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UNITED NATIONS, Sep 07 (APP): Pakistan’s Ambassador to UN, Munir Akram, Tuesday called for confronting the fascist ideology of Hindutva, led by the RSS, the parent organization of India’s ruling BJP, that “most pervasively” purveys Xenophobia, violent nationalism and Islamophobia.

He was speaking in a High-Level Forum on the Culture of Peace, convened by the President of U.N. General Assembly, on the subject: “Transformative Role of the Culture of Peace: Promoting Resilience and Inclusion in Post-Covid Recovery.

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 05 (APP): A United Nations-sponsored international aid conference will convene in Geneva on Sept. 13 to help avert what U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres called a “looming humanitarian catastrophe”.

“We need the international community to stand together and support the Afghan people,” the UN chief has said in a post on Twitter, adding he would seek a swift scale-up in funding for humanitarian relief.

NEW YORK, Sept 6 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Hurricane Ida’s death toll continued to rise with many in the US Northeast holding out hope for people missing in the floodwaters, while nearly 600,000 customers in Louisiana still lacked power a week after the storm made landfall.

Ida slammed into Louisiana on Aug 29 as a powerful Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of 240kmh. The latest death toll there rose to at least 13 people on Sunday.

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 05 (APP): The world experienced a brief, sharp drop in emissions of air pollutants last year, especially in urban areas, amid lockdown measures and related travel restrictions put in place over the coronavirus pandemic, according to UN weather experts.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO’s) Air Quality and Climate Bulletin, said South East Asia saw a 40 per cent reduction in the level of harmful airborne particles caused by traffic and energy production in 2020.

UNITED NATIONS, Sept 5 (NNN-AGENCIES) – UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Griffiths, concluded his seven-day visit to Syria, Lebanon and Turkey, his first official mission in the region, since he assumed his functions, said the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which he heads.

NEW YORK (AP) — A stunned U.S. East Coast faced a rising death toll, surging rivers and tornado damage Thursday after the remnants of Hurricane Ida walloped the region with record-breaking rain, drowning more than 40 people in their homes and cars.

In a region that had been warned about potentially deadly flash flooding but hadn’t braced for such a blow from the no-longer-hurricane, the storm killed at least 46 people from Maryland to Connecticut on Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 02 (APP): A senior United Nations official has warned that UN food stocks in Afghanistan could run out this month, underscoring a critical need for US $ 200 million to provide food to the most vulnerable.

Speaking to New York-based correspondents from Kabul via video-link, Deputy Special Representative and Humanitarian Coordinator in Afghanistan Ramiz Alakbarov said every effort was being made to bring in more supplies and that Pakistan was helping to meet the grave situation.

NEW YORK, Sept. 1 (Xinhua) -- As the United States is surpassing an average of 160,000 new COVID-19 cases a day, the spread of the more transmissible Delta variant and the return of many students to the classroom for a new academic year seriously concern officials and health experts.

The pandemic is not only stretching hospitals thin with the surge of patients, particularly unvaccinated people and children, but also wearing the country out in the fields of tourism, tech businesses and social welfare.

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NEW YORK (AP) — The remnants of Hurricane Ida blew through the mid-Atlantic states Wednesday with at least two tornadoes, heavy winds and drenching rains that collapsed the roof of a U.S. Postal Service building, left cars and roads underwater and sent garbage floating through the streets of New York.

Social media posts showed homes reduced to rubble in a southern New Jersey county just outside Philadelphia, not far from where the National Weather Service confirmed a tornado Wednesday evening. Authorities did not have any immediate information on injuries.

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 01 (APP): Rich countries must share their supplies of coronavirus vaccines quickly, in line with recommendations made earlier this year by an independent panel appointed by the World Health Organization (WHO), the former co-chairs said Tuesday.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, former President of Liberia, and Helen Clark, former Prime Minister of New Zealand, expressed deep concern over the slow pace of vaccine redistribution from high-income to low-income countries.