designate an authority to enforce the rules, and customs officers would have responsibility for ensuring compliance at the bloc’s borders. The aim is to focus on high-risk products. Investigations would be launched if national authorities believe forced labour may have been used. Suspected cases involving bigger operators that make the most products would be the preferred target, rather than small businesses. If a product made with forced labour is already sold in the EU, the company involved would be required to pull it off the market and dispose of it. If the company refuses, it would face penalties under the law of the country it operates in. Europe’s main union umbrella organization, the European Trade Union Confederation, welcomed the plans. “Many of the people in forced labour are manufacturing goods destined for sale in Europe, so a properly enforced ban should cripple the profits of the criminals behind these violations,” ETUC Deputy General-Secretary Claes-Mikael Stahl said. The International Labour Organization estimated that in 2021 around 27.6 million people were forced to work on any given day, including 3.3 million children. Women and girls accounted for 11.8 million of that number. Textiles, mining and agriculture are among the industries most notorious for the practice. The commission’s proposal must now be debated by the EU member countries and the European Parliament. The rules would enter force two years after an agreement is concluded. Also read: 28 million victims of forced labour: report

Armenia and Azerbaijan accused each other of new rounds of shelling on Wednesday morning as hostilities reignited between the two longtime adversaries. Armenia’s Defense Ministry accused Azerbaijani forces of launching combat drones in the direction of the Armenian resort of Jermuk overnight and renewing the shelling from artillery and mortars in the morning in the direction of Jermuk and Verin Shorzha village near the Sevan lake. The Azerbaijani military, in turn, charged that Armenian forces shelled its positions in the Kalbajar and Lachin districts in the separatist Narogno-Karabakh regions. Fighting on the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan erupted on Tuesday, killing about 100 troops in total. Armenia said at least 49 of its soldiers were killed; Azerbaijan said it lost 50. The two countries have been locked in a decades-old conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, which is part of Azerbaijan but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a separatist war there ended in 1994. Azerbaijan reclaimed broad swaths of Nagorno-Karabakh in a six-week war in 2020 that killed more than 6,600 people and ended with a Russia-brokered peace deal. Moscow deployed about 2,000 troops to the region to serve as peacekeepers under the deal. Also read; Armenia, Azerbaijan report 99 troops killed in border clash The Russian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday urged both parties “to refrain from further escalation and show restraint.” Moscow has engaged in a delicate balancing act in seeking to maintain friendly ties with both ex-Soviet nations. It has strong economic and security ties with Armenia, which hosts a Russian military base, while also has been developing close cooperation with oil-rich Azerbaijan. The international community also urged calm. The Armenian government said it would officially ask Russia for assistance under a friendship treaty between the countries, and also appeal to the United Nations and the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a Moscow-dominated security alliance of ex-Soviet nations. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refrained from comment on Armenia’s request but added during a conference call with reporters that Putin was “taking every effort to help de-escalate tensions.”

Around 50 million people around the world are living in modern day slavery, among whom 28 million are victims of forced labour, says a report published today. The ‘Global Estimates of Modern Slavery Report 2022’, prepared by IOM, Walk Free and International Labour Organization (ILO), provides a detailed picture of how people are being forced to do certain jobs across the globe. The report makes a shocking revelation, which is that 52 percent of all forced labour can be found in upper-middle or high-income countries. According to the report, 86 percent of forced labour are in the private sector, while state-imposed forced labour accounts for 14 percent. Almost one in eight of all those in forced labour are children (3.3 million), and more than half are in commercial sexual exploitation. Read: One-in-four people do not feel valued at work: ILO The report also says that migrant workers are three times more likely to be in forced labour than non-migrant adult workers. Migrants are particularly vulnerable to forced labour and trafficking due to irregular or poorly governed migration and unfair, unethical recruitment practices. The report talks about Qatar, a gulf country which has recently obtained the reputation for labour rights violations relating to migrants working there focusing on the FIFA World Cup 2022. The report proposes a number of recommendations which, if implemented, would mark significant progress towards ending modern slavery. They include improving and enforcing laws and labour inspections, ending state-imposed forced labour, stronger measures to combat forced labour and trafficking in business and supply chains, extending social protection, and strengthening legal protections.   Read: Workers' rights, collective bargaining essential for global recovery: ILO Some other measures suggested by the report include addressing the increased risk of trafficking and forced labour for migrant workers, promoting fair and ethical recruitment, and greater support for women, girls and vulnerable individuals.

Multiple crises are halting progress on human development, which is going backwards in the overwhelming majority of countries, according to the UN. The 2021-22 human development report "Uncertain Times, Unsettled Lives: Shaping our Future in a Transforming World," released Thursday, paints a picture of a global society lurching from crisis to crisis, and which risks heading towards increasing deprivation and injustice. For the first time in the 32 years that the UN Development Programme (UNDP) has been calculating it, the Human Development Index, which measures a nation's health, education, and standard of living, has declined globally for two years in a row. Human development has fallen back to its 2016 levels, reversing much of the progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. The UN report finds that nine out of 10 countries have fallen behind on life expectancy, education and living standards. Heading the list of events causing major global disruptions are Covid and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which have come on top of sweeping social and economic shifts, dangerous planetary changes, and massive increases in polarization.   This signals a deepening crisis for many regions, and Latin America, the Caribbean, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia have been hit particularly hard as 30 years of continuous human progress is unravelling. Read: Bangladesh moves 3 notches up in Human Development Index "The world is scrambling to respond to back-to-back crises," said Achim Steiner, UNDP administrator. "We have seen with the cost of living and energy crises that, while it is tempting to focus on quick fixes like subsidising fossil fuels, immediate relief tactics are delaying the long-term systemic changes we must make."   The UN study's authors identified three layers of today's "uncertainty complex" – dangerous planetary change, the transition to new ways of organising industrial societies, and the intensification of political and social polarization. Also read: Rebuilding Ukraine may cost $349bn "It is not just that typhoons are getting bigger and deadlier through human impact on the environment," the report said. "It is also as if, through our social choices, their destructive paths are being directed at the most vulnerable among us."