The Utah Jazz’s season came to a disappointing end when they lost in the first round of the 2022 NBA Playoffs to the Dallas Mavericks. With the team’s fate now in jeopardy, Coach Quin Snyder could potentially be on his way out after eight seasons in charge.
According to Adrian Wojnarowski and Tim MacMahon, owner Ryan Smith and CEO of Basketball Operations Danny Ainge have contacted Snyder about his future with Utah. Discussions have been in “good faith” with Snyder despite the uncertainty of the outlook for Utah.
ESPN reporting with @ESPN_MacMahon: After weeks of conversations with ownership and management, Utah Jazz coach Quin Snyder’s future remains unclear and a possibility exists that he could decide to end his eight-year tenure with franchise: https://t.co/MFfns6fVqj
Snyder, who’s been with the team since the 2014-2015 season, has made the playoffs in six of his eight seasons but never made it past the second round. His teams never fell outside of the top 15 in defensive rating since he first took over, and he has never won less than 35 games in his eight seasons as head coach.
Snyder is under contract until the 2023-2024 season, with that final year being a coach option.
Reports also say that the team is fine with Snyder coming back on his current contract, but nothing concrete on his long-term or immediate future. The team has also shown that they are preparing for potential earth-shattering roster changes that could change the team’s outlook, depending on the moves made by Utah’s front office that could determine if Snyder is to remain in Salt Lake City or seek a job elsewhere.
If Snyder were to leave, there would be only one head coaching vacancy left in the League to fill, with Charlotte Hornets. Snyder was linked previously to the Lakers’ job, but they opted to hire Bucks assistant coach Darvin Ham instead.
The Jazz is in flux; the Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert situation remain unclear. Ownership has changed hands, and the front office leadership has changed in the last two years. This year, the team is set to be very deep in the luxury tax. Moving forward, the Utah Jazz will have a lot of choices to make, and they might be served to focus on improving the confidence Mitchell has in the team.
Madden was one-of-one. That is as simple as anybody could ever put it. He was authentically himself, 100 percent of the time. The hall-of-fame head coach of Oakland Raiders fame became the greatest broadcaster the NFL has ever seen. Not only that, but he found even more success as the integral figure of the popular video game franchise that bares his name, image and likeness.
June 1 is #MaddenDay, as John Madden Football was first launched on this day 34 years ago. Electronic Arts provided an update to the $5 million John Madden Legacy Commitment to Education set up in his name this year, as well as dedicating a renovated field in his honor.
“Coach Madden was a lifelong believer in the importance of education, and we’re privileged to support these amazing organizations that are creating opportunities for the next generation to pursue their dreams in his honor”, said EA SPORTS EVP and GM Cam Weber.
John Madden to appear on the cover of Madden NFL 23
The $5 million will be split evenly between two great causes. The first $2.5 million will go towards funding programming four non-profits for STEAM education over the next five years: College Track, Mission Bit, StreetCode Academy and Girls Who Code. The other $2.5 million will go towards the creation of the EA Madden Scholarship in partnership with the UNCF.
As far as the field is concerned, “John Madden Field” will be dedicated to Coach Madden at Electronic Arts’ headquarters in Redwood City, California. Electronic Arts will welcome four flag football teams from the Bay Area to play on the new field first.
Madden’s impact in the game he loved so much will carry on forever by changing lives everywhere.
My target has been $22,000 – $24,000 for nearly two months now and that isn’t changing due to this small pump. Zooming out what has changed .. Nothing pic.twitter.com/eKNAyT2pO3
Fellow account Blake noted ongoing weakness in stocks, with which Bitcoin has been highly correlated, as a sign not to believe that the bottom was in for crypto assets.
“This SPX situation is a big part of why I don’t consider this a “buy the dip” moment for crypto & Bitcoin,” he told followers on the day.
“I’m going to let the markets do their thing for a bit…”
The S&P 500 traded down 1.1% after the first three hours’ trading, as did the Nasdaq Composite Index.
Halving “hopium” is served
Attempting to find some more positive chart features, meanwhile, Filbfilb, co-founder of trading suite Decentrader, pointed to historical patterns seen during Bitcoin’s halving cycles.
Current price action, he said, was still following Bitcoin’s lifetime trend, hinting that the familiar pain-before-gain scenario was now also playing out.
End of bear correction on the same basis would be pre 2024 halving meaning not done until Q1 2023.
After which the cycle would look like this assuming we hit the bottom returns off the previous cycle like mentioned above sometime in 2025.https://t.co/3IqwyDs88c
Filbfilb nonetheless cautioned that the theory was more “hopium” than a true prediction.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.
WASHINGTON — The Russian military, beaten down and demoralized after three months of war, is making the same mistakes in its campaign to capture a swath of eastern Ukraine that forced it to abandon its push to take the entire country, senior American officials say.
While Russian troops are capturing territory, a Pentagon official said that their “plodding and incremental” pace was wearing them down, and that the military’s overall fighting strength had been diminished by about 20 percent. And since the war started, Russia has lost 1,000 tanks, a senior Pentagon official said last week.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia appointed a new commander, Gen. Aleksandr V. Dvornikov, in April in what was widely viewed as an acknowledgment that the initial Russian war plan was failing.
Soon after his arrival, General Dvornikov tried to get disjointed air and land units to coordinate their attacks, American officials said. But he has not been seen in the past two weeks, leading some officials to speculate as to whether he remains in charge of the war effort.
Russian pilots also continue to demonstrate the same risk-averse behavior they did in the early weeks of the war: darting across the border to launch strikes and then quickly returning to Russian territory, instead of staying in Ukrainian air space to deny access to their foes. The result is that Russia still has not established any kind of air superiority, officials said.
The Russian military has made some progress in the east, where concentrated firepower and shortened supply lines have helped its forces fight intense battles in recent days. After three bloody months, Russia finally took Mariupol in mid-May, potentially creating a land bridge from the Russian-controlled Crimean Peninsula to the south.
As Russia struggles to move forward, Ukraine has also suffered setbacks. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine recently said that as many as 100 Ukrainian servicemen might be dying every day in the fighting. And on Tuesday, Russian troops advanced toward the center of Sievierodonetsk, a city that has become a central focus for the military since it shifted its attention to the east.
But some of the areas that Russian forces managed to seize have been quickly contested again, and sometimes retaken, by Ukrainian troops.
Consider Kharkiv. Russia spent six weeks bombarding the eastern city, once home to 1.5 million people, as troops encircled it.
But by May 13, control of the city had flipped again. “The Russians took Kharkiv for a short period of time; the Ukrainians counterattacked and took Kharkiv back,” Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said at a news conference at the Pentagon last week. “We’ve seen them really proceed at a very slow and unsuccessful pace on the battlefield.”
Ukraine is now pushing Russian troops north and east from Kharkiv, “in some cases all the way back to Russia,” said retired Gen. Philip Breedlove, the former supreme allied commander for Europe. “So now Ukrainians are threatening to cut off Russian lines of supply and pushing their forces to the rear.”
Cutting off Russian supply lines east of Kharkiv would put Russian troops in the same situation they were in after their advance on Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, at the beginning of the war, officials said. Ukrainian units carrying shoulder-fired Javelin antitank missiles picked off Russian soldiers as miles-long Russian convoys near Kyiv stopped moving forward. The invasion stalled, and thousands of Russian troops were killed or injured. Russia then refocused its mission on the east.
In the early weeks of the war, Russia ran its military campaign out of Moscow, with no central war commander on the ground to call the shots, American and other Western officials said. In early April, after Russia’s logistics and morale problems had become clear, Mr. Putin put General Dvornikov in charge of a streamlined war effort.
General Dvornikov arrived with a daunting résumé. He started his career as a platoon commander in 1982 and later fought in Russia’s brutal second war in Chechnya. Moscow also sent him to Syria, where the forces under his command were accused of targeting civilians.
In Ukraine, he established a more streamlined process. Russian pilots began coordinating with troops on the ground toward a similar objective in the eastern region of Donbas, and Russian units were talking to one another about shared goals.
But the invasion is not “proceeding particularly differently in the east than in the west because they haven’t been able to change the character of the Russian army,” said Frederick W. Kagan, a senior fellow and director of the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute. “There are some deep flaws in the Russian army that they could not have repaired in the last few weeks even if they had tried. The flaws are deep and fundamental.”
Russia-Ukraine War: Key Developments
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U.S. military aid. The United States will send Ukraine advanced rocket systems as part of a new $700 million aid package, President Biden announced in an Op-Ed in The New York Times. A senior administration official said the rocket system was provided only after assurances that Ukraine would not use it against targets in Russian territory.
On the ground. Russian troops have stormed the city of Sievierodonetsk and converged in the city center, according to a local official. The fall of Sievierodonetsk would give President Vladimir V. Putin’s forces the last major city in the eastern Luhansk province still in Ukrainian hands.
Russian oil embargo. European Union members finally reached an agreement on a Russian oil embargo and new sanctions against Russia. The long-delayed deal effectively exempts Hungary, which had opposed the embargo, from the costly step the rest of the bloc is taking to punish Russia.
At the top of that list is the Russian army’s lack of a noncommissioned officers corps empowered to think for itself, Pentagon officials said. American troops have sergeants and platoon leaders and corporals who are given tasks and guidelines and left to accomplish those tasks as they see fit.
But Russia’s military follows a Soviet-style doctrinal method in which troops at the bottom are not empowered to point out flaws in strategy that should be obvious or to make adjustments.
The Ukrainians, after seven years of training alongside troops from the United States and other NATO countries, follow the more Western method and have proved particularly agile at adapting to circumstances, American military officials said.
A two-week fighting pause after the Russian military gave up the fight for Kyiv was not long enough to turn the campaign around, even with a more limited goal, General Breedlove said. General Dvornikov’s “new tactics, resetting the command and control so there was a focused decision maker — all that was right or proper,” he said.
But, General Breedlove added: “Even our army would be hard-pressed to refit, refurbish and reorganize in two weeks after having received such a sound whipping.” When General Dvornikov took control, “the force was thrust back into the battle too quickly. That decision had to have come from Moscow.”
After renewing an assault on the Donbas, Russia has pounded cities and villages with a barrage of artillery. But troops have not followed that up with any kind of sustained armored invasion, which is necessary if they will hold the territory they are flattening, military officials say. That means that Russia may find itself struggling to hold on to gains — as it did in Kharkiv.
Evelyn Farkas, a former senior Pentagon official for Ukraine and Russia in the Obama administration, said Mr. Putin was still too involved in the fight.
“We keep hearing accounts of Putin getting more involved,” said Ms. Farkas, who is now executive director of the McCain Institute. “We know that if you have presidents meddling in targeting and operational military decisions, it’s a recipe for disaster.”
Local singers and instrumentalists joined rights activists and politicians in a protest against Afghan musicians’ arrest in Peshawar. They fear that there could be serious repercussions if the musicians are deported back to Taliban-led Afghanistan. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS
by Ashfaq Yusufzai (peshawar)
Inter Press Service
PESHAWAR, Jun 01 (IPS) – The arrest of Afghan musicians in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan has elicited protests from local politicians, artists and rights activists who demand their release and say they should be allowed to stay as refugees.
“Four musicians arrested by police in Peshawar, the capital of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, for lack of visa and travel documents have been sent to jail and will be deported under the 14 Foreigners’ Act,” a police officer, Nasrullah Shah, told IPS.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) is one of the four provinces of Pakistan located on the border with Afghanistan.
Police arrested the artists on May 27. They had been performing on TV and radio for years in Afghanistan, but the Taliban government’s opposition to music silenced them. The group includes Saidullah Wafa, Naveed Hassan, Ajmal and Nadeem Shah.
According to Shah, they crossed into Pakistan illegally.
The musicians, however, insisted that there was a ban on music back home, and as a result, they faced economic problems.
“Since the Taliban took power in Afghanistan in August last year, there was an unannounced ban on musical activities, which has landed the singers and musicians in hot water,” Saidullah Wafa, one of the arrested singers, told IPS. Taliban are notorious for killing musicians, and they will murder us if we go back,” Wafa said. Before fleeing to Pakistan, he lived in the Afghan capital, Kabul.
He claimed that Taliban militants consider music against Islam and have killed many singers and others associated with it in the past. Fearing prosecution, we came to Pakistan to seek refuge, the 25-year-old said.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has condemned the arrest and possible deportation.
“HRCP is concerned to learn that four Afghan nationals have been arrested by the KP police under the Foreigners’ Act 1946; the court has ordered they be deported. All four face significant threats from the Taliban government in Kabul,” it tweeted.
Local music journalist Sher Alam Shinwari, who writes for Dawn newspaper, said the seized Afghan musicians are refugees. He said they cannot and should not be deported to the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan.
“Afghan musicians, since they arrived in Peshawar and elsewhere in KP, have never been involved in any unlawful activities. Secondly, they have re-joined their relatives already living in refugee camps or rented homes in and around Peshawar,” Shinwari said.
Most have valid documents or ration cards, while some of them carried artists’ registration cards issued by local artists’ organisations, he said.
Deporting Afghan musicians to the Taliban is tantamount to throwing them to the wolves because the Taliban had murdered several artists in the recent past, Shinwari explained.
Families of most of the musicians were already living in Pakistan, and their deportation would be a human rights violation.
Rashid Ahmed Khan, head of Honary Tolana, an organisation striving for musicians’ rights, told IPS that the arrested musicians would be in danger if sent back.
“They were taken into custody by police without a search warrant, sent to jail and be handed over to the Taliban – which is an inhuman act. These famous artistes moved to Peshawar last year when Taliban seized power in Afghanistan to save their lives,” he said.
On May 30, local artists held a protest demonstration against the arrest of Afghan musicians in Peshawar and urged the government to allow them to stay in Pakistan as refugees.
Politicians also joined the protest.
Sardar Hussain Babak, a local lawmaker, assured them that they would raise the issues on the floor of the parliament.
Some Afghan artists present at the protest said they had come to Pakistan for their safety and could not continue their profession in their own country.
They demanded police stop their action against the artists because they were guests in Pakistan and their lives were at risk in Afghanistan.
Local artists, including Saeeda Bibi and others, condemned the police action against the Afghan musicians and demanded their early release.
“Taliban have resorted to violence against the musicians, destroyed their equipment at different places, and shot dead people even participating in the wedding ceremonies in Nangrahar and other provinces of Afghanistan,” Saeeda Bibi told IPS.
“We have applied for bail of the detained artists with the hope to get them released at the earliest,” she said. “We have set a three-day deadline for police to stop action against the artists. Otherwise, Afghan and Pakistani artists would march on Islamabad and stage a sit-in until their demands were heard.
“We also appealed to UNHCR to take notice of the ordeal of Afghan artists so that they could live in Pakistan as refugees.”
KP Information Minister Muhammad Ali Saif told IPS that the artists should be prosecuted in terms of the law.
“We have been hosting 3 million Afghan refugees for the past four decades, which is the glaring example of hospitality. They will be treated as per the law,” he said.
There were no instructions to police regarding the arrest of Afghan musicians, and the court would decide about their deportation, he said.
Over 1,600 schools and universities have been damaged or destroyed since Russia’s invasion on February 24, according to Ukraine’s Education Ministry. Credit: UNICEF
Opinion by Jerome Marston, Marika Tsolakis (new york)
Inter Press Service
NEW YORK, Jun 01 (IPS) – Conflict has taken a horrific toll on civilians in Ukraine over the past three months with many families struggling to meet even their most basic needs, including education. Over 1,600 schools and universities have been damaged or destroyed since Russia’s invasion on February 24, according to Ukraine’s Education Ministry. Armed forces on both sides have reportedly bombed schools or used them as bases or for storing weapons.
Education is fundamental for students during war. Beyond teaching, schools and universities can provide a safe space, give students routine, and connect them to life-saving resources such as meals and mental health services.
Fortunately, 3.7 million Ukrainian children have been able to access online and distance learning since February despite school closures. This has reduced gaps in instruction and, perhaps more critically, maintained a sense of normalcy.
Yet, the war’s longer-term impact on the quality of and access to education remain worrisome. Repairing schools will require significant time and resources, and many students and teachers will experience stress and trauma that affect learning and teaching. That is, if they return to class at all – children in conflict- and crisis-affected areas are twice as likely to be out of school as those in other places.
Unfortunately, Ukraine is not alone. Education is under attack around the globe, and armed violence against students, teachers, and education facilities is on the rise. In fact, we found in research for our new report an average of six attacks on education each day in 2020 and 2021. In all, we identified more than 5,000 cases of attacks or military occupation of schools during that two-year period.
These attacks harmed, injured, or killed over 9,000 students, teachers, and academics. Nine countries each had more than 400 attacks or over 400 students or educators harmed. Attacks increased in Mali, Myanmar, and Colombia compared to the previous two years, but decreased in countries such as Syria and Yemen, where conflict de-escalated. Shelling and rifle fire damaged dozens of schools in Ukraine in 2020 and 2021, in the eastern Donbas region where conflict began half a decade before.
In attacks on education, militaries and armed groups bomb, burn, and loot schools and universities and kill, rape, arbitrarily arrest, and recruit students and educators. They occupy schools and universities to use them for non-educational purposes such as for bases, barracks, or training grounds.
Explosive weapons, which were involved in one-fifth of all reported attacks on education globally and were used in many of the attacks in Ukraine, had particularly devastating effects. Airstrikes, shelling, and other explosives are especially dangerous because they produce a large blast that can propel bomb fragments a great distance, in all directions, often indiscriminately harming civilians and civilian buildings.
There are several key steps that can be taken to protect education in Ukraine and elsewhere.
First, allies of the warring parties mustneed to press them to stop attacking schools or using explosive weapons with wide-area effects near schools or universities. Warring parties should also avoid occupying schools and universities and using them for military purposes. Occupation damages schools and universities and puts students and educators at risk, but it may also place the educational facilities in the crosshairs of enemy forces.
Second, governments should endorse and implement the Safe Schools Declaration, an intergovernmental political commitment to protect students, teachers, schools, and universities in armed conflict. Though Russia has not endorsed the declaration, Ukraine did in 2019. It has taken important steps to fulfil Declaration commitments in the midst of conflict, such as instituting remote learning and collecting data on attacks on education facilities.
Third, the attackers need to be held to account. Governments, the United Nations, and national and international organizations should support efforts to collect reliable evidence of attacks on schools and universities, and their students and staff, and to put those responsible on trial in fair national or international courts, as well as to provide assistance to victims of attacks.
Finally, funding must be raised and –crucially– directed toward rebuilding schools and universities destroyed in attacks as soon as it is safe. Education is chronically underfunded in humanitarian response. However, donors and governments can ensure funds are directed toward rebuilding classrooms, playgrounds, and libraries, since distance learning, while exceptionally important, is no long-term substitute for quality in-person education.
Destroyed and occupied schools and universities not only upend learning, they also jeopardize the post-conflict rebuilding of communities and economies. Education needs to be safeguarded in Ukraine and globally.
Jerome Marston and Marika Tsolakis are senior researchers at the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, an inter-agency coalition formed in 2010 to address the problem of targeted attacks on education during armed conflict.
BONN, Germany, Jun 01 (IPS) – The following article is part of a series to commemorate World Environment Day June 5
The writer is United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary, United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD)Land is our lifeline on this planet. Yet ‘business as usual’ in how we manage land resources puts our own future on planet Earth in jeopardy, with half of humanity already facing the impacts of land degradation.
As we mark the 50th World Environment Day, let us accelerate efforts to meet global pledges to restore by 2030 one billion degraded hectares — an area the size of the USA or China — to stem the loss of life and livelihoods and secure future prosperity for all.
We need to move fast—and together—to realize these commitments through tangible action and effective investments. In doing so, we may find that the answer to some of humanity’s biggest challenges is right beneath our feet.
It was against the backdrop of multiple global challenges, including the worst-in-40-years drought in Eastern Africa, as well as food and economic crises fuelled by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and conflicts, that 196 nations came together in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire from 9-20 May for the 15th Conference of Parties (COP15) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
At the 9 May Summit convened by Côte d’Ivoire President Alassane Ouattara, leaders adopted the Abidjan Call, which reinforces the commitment towards achieving land degradation neutrality by 2030. Simply put, this means ending land loss by avoiding, reducing and reversing the damage we do to our forests, peatlands, savannahs and other ecosystems.
The leaders’ call to action comes in response to a stark warning by the UNCCD’s flagship Global Land Outlook report that up to 40% of all ice-free land is already degraded, with dire consequences for climate, biodiversity and livelihoods. Business as usual will, by 2050, result in degradation of 16 million square kilometres (almost the size of South America), with 69 gigatonnes of carbon emitted into the atmosphere.
But it is not all doom and gloom. The report underscores that investing in large-scale land restoration is a powerful, cost-effective and viable pathway to restore our communities, economies, health and much more.
Restoring one billion hectares of degraded lands will add 50% to the global GDP, help tackle climate and biodiversity crises, boost water and food security, and chart a new path to post-pandemic recovery. It would also attenuate seemingly unrelated crises such as forced migration: land restoration would help reduce the estimated 700 million people at risk of being displaced by drought by 2030.
At the conclusion of two-week negotiations in Abidjan, countries sent a united call about the importance of healthy and productive land for securing future prosperity for all and for boosting drought resilience the world longs for.
Exacerbated by land degradation and climate change, droughts are increasing in frequency and severity, and may affect an estimated three-quarters of the world’s population by 2050, according to the Drought in Numbers 2022 report from UNCCD. Recognizing drought as a serious threat to humanity, UNCCD parties agreed to step up collaboration to explore new policies at the regional and global levels, working together towards COP16 in Saudi Arabia.
With 38 decisions taken at COP15, the Convention will be able to anticipate and act on the changes to the land that may unfold in the years to come. As one concrete example of COP15 decisions, a global database will be developed to help countries to map the exact location of the one billion hectares earmarked for restoration, and to track progress of their restoration in a systematic manner.
This will help the international community to check action against the targets at the national level. More importantly, it will help countries to make well-informed decisions.
Future-proofing land management will also help boost agricultural productivity, avoid supply chain disruptions, and withstand future environmental shocks. The US$ 2.5 billion Abidjan Legacy Programme launched by President Ouattara in Abidjan is one example of investing in long-term environmental sustainability across major value chains in Côte d’Ivoire while protecting and restoring forests and lands and improving communities’ resilience to climate change.
At this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, which came hot on the heels of UNCCD COP15, I argued for greater involvement of food and land-use sectors, which represent about 12% of global GDP and up to 40% of employment, in land restoration and drought resilience efforts.
Stronger governance for better land management
The Abidjan COP15 was transformational in many ways, not least of them a growing recognition of the essential role of good governance for effective land restoration and drought resilience.
COP15 agreed on policy actions to enable land restoration through stronger tenure rights, gender equality, land use planning and youth engagement to draw private sector investment in conservation, farming and land use practices that improve the health of the land.
Take gender equality, for instance. Although women make up nearly half of all agricultural workforce, they only hold 18% of the associated land titles in sub-Saharan Africa. Furthermore, women are twice more affected by desertification, land degradation and drought compared to men, according to a new UNCCD study released at the Gender Caucus at COP15.
Yet, when empowered, women can be at the forefront of global land restoration efforts, as examples from around the world—from Nepal to Jordan to Paraguay—demonstrate. Decisions taken at COP15 seek to promote women’s involvement in land management and restoration efforts by strengthening their rights and facilitating access to finance.
UNCCD is a trailblazer among international environmental treaties in acknowledging that we cannot reverse land degradation without secure land tenure. People with secure tenure know that when they invest in the land, they will reap the benefits; they are more motivated to protect the long-term health and productivity of their land.
Secure tenure is not only important to small-scale farmers, indigenous peoples and local communities—it is just as important to those making large-scale investments in land degradation neutrality and restoration. Otherwise, it can become a source of tension or conflict over natural resources. At COP15, countries agreed to build on existing guidance on land tenure to ensure the inclusive and meaningful participation of all actors in efforts to combat land degradation.
Youth makes up most of the population in countries affected by desertification, land degradation and drought. And in many of these countries, land-based sectors are the mainstay of the economies. That’s why the Youth Forum at COP15 focused on supporting land-based youth entrepreneurship, securing decent land-based jobs, and strengthening youth participation in the Convention. Beyond better land stewardship, it could go also go a long way towards reducing social unrest resulting from high youth unemployment rates.
Addressing climate, biodiversity and land crises together
Climate change, biodiversity loss and land degradation pose existential threats to nature and humanity. The linkages between them have been clearly established. Our actions to address them must also be interlinked and coordinated as there is no pathway to achieving our goals on climate, biodiversity or land without tackling them together.
UNCCD is one of the three global treaties that emerged from the Rio Earth Summit 30 years ago, along with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
As the international community gathers in Stockholm this week to mark the 50th anniversary of the landmark United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, the three Rio Conventions issue a joint call to make this decade one of urgent action, restoration and transformation, uniting the land, biodiversity and climate agendas for the survival of people and the planet.
This World Environment Day with its theme “Only One Earth”, let us have the same sense of urgency and solidarity that guided our predecessors at the historical Stockholm 1972 conference. Fifty years on, this truth still holds — this planet is our only home.
“Investigations are ongoing, but the sudden appearance of monkeypox in many countries at the same time suggests there may have been undetected transmission for some time,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told journalists at WHO’s Geneva headquarters.
Be vigilant
With most reported cases having been among sexual encounters between men, those communities are working to inform their members of risks and preventative action that can be taken.
“But all of us must work hard to fight stigma, which is not just wrong, it could also prevent infected individuals from seeking care, making it harder to stop transmission,” warned the WHO chief, urging affected countries to widen their surveillance to the broader community.
Anyone risks infection if they have close physical contact with someone who has Monkeypox.
Tedros noted that as the situation is evolving, WHO expects more cases to be found.
“It’s important to remember that generally, Monkeypox symptoms resolve on their own, but can be severe in some cases,” he added.
WHO continues to receive updates on the status of ongoing Monkeypox outbreaks in African countries where the disease is endemic.
The top WHO official outlined his priorities to provide accurate information to those most at-risk; prevent further spread among those at high risk; protect frontline health workers; and advance “our understanding” of the disease.
Monkeypox lesions often appear on the palms of hands.
COVID trends
Meanwhile, as reported COVID-19 cases and deaths continue to decline globally, Tedros cautioned that this may be the result of reduced testing throughout many countries.
But in several regions in the Americas, cases, and deaths are surging, while there are increasing fatalities in the Western Pacific region and Africa.
“Once again, the pandemic is not over. We continue to call on all countries to maintain testing and sequencing services, to give us a clearer picture of where the virus is spreading, and how it’s changing,” said the WHO chief.
“We call on all countries to vaccinate all health workers, older people and other at-risk groups”.
Care in Ukraine
With the war in Ukraine taking a heavy toll on the country’s health system, WHO has increased its presence in the country and in States hosting displaced people – as the number of healthcare attacks continues to rise.
“More than 6 million people remain under siege by Ethiopian and Eritrean forces, after more than 18 months. Although some food is being delivered, it’s not enough, and basic services remain unavailable”-@DrTedros#Tigrayhttps://t.co/kxUx2eG4Az
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) June 1, 2022
“As of yesterday, WHO has verified 269 attacks on health in Ukraine, killing 76 people and injuring 59,” Tedros said.
“Healthcare must never be a target,” he added, calling again on Russia to end the war.
Rippling effect of war
Russia’s invasion has disrupted global food supplies and exacerbated the risk of famine around the world, he said.
As the Horn of Africa suffers one of its worst droughts in recent history, the rising risk of famine and malnutrition is severely affecting an estimated 15 to 20 million people in Kenya, Somalia, and Ethiopia, as well as affecting populations in Djibouti, Eritrea, Uganda, South Sudan and Sudan.
The WHO chief said there were tens of thousands of families forced to leave home in search of food, water and pasture, which is leading to mass displacement and a lack of safe drinking water, hygiene and sanitation – further heightening health risks.
“This is especially worrying in an already under-immunized population with little access to health services,” pointed out the WHO chief.
At the same time, more than six million people remain under siege by Ethiopian and Eritrean forces in Tigray.
As the region is sealed, not enough food is being delivered and basic services remain unavailable.
“WHO is doing its best to help, but the only solution to this inhumane situation – as in Ukraine – is peace,” he underscored.
WHO business
Turning to the first in-person World Health Assembly since the COVID-19 pandemic began – which ended on Saturday – Tedros drew attention to the adopted “landmark resolution to increase assessed contributions” to a target of 50 per cent of WHO’s base budget by the end of the decade, up from today’s 16 per cent.
“This change will give WHO the flexibility and predictability to plan for long-term programming in countries, and to attract and retain the people we need to deliver those programmes,” he said.
Other Assembly decisions strengthens WHO’s preparedness and response to health emergencies.
Currently, 733 million people worldwide still do not have access to electricity, and 2.4 billion people still cook using fuels detrimental to their health and the environment.
At the current rate of progress, 670 million people will remain without electricity by 2030 – 10 million more than projected last year.
The findings are from the 2022 edition of Tracking SDG 7: The Energy Progress Report, which monitors global efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG7) of ensuring affordable modern energy supply for everyone by 2030.
Step up financing
The study was produced by UN entities and partners, known as the SDG7 custodian agencies, who urge governments and policymakers to step up action.
“International public financing for renewable energy needs to accelerate, especially in the poorest, most vulnerable countries. We have failed to support those most in need,” said Francesco La Camera, Director-General of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), one of the partners.
“With only eight years left to achieve universal access to affordable and sustainable energy, we need radical actions to accelerate the increase of international public financial flows and distribute them in a more equitable manner, so 733 million people who are currently left behind can enjoy the benefits of clean energy access.”
Vulnerable countries affected
COVID-19 impacts such as lockdowns, supply chain disruptions, and diversion of fiscal resources to keep food and fuel prices affordable, have affected progress towards achieving SDG 7.
The world’s most vulnerable countries have been particularly affected. Nearly 90 million people in Asia and Africa, who previously gained access to electricity, can no longer afford to pay for their basic energy needs.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has compounded the situation, as it has led to uncertainty in global oil and gas markets, as well as soaring energy prices.
The report said Africa remains the least electrified in the world, with 568 million people without access. Sub-Saharan Africa’s share of the global population without electricity rose from 71 per cent in 2018 to 77 per cent in 2020, while most other regions saw declines.
Progress and setbacks
Furthermore, although 70 million people globally gained access to clean cooking fuels and technologies, this progress was not enough to keep pace with population growth, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The report found that despite continued disruptions in economic activity and supply chains, renewable energy was the only energy source to grow through the pandemic.
Yet, many countries most in need of electricity have been left behind – a situation that was further aggravated by a decrease in international financial flows for a second consecutive year.
SDG7 also includes targets towards energy efficiency. From 2010 to 2019, global annual improvements in energy intensity averaged around 1.9 percent, which is well below the levels needed to both meet the targets and to make up for lost ground.
Call for commitment
The SDG7 custodians are IRENA and the International Energy Agency (IEA), the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), the World Bank, and the World Health Organization (WHO).
They recalled that the UN High-Level Dialogue on Energy, held last September, brought together governments and stakeholders to accelerate action to achieve a sustainable energy future that leaves no one behind.
The partners urged the international community and policymakers to safeguard gains toward SDG 7, and to remain committed to continued action towards affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all. They must also maintain focus on countries needing the most support.
For people and planet
Dr. Maria Neira of the World Health Organization (WHO) emphasized why access to clean cooking is critical.
She said millions of people are killed through heart disease, stroke, cancer, and pneumonia because they still rely on dirty cooking fuels and technologies which are major sources of air pollution.
“Women and children are particularly at risk – they spend the most time in and around the home and therefore carry the heaviest burden to their health and well-being,” said Dr. Neira, Director of WHO’s Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health.
“Transitioning to clean and sustainable energy will not only contribute to make people healthier, it will also protect our planet and mitigate the impacts of climate change,” she added.
The Steam Deck is a powerful little handheld capable of playing a lot of amazing games. OK, well it’s not that little, but it makes up for its bulky size with sheer power and Steam’s seemingly endless library of software. For our Top 10 Steam Deck Games list, we wanted to set up a few parameters for our recommendations, including the kind of games it’s capable of running, how well it runs them, and portability.
Sure, you can run games like Vampire Survivors or Tunic on it, and we’ve sunk our fair share of hours into each, but part of the spectacle is that the Steam Deck can run huge triple-A games on the go. There are a few caveats, of course. Some of these games are pretty massive in file size or require an initial internet connection, and even some mild tweaking in the settings to get running well, but hey, it wouldn’t be PC gaming without those things after all.
So, without further ado, here are our Top 10 Games for the Steam Deck!
10. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
Hideo Kojima’s final Metal Gear Solid is an ambitious stunner, and the Steam Deck has no troubles at all running it in silky smooth 60 frames per second. And that is a very good thing, because the sandbox available to you is every bit as detailed and sophisticated as you can hope for.
While another Kojima game, Death Stranding, is heavily advertised as playable on Steam Deck, Metal Gear Solid 5’s tactical espionage action could be the Kojima game worth checking out on the Steam Deck instead.
9. Mass Effect: Legendary Edition
When it comes to 100-hour epic RPGs, you can’t beat the convenience of playing on a handheld device. It’s just so nice to be able to play anywhere in the house or on the go. And action-RPGs don’t get much more epic than the space-faring trilogy collected in the Mass Effect Legendary Edition.
The trilogy’s incredible storytelling stands the test of time, and the updates made to the trilogy, most notably to the original Mass Effect, help modernize the gameplay experience, too. While it’s a small hassle to sign in with EA Origin each time you open it on Steam Deck, that’s a small price to pay to play this incredible collection of games in handheld form.
8. Yakuza: Like a Dragon
Because of their turn-based gameplay, JRPGs are almost perfect for gaming on the go, and getting to play one of the best JRPGs on console and PCs anywhere is a true treat. Yakuza: Like a Dragon may have exchanged the series’ beat ’em up mechanics with a crazy, over-the-top turn-based combat system, but the experience on the Steam Deck feels like an evolution from playing RPGs like Pokemon on the Game Boy. Except instead of using cute monsters, you’re summoning gangsters and vagabonds to help you climb to the top of the criminal underworld in a gorgeous RPG.
And if turn-based isn’t your style, the other Yakuza games play perfectly well on the Steam Deck too if you rather just punch and kick people instead of waiting for your turn.
7. Doom Eternal
The Doom franchise has been synonymous with PC gaming from the jump, pushing hardware and evolving the first person shooter genre with rips, tears, and chainsaws through hell. So it’s only natural that the latest entry in the series totally kicks ass on the portable PC Steam Deck as well.
Aside from some tiny text that may have you pushing your screen a little closer to your blood soaked visor than expected, Doom Eternal is an absolute blast in handheld form and definitely a step up from 2020’s Nintendo Switch port.
6. Devil May Cry 5
Capcom’s legendary ultra-stylish action game Devil May Cry 5 first launched in 2019, but it practically feels brand new as a handheld game on Steam Deck. The bite-sized stages and gargantuan bosses are totally rife for infinite replayability, challenging players to top their combos and scores as they gun down, slash, wire dash, air hike, and enemy step their way through hordes of nightmarish beasts and bad guys.
The combat is simple in design but totally limitless in execution, encouraging players to experiment with endless combinations of attacks however they please. Devil May Cry 5 absolutely rules, and you owe it to yourself to play it if you really love action games.
5. Resident Evil Village
Yes, we know that the latest entry in the Resident Evil series is currently not verified for Steam Deck. However, several IGN staffers that owned a copy on Steam installed it on our Steam Decks and found it runs surprisingly well despite not being verified.
It is a superb out-of-the-box experience, allowing you to endure Ethan Winter’s latest brutal, violent, and campy survival horror journey from start to finish without going into the handheld’s settings to tinker with things to get it running. While it is just as fun to play the single-player campaign in all its glory, The Mercenaries Mode is especially enjoyable as its arcade-style concept makes it feel right at home as if it were a handheld title.
Control is a monster of a game that even gave the PS4 Pro some trouble when it launched. But the Steam Deck is handling Remedy’s paranormal action game with gusto. You may have to lower a few settings, but on the smaller screen, Control looks awesome and getting to play through Remedy’s maze of a game on the go is a true joy.
The brutalist architecture meets sci-fi action is a total trip, as is the fantastic story that definitely goes to some places that you won’t see coming. Another trip through The Oldest House might be just the perfect start to your new Steam Deck.
3. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
Combining some of the best elements from games like The Legend of Zelda, Metroid Prime, Dark Souls, and Uncharted, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order delivers the planet-hopping single player lightsaber adventure game Star Wars fans had been hoping for.
After a quick install of EA Origin, the Steam Deck runs Fallen Order smoothly, and the game is a blast in handheld form, whether you’re curled up on the couch or traveling across the galaxy in your Stinger Mantis. If you’ve never played Fallen Order or you want an excuse to revisit Cal Kestis’ and BD-1’s action-packed journey against the dark side, the Steam Deck is a fantastic place to play.
2. Grand Theft Auto 5
Grand Theft Auto 5 is a game you’ve almost certainly played before, perhaps for hundreds of hours. And yet the ability to take this old, familiar game with you anywhere somehow manages to breathe brand new life into it. In many ways, the sandbox world of violence and crime it offers is well suited for on-the-go gaming. It’s easy to lose yourself in the many distractions Los Santos offers, and passing time on a real city bus while you hijack a GTA city bus is a rare level of portable-gaming inception.
There’s a new feeling of magic having the world of GTA5 shrunk down, and its age actually works in its favor, performance-wise. You can turn every setting, and we mean EVERY setting, to its highest levels and it still runs great. Since it’s on a small screen, you won’t even notice it’s at 1200×800 resolution. You’ll just take note of the smooth gameplay as you jump a sports car into a crowded intersection just because you feel like it.
1. Elden Ring
Somehow, From Software’s Elden Ring manages to run pretty darn well on the Steam Deck, and in our opinion, even sometimes plays a little bit smoother than its PC counterpart. With tons of hours under our belt, the Elden Ring on-the-go experience has been a delight. All the same praise Elden Ring earns while playing on PC or console applies to the Steam Deck experience.
The vastness of the world you can explore, the build options you have as a player, the surprises around every corner all come together to create one of the most incredible action RPG experiences of all time, easily placing Elden Ring at the top of the list of our favorite Steam Deck games.
And that’s our list of the top 10 games on Steam Deck! We hope you brought along a pretty big micro-SD card because you’ll definitely need it to download all of the games we just mentioned, plus the ever-growing list of Steam Deck Verified games! Also maybe Windows, Photoshop, MS Paint, Spider-Man Cartoon Maker, and pretty much anything else you wanna throw on there. It is a pretty powerful and portable PC after all.
Do you have a Steam Deck? Are you still refreshing Valve’s pre-order waitlist page waiting for yours? Or do you maybe want to get one down the line? Let us know what games you’ve been playing or what games you plan on playing when you get your hands on a Steam Deck. Until next time, for all things gaming – at home or on the go and on small handhelds and gigantic ones – keep it right here on IGN.
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