
Criminal gangs in southeast Asia are using torture and abuse to force hundreds of thousands of people into an online scam operation which generates billions of dollars per year, the UN rights office (OHCHR) said on Tuesday .
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, Aug 30 (IPS) - September 2023 marks the halfway point to the deadline for achieving the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Yet, globally we are still far off-track, and Africa is only halfway towards achieving the SDGs, with nearly 600 million Africans still lacking access to electricity and 431 million people living in extreme poverty.
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 30 (IPS) - The United Nations will host six “high-level” meetings, including two summits of world leaders-- over a short span of five consecutive days, beginning September 18.
The back-to-back meetings, described as unprecedented, includes the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Summit on September 18-19; a high-level dialogue on Financing for Development (FfD) on September 20; and a ministerial meeting of the Summit of the Future on September 21 (with the summit itself scheduled to take place September 2024).
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Aug 30 (IPS) - The United Nations Secretary-General’s Dialogue on Financing for Development on 20 September may well be the world’s last chance to save the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and curb global warming in time.
Read the full story, “UN Financing Appeal Last Hope for SDGs and Climate?”, on globalissues.org →

CAMBRIDGE, MA., Aug 29 (IPS) - As the adage goes, when you find yourself stuck in a hole, stop digging. As African leaders and their philanthropic and bilateral sponsors prepare for another glitzy African Green Revolution Forum, convening September 5-8 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, they are instead handing out new shovels to dig the continent deeper into a hunger crisis caused in part by their failing obsession with corporate-led industrialized agriculture.