There is a place for all in outer space: ‘It’s not just for the geeks and the nerds’

Kenya remains on high alert as Tropical Cyclone Hidaya threatens to dump more torrential rains on East African countries, which recently emerged from three years of historic drought. The heavy rains have caused deadly flooding and landslides that have killed nearly 400 people across the region since March. The UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Kenya, Stephen Jackson, has been calling for a “push on resilience” as extreme weather events intensify due to climate change. UN News’s Thelma Nadzua began by asking him about the UN’s ongoing support to the Government as the rains continue. 

More than a year of fighting between Sudan’s rival militaries has the country’s people on the verge of famine and uprooted huge numbers caught up in the crossfire.Now, there’s a new threat - unexploded weapons littering Sudan’s towns and cities, where people have received little training about the very real dangers of these lethal devices.Mohammad Sediq Rashid, Chief of the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) in the country, tells UN News’s Nancy Sarkis this deadly kind of warfare is new to Sudanese and with access to the capital getting easier, civilians are not waiting for crucial mine clearance to happen.

After more than a year of brutal fighting between rival militaries across Sudan, the last Government-held stronghold in Darfur of El Fasher is in danger of slipping into famine unless rebel fighters end their siege.That’s according to the UN’s Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator Toby Harward who told UN News that if the fighting for control continues it will trigger revenge attacks across Darfur and a slide into the atrocities that unfolded there two decades ago.Abdelmonem Makki began by asking him to describe the latest situation in El Fasher.

Since the 1950s, 9.2 billion tonnes of plastic have been produced, seven billion tonnes of which have become potentially toxic waste. If no action is taken, plastic pollution could triple by 2060. It’s in our oceans, our rivers and overall plastic pollution represents “a huge problem” says Jyoti Mathur-Filipp, Executive Secretary of the international negotiating committee secretariat (INC) focused on curbing the scourge, which met earlier this week on the road to what it is hoped will be an historic treaty next year.Following the latest round of talks in Ottawa, Canada, “we are exactly where we need to be,” Ms. Mathur-Filipp told UN News’ Anton Uspensky, reflecting on the latest negotiations, and important steps that lie ahead. 

More than two years since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion in Ukraine, the harrowing human cost of the conflict couldn’t be clearer, with thousands killed and many of the injured requiring triple or quadruple amputations, mine action experts said on Wednesday.The wider economic cost of the ongoing fighting in one of the world’s main cereal and commodity-producing regions is enormous too, currently valued at many billions of dollars, amid rising food and fuel prices.With more, here’s Paul Heslop, Programme Manager for Mine Action at the UN Development Programme in Ukraine; he’s been speaking to UN News’s Nancy Sarkis  on the sidelines of the Meeting of Mine Action National Directors and UN Advisers in Geneva.

Left behind in a now-abandoned school in Khan Younis is the evidence of the haste in which Gazan civilians fled the shelter in fear of Israeli bombardment.  Louise Wateridge, Communications Officer with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said people had to evacuate within hours – some leaving behind half-eaten meals, toothbrushes, and even clothes. She said the ongoing war continues to leave families in fear, children without education, and infrastructural displacement, in Gaza.  UN News’s Abdelmonem Makki spoke to Ms. Wateridge, who is stationed in Rafah. She said that people in Gaza are visibly tired of the war, and are steadily hoping for a ceasefire.   

Some heads of top “Ivy League” universities across the United States have been pushed out due to political pressure as educators crack down on students protesting Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza, shining a spotlight on the right to free speech around the world.That’s what Irene Khan, UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, has told UN News’s Khaled Mohammed, stressing that the Gaza crisis is also becoming a crisis of free speech on campuses worldwide.While there has been a rise in hate speech on both sides of the protests, she said legitimate speech must be protected, and people must be allowed to express their political views.Special Rapporteurs and other rights experts are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, are mandated to monitor and report on specific thematic issues or country situations, are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work.

The UN and partners are duty bound to work towards an early recovery on behalf of Gazans, even though that is “intrinsically tied to progress on the political front and the two-State solution”.That’s according to Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza Sigrid Kaag who told UN News in an exclusive interview following the announcement of a new aid mechanism for the enclave that “we cannot ask civilians to wait”.She told Ezzat El-Ferri that reconstruction will have to be far more than physical with a major focus on mental health and psychosocial support, especially for children.

Sabreen al-Sakani: one name among the more than 34,000 people killed in Gaza since 7 October. Sabreen was 30 weeks pregnant when she died after sustaining terrible head injuries in an Israeli airstrike in the south of the enclave. Thankfully, her baby daughter lived after being delivered by emergency Caesarean section, at a hospital in Rafah last weekend. With more on this story - and the latest on the war in Gaza that was sparked by Hamas-led terror attacks in southern Israel – UN News’s Daniel Johnson spoke to Dominic Allen, from the UN sexual and reproductive health agency, UNFPA.

Sudan’s food security crisis is a matter of deep concern with a very real risk there could be famine there, the Director of the Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Office of Emergencies and Resilience has told UN News.Rein Paulsen has been in the war-ravaged country with an interagency team planning how best to scale up the aid response to the food security crisis.FAO is supporting vulnerable farms to boost crop production and is implementing famine prevention strategies, including vaccinating animals.“We have a window of opportunity and that window as right now,” he told UN News’s Ezzat El-Ferri from the coastal aid hub of Port Sudan.