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With a 1.1 million jab delivery in Rwanda this weekend, the World Health Organization’s multilateral initiative to provide equal access to vaccines for all reached the one billion milestone.

Along with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), the Vaccine Alliance GAVI, and partners, WHO has led the largest vaccine procurement and supply operation in history with deliveries to 144 countries to date.

The UN’s key report on the global economy, released on Thursday, shows that the rapid spread of the Omicron COVID-19 variant has put the brakes on a rapid recovery, counteracting signs of solid growth at the end of last year. 

UN human rights officials have welcomed the “historic” conviction on Thursday by a German court of a former senior Syrian intelligence officer, for crimes against humanity. 

The man, known as Anwar R, was charged with complicity in the torture of thousands of people between 2011 and 2012 in the Al-Khatib Branch of Syrian General Intelligence in the capital, Damascus.

Renewed spotlight on atrocities 

Fuelled by Omicron, more than 15 million new cases of COVID-19 were reported around the world last week, by far the most cases reported in a single seven day period, the World Health Organization (WHO) informed on Wednesday. 

Global growth will slow down over the next two years in the face of “fresh threats” from COVID-19 variants and rising inflation, debt and income inequality, the World Bank said on Tuesday in its latest report.

While economic growth experienced a strong rebound in 2021, it is expected to decline markedly from 5.5 per cent last year to 4.1 per cent in 2022, and drop to 3.2 per cent in 2023. 

Current COVID-19 vaccines may need to be updated to ensure their continued effectiveness against Omicron and future variants, an expert group appointed by the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday. 

News stories about the climate crisis often contain mentions of greenhouse gases, and the greenhouse effect. Whilst most will find the analogy easy to understand, what exactly are these gases, and why are they contributing to the warming of the Earth?

1. What is the greenhouse effect?

In a greenhouse, sunlight enters, and heat is retained. The greenhouse effect describes a similar phenomenon on a planetary scale but, instead of the glass of a greenhouse,  certain gases are increasingly raising global temperatures.

The highest number of COVID-19 cases so far in the pandemic were reported last week across the globe, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) told journalists on Thursday. 

In his first briefing of 2022, WHO chief Tedros Ghebreyesus repeated his longstanding call for vaccine equity and solidarity to defeat the crisis, now reaching into its third year. 

Syria’s declaration of its chemical weapons programme cannot be considered accurate due to gaps, inconsistencies and discrepancies, the High Representative for Disarmament Affairs told the Security Council on Wednesday. 

Warring parties should never attack children or the services they rely on, a senior official with the UN children’s agency, UNICEF, said on Tuesday, following recent violence and disruption in Syria.