Monthly Archives: June 2024

50,000 Gaza children require urgent treatment for malnutrition: UN

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https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/15/over-50000-children-in-gaza-need-treatment-for-malnutrition-un-says

Internally displaced Palestinians walk in the courtyard of a destroyed UNRWA school [File: Mohammed Saber/EPA-EFE]

UNRWA warns people in Gaza face ‘catastrophic’ levels of hunger because of Israeli restrictions on humanitarian aid.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) says more than 50,000 children in the Gaza Strip require immediate medical treatment for acute malnutrition.

In a statement on Saturday, the agency noted “with continued restrictions to humanitarian access, people in Gaza continue to face desperate levels of hunger. UNRWA teams work tirelessly to reach families with aid, but the situation is catastrophic”.

UNICEF spokesperson James Elder also described how difficult it is to not only get aid into Gaza, but also to distribute it across the war-battered coastal enclave.

“More aid workers have been killed in this war than any war since the advent of the UN,” he told Al Jazeera.

On Wednesday, UNICEF had a mission to drive a truck full of nutritional and medical supplies for 10,000 children, Elder said. Their task was to deliver the aid, which was pre-approved by Israeli authorities, from Deir el-Balah to Gaza City, a 40km (25 miles) round trip.

“It took 13 hours and we spent eight of those around checkpoints, arguing around paperwork – ‘was it a truck or a van’,” he said.

“The reality is this truck was denied access. Those 10,000 children did not get that aid … Israel as the occupying power has the legal responsibility to facilitate that aid.”

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https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/15/over-50000-children-in-gaza-need-treatment-for-malnutrition-un-says

Continue Reading50,000 Gaza children require urgent treatment for malnutrition: UN

UN climate chief warns of “steep mountain to climb” for COP29 after Bonn blame-game

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https://www.climatechangenews.com/2024/06/14/un-climate-chief-warns-of-steep-mountain-to-climb-for-cop29-after-bonn-blame-game/

UNFCCC Executive Secretary Simon Stiell speaking at the closing plenary. Photo: IISD/ENB – Kiara Worth

Countries expressed disappointment as key negotiations on climate finance and emissions-cutting measures made scant progress at mid-year talks

UN climate talks in Bonn ended in finger-pointing over their failure to move forward on a key programme to reduce planet-heating emissions, with the UN climate chief warning of “a very steep mountain to climb to achieve ambitious outcomes” at COP29 in Baku.

In the closing session of the two-week talks on Thursday evening, many countries expressed their disappointment and frustration at the lack of any outcome on the Mitigation Ambition and Implementation Work Programme (MWP), noting the urgency of stepping up efforts to curb greenhouse gas pollution this decade.

The co-chairs of the talks said those discussions had not reached any conclusion and would need to resume at the annual climate summit in Azerbaijan in November, unleashing a stream of disgruntled interventions from both developed and developing countries.

Samoa’s lead negotiator Anne Rasmussen, speaking on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), emphasised that “we really can’t afford these failures”. “We have failed to show the world that we are responding with the purpose and urgency required to limit warming to 1.5 degrees,” she said.

Governments, from Latin America to Africa and Europe, lamented the lack of progress on the MWP because of its central role in keeping warming to the 1.5C temperature ceiling enshrined in the Paris Agreement.

Current policies to cut emissions are forecast to lead to warming of 2.7C, even as the world is already struggling with worsening floods, droughts, heatwaves and rising sea levels at global average temperatures around 1.3C higher than pre-industrial times.

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https://www.climatechangenews.com/2024/06/14/un-climate-chief-warns-of-steep-mountain-to-climb-for-cop29-after-bonn-blame-game/

Continue ReadingUN climate chief warns of “steep mountain to climb” for COP29 after Bonn blame-game

Greens warn that the Labour manifesto represents a diagnosis of doom for our NHS

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Green Party Co-leader Adrian Ramsay. Wikipedia CC.
Green Party Co-leader Adrian Ramsay. Wikipedia CC.

Responding to the publication of the Labour Party’s Manifesto that promises an “unprecedented slowdown” in NHS finances, Green Party Co-Leader Adrian Ramsay said:

“This Labour Party manifesto is a diagnosis of doom for our NHS and other frontline services.

“After 14 years of mismanagement and underfunding our health service is severely overstretched and crying out for real investment.

“Instead, the Labour Party has today promised investment of just 1.1% increase according to the Nuffield Trust, an “unprecedented slowdown in NHS finances”.

He continued, “Greens understand the severity of the crisis the NHS and have a plan to nurse it back to health.

“We are proposing a £50bn investment per year by 2030 alongside an additional £20bn capital investment fund.

“To quote the IFS “Labour continues in a conspiracy of silence on the difficulties they would face”.

“It’s time they were honest with the public.

“Our frontline services can’t keep limping on without real investment from real tax reform.”

Continue ReadingGreens warn that the Labour manifesto represents a diagnosis of doom for our NHS

Labour and Tories would ‘both leave NHS worse off than under austerity’

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https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jun/15/labour-and-tories-would-both-leave-nhs-worse-off-than-under-austerity-says-thinktank

NHS emblem
NHS emblem

Analysis by leading experts the Nuffield Trust reveals that main parties’ manifestos would squeeze health spending

Labour and the Conservatives would both leave the NHS with lower spending increases than during the years of Tory austerity, according to an independent analysis of their manifestos by a leading health thinktank.

The assessment by the respected Nuffield Trust of the costed NHS policies of both parties, announced in their manifestos last week, says the level of funding increases would leave them struggling to pay existing staff costs, let alone the bill for massive planned increases in doctors, nurses and other staff in the long-term workforce plan agreed last year.

The Nuffield Trust said that “the manifestos imply increases [in annual funding for the NHS] between 2024-25 and 2028-29 of 1.5% each year for the Liberal Democrats, 0.9% for the Conservatives and 1.1% for Labour.

“Both Conservative and Labour proposals would represent a lower level of funding increase than the period of ‘austerity’ between 2010-11 and 2014-15.

“This would be an unprecedented slowdown in NHS finances and it is inconceivable that it would accompany the dramatic recovery all are promising. This slowdown follows three years of particularly constrained finances.”

The trust added that the planned funding increases “would make the next few years the tightest period of funding in NHS history”.

Sally Gainsbury, senior policy ­analyst at the Nuffield Trust and a leading authority on NHS funding, said: “They will struggle to be able to pay the existing staff, let alone the additional staff set out in the workforce plan. It’s completely unrealistic.”

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https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jun/15/labour-and-tories-would-both-leave-nhs-worse-off-than-under-austerity-says-thinktank

Continue ReadingLabour and Tories would ‘both leave NHS worse off than under austerity’

Failed communities unite to demand government action on Grenfell anniversary

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/communities-impacted-governments-failings-unite-anniversary-grenfell-tower

A general view of the remains of Grenfell Tower in London, June 14, 2022

VICTIMS of the government’s systemic failures have demanded that the next prime minister take recommendations from public inquiries seriously.

Communities affected by the infected blood scandal, Covid and the Grenfell fire are calling for a new mechanism to ensure that their struggles are not in vain.

They have joined forces on the seventh anniversary of the Grenfell Tower blaze, in which 72 residents were killed after a fire ripped through the 24-storey block in north Kensington.

Campaigners united for the annual memorial walk from Notting Hill Methodist Church this evening.

Lobby Akinnola from the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice (CBFFJ) said he was “honoured to stand shoulder to shoulder in solidarity with Grenfell survivors, and all victims of state failures who continue to fight for justice and reform.”

He backed calls for a national oversight mechanism to “help make sure that recommendations turn into action and action turns into change.”

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Edward Daffarn, from Grenfell United, who lived on the 16th floor of the tower block said: “It’s really important that communities impacted by these disasters stand together. We can’t all fight individually.”

He said the message to government is simple: “They need to ensure that recommendations that come out of public inquiries are implemented.”

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/communities-impacted-governments-failings-unite-anniversary-grenfell-tower

Continue ReadingFailed communities unite to demand government action on Grenfell anniversary