Category World News

The UN reported on Thursday that of the nearly 47, 000 under-fives who had been screened for malnutrition in the second half of May, 5.8% (or 2, 733 children) were found to be suffering from acute malnutrition, “almost triple the proportion of children diagnosed with malnutrition” three months earlier.

According to a report released by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the number of children with severe acute malnutrition who needed hospital admission also increased by roughly a tenfold in May compared to earlier months.

More than 16, 500 children under the age of five have been identified and treated for severe acute malnutrition in Gaza since January, including 141 children with complications that call for hospitalization, according to data from the OCHA-cited Nutrition Cluster.

According to the OCHA report, “there are currently only four stabilization centers for the treatment of]severe acute malnutrition] with medical complications in the Gaza Strip.

According to the statement, “Children in these areas have been forced to stop receiving lifesaving care at stabilization centers in North Gaza and Rafah,” it continues.

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned that the Gaza enclave’s “health system is collapsing” in response to the UN’s most recent warning regarding the health of young children in Gaza.

The WHO called on the “most important referral hospital in Gaza” and Al-Amal Hospital to be put under “urgent protection” in an appeal for the “urgent protection” of two of Gaza’s last remaining hospitals.

“The hospitals in Gaza have been systematically and relentlessly destroyed for too long.” The WHO stated in a statement that it must end right away.

The Nasser Medical Complex and Al-Amal Hospital should be immediately protected, according to WHO, to make sure they are still accessible, safe, and protected from attacks and hostilities.

“Patients seeking refuge and care in order to save their lives must not run the risk of losing them in the hospital.”

UN experts, medical professionals in Gaza, and medical organizations have long accused Israeli forces of purposefully harming Gaza’s health workers and medical facilities in what has been described as a deliberate attempt to make the Palestinian population’s lives in the Strip.

WHO calls for the Gaza Strip’s Nasser Medical Complex and Al-Amal Hospital to be immediately protected.

WHO issues a warning that Al-Amal Hospital, the most significant referral hospital in Gaza, and Nasser Medical Complex, which are both at risk of disintegrating, are collapsing. twitter.com/Rd3ZjASuBp

According to the United Nations’ digital agency, global electricity demand increased by an average of 150 percent between 2020 and 2023 as a result of investments in artificial intelligence (AI) and data centers.

According to the UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Amazon’s operational emissions increased by 182 percent in 2023 compared to 2020 levels, while Microsoft’s emissions increased by 155 percent, Facebook’s and Instagram’s emissions increased by 145 percent, and Google’s parent company Alphabet increased by 138 percent over the same period.

The figures include emissions that are directly related to the businesses’ operations as well as those that are produced by energy purchases. The top 200 digital businesses in the world will be analyzed by an ITU report that evaluates their greenhouse gas emissions between 2020 and 2023.

The UN agency linked the rapid rise to recent advances in AI and the demand for cloud computing services.

According to Doreen Bogdan-Martin, the ITU’s director, “Advances in digital innovation, especially AI, are driving up energy consumption and global emissions.”

While these technological advancements represent significant advancements, the agency estimates that if left unchecked, emissions from top-emitting AI systems could soon reach 102.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent annually.

According to the report, “Today, there are no standards or legislative requirements for companies to disclose their AI emissions or energy consumption,” making it more difficult to comprehend how much AI is used at the company level.

However, company-reported data indicates an increasing trend in operating emissions for businesses with high levels of AI adoption.

Similar rises in electricity demand from data centers, which provide power for digital services, have been a result of the boom in AI and cloud computing. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), data center electricity consumption has increased by 12 percent year over year since 2017.

415 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity was used by data centers alone, or 1.5% of the world’s power demand. By 2030, the demand for data centers will reach 945 TWh, surpassing Japan’s annual electricity consumption, according to the IEA.

According to the report, power-hungry digital companies, which accounted for 581 TWh of global demand in 2024, or roughly 2.1 percent of that figure, despite the fact that the demand was primarily fueled by the largest corporations.

Only 10 of the 200 companies identified by the report’s data contributed to the report’s findings, which stated that 51.9 percent of their electricity demand will be met by 2023. They included Meta, SK Hynix, China Mobile, Amazon, Samsung Electronics, China Telecom, Alphabet, Microsoft, TSMC, China Unicom, and SK Hynix.

The makers of a private lunar lander made by Japan have officially declared the mission a failure after the mission crashed while attempting to land on the moon.

Resilience, a lander owned by the Tokyo-based company ispace, was reported to have left lunar orbit as planned and that the mission appeared to be proceeding well.

Resilience, which was carrying a mini rover, was tipped off by flight controllers just before its hour-long descent and scheduled touchdown on the moon’s surface. As they attempted to regain contact with the lander, ground support was silenced, and the mission was later declared ineffective.

The attempt to land on the ground was abruptly ended by the company’s livestream.

After the failed mission, Takeshi Hakamada, the CEO and founder of ispace, apologised to everyone who contributed. “We have to take the facts seriously what happened,” he said.

Two years after the Japanese start-up’s first attempt to reach the moon was met with a crash landing, the company’s second unsuccessful attempt to soft land on the surface of the moon.

The Hakuto-R Mission 1 by the company, which was launched in December 2022, crashed during its final descent after the lander was mistaken to believe it was lower than it was.

Resilience, the follow-up to that mission, was launched in January from Florida on a lengthy, roundabout journey. It shared a ride on a SpaceX rocket with Blue Ghost from Firefly Aerospace, making the US company the first private company to perform a “fully successful” soft landing there when it first reached the moon in March of this year.

The Mare Frigoris, or Sea of Cold, was the location of the Resilience lander’s 2.5-meter (7. 5-foot) landing pad for the flat, flat area with few boulders.

Before the European-built rover, named Tenacious, was lowered onto the lunar surface this weekend, Resilience was anticipating beaming back images within hours of landing. The rover, which was equipped with a high-definition camera and made of carbon fiber-reinforced plastic, would have then scouted the area and collected lunar dirt for NASA.

A toy-sized red house by Swedish artist Mikael Genberg was also present in Resilience. In a nod to Hakamada’s vision of people living and working on the moon as early as the 2040s, the model Swedish-style cottage was called “Moonhouse.”

The Japanese entrepreneur’s vision is still unsure as a result of ispace’s second failed landing. By 2027, NASA is expected to start launching the aerospace company’s upcoming, much bigger lander.

Regardless of the outcome, the Japanese company’s chief financial officer, Jumpei Nozaki, promised to carry on its lunar search even after Friday’s failed mission.

However, Jeremy Fix, the company’s chief engineer for the US division of ispace, claimed last month that the company cannot afford to have “infinite funds” and cannot afford to have repeat failures.

The team moored the destroyer at the pier in Chongjin on Thursday after recovering its balance at the beginning of June, according to KCNA.

The 5, 000-tonne destroyer was restored to upright position on May 21 after a transport cradle prematurely detached during a launch ceremony, according to South Korea’s military assessments and recent commercial satellite images, which indicated that the ship’s hull had suffered damage after its “serious accident” on May 21.

Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea, witnessed the ship’s failed side-launch, which also resulted in its partially capsized ship in a port.

Kim called the incident a “criminal act perpetrated by total carelessness.” Four officials were detained and accused of tarnishing North Korea’s national dignity as part of a search into the accident, according to KCNA.

The next phase of restorations, which will be carried out at Rajin Dockyard over the next week to ten days, will now be conducted by experts, according to KCNA. A ruling party meeting later this month is anticipated to be held to finalize the ship’s complete restoration.

According to Jo Chun Ryong, a senior official from the ruling Workers’ Party in North Korea, the “perfect restoration of the destroyer will be completed without fail” before the Kim-ruled nation’s ruler, Kim.

The damaged warship is seen as a crucial component of Kim’s effort to modernize his nation’s naval forces because it is the second-known destroyer of North Korea.

The new warship is reportedly equipped in line with the 5, 000-tonne destroyer-class vessel Choe Hyon, which North Korea also unveiled last month, based on its size and scale.

The Choe Hyon, according to Pyongyang, has the “most powerful weapons” and will “enter into operation early next year.”

According to South Korea’s military, the Choe Hyon could have been developed with Russian assistance, perhaps in exchange for Pyongyang deploying tens of thousands of soldiers to support Moscow’s conflict with Ukraine.

Kim, who are significant allies and jointly conduct military exercises, has framed the modernization of his military as a response to threats from the US and South Korea, who regularly conduct joint military exercises.

The next step in strengthening his nation’s navy would be the acquisition of a nuclear-powered submarine, according to the leader of North Korea.

Kim and Sergei Shoigu, the head of the Russian Security Council, met in Pyongyang on Wednesday, the latest indication of the two countries’ deepening ties, which were strengthened when they signed a mutual defense pact in June last year, which mandates them to use “all means” to provide immediate military assistance to one another if either faces “aggression.”

On Friday, June 6, 2018, this is how things are going.

Fighting

• The UN nuclear watchdog reported hearing numerous rounds of gunfire that appeared to be targeted at drones that were apparently attacking the site’s training center at the Ukrainian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
• In “yet another attack” on the facility, the Russian management of the nuclear plant had previously claimed that Ukrainian drones had landed on the roof of the training facility. No injuries or damage, according to the management. In the middle of the war, the nuclear facility’s reactors are shut down.
• After an explosion damaged a section of railway track in the Voronezh region of Russia, Russian investigators announced that they had opened a criminal investigation into an “act of terrorism.”
• At his press briefing, Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, described the most recent rail attack as “nothing but terrorism at the state level.” Kiev has not yet admitted responsibility for the rail attacks, and Russia has not yet provided proof that Ukraine orchestrated them.

diplomacy and politics

As US President Donald Trump downplayed the prospects for an immediate peace between the two countries, Russia will respond to Ukraine’s most recent attacks, including an audacious drone attack on heavy bomber warplanes in Siberia, as and when its military sees fit, according to the Kremlin.
• Trump stated in a press conference before meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz that he hoped for peace between Russia and Ukraine at some point. When Trump asked if he would impose additional sanctions on Russia, he said, “We’ll be very, very, very tough when we see the point where it’s not going to stop.” To be honest, it might be on both nations. You’re aware that tango requires two.
• Trump added that he had requested that Russian President Vladimir Putin refrain from retaliating in response to Ukraine’s drone attacks on Russian air bases.
• Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea, has pledged to “unconditionally support” Russia in its conflict with Ukraine and that he anticipates Moscow to win, according to the country’s state media.
• According to state news agency TASS, Russia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs has placed Russian national Artyom Timofeyev, who was born in Ukraine, on a national wanted list for allegedly participating in the attacks on Russian military bases. According to earlier reports from Russian media, Timofeyev, who reportedly runs a freight forwarding business, has left Russia for Kazakhstan.

• Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov stated that the Russian warplanes that were targeted in the drone attack on June 1 were damaged but not destroyed and will be restored. Up to 20 warplanes have been hit and about half of them have been destroyed, according to the US.
• Prior to Trump and Merz’s meeting on Thursday, Germany’s defense minister, Boris Pistorius, stated that the country needed up to 60 000 additional troops under the new NATO targets for personnel and weapons. NATO is concentrating on bolstering its forces in response to Russia’s growing threat.
• Lieutenant General Alexus Grynkewich will succeed him as the next top US general in Europe, according to the Trump administration’s announcement. He will also take the post of Supreme Allied Commander in Europe.
• The British Council, which promotes international education and cultural relations, has been accused by Russia’s Federal Security Service of using it as a cover to denigrate Russia. The security service claimed to have found professors at renowned universities who worked with the London-based charity. In light of the growing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Russian officials now view the United Kingdom as “enemy number one.”
• In a sparsely attended session, the parliament of Slovakia approved a resolution urging the government to vote against new sanctions against Russia, which raises questions about the country’s future position on European sanctions.

Economy

• Following the anticipated end of free access to the European Union market, the nation’s central bank deputy governor, Serhiy Nikolaichuk, announced that Ukraine’s export losses for the period June to December this year are expected to reach $800 million.