Author: lofaack

Bonn, Germany, 21 February 2024 – This year’s Desertification and Drought Day, observed on 17 June, will focus on the future of land stewardship. Every second, an equivalent of four football fields of healthy land becomes degraded – adding up to a total of 100 million hectares every year.

Engaging present and future generations is more important than ever to halt and reverse these alarming trends and meet global commitments to restore 1 billion hectares of degraded land by 2030. The theme chosen for this year’s Desertification and Drought Day — “United for Land: Our Legacy . Our Future.” —

Meghri, Armenia – One week after Azerbaijan seized Nagorno-Karabakh, Margo, a 74-year-old retired piano instructor, sat in a cafe and wondered if her hometown of Meghri, in southern Armenia, would soon share Karabakh’s fate.

In Armenian, Meghri means the town of honey, but life is rarely sweet, Margo says, not least now.

She believes that following Baku’s recent victory, Azerbaijan, emboldened, will now seek to seize parts of her native region, a strategic strip of land which separates Azerbaijan from its exclave of Nakhichevan.

“We worry every day. Every hour. “We even know where their troops are located at our

Houthi drone and missile attacks on Red Sea shipping have spurred the development of an alternative “land bridge” to carry cargo by truck from the Persian Gulf across Saudi Arabia and Jordan to Israel and Egypt.

The project, which is already seeing dozens of trucks per day reaching the Israeli port of Haifa, is seen as an early benefit of the 2020 Abraham Accords normalizing ties between the United Arab Emirates and Israel.

It bodes well for future cooperation between Israel and Saudi Arabia. The United States is seeking to broker a deal that would see