GNEVA, 15 December 2016 (ILO)*– ‘Wage recovery in some developed economies – including the United States and Germany – was not sufficient to offset the decline in emerging and developing countries.’ – ILO Global Wage Report 2016/17
ILO
Wage growth around the world has decelerated since 2012, falling from 2.5 per cent to 1.7 per cent in 2015, its lowest level in four years.
If China, where wage growth was faster than elsewhere, is not included, growth in global wages dropped from 1.6 per cent to 0.9 per cent, according to the ILO’s Global Wage Report 2016/17 .
In much of the period following the 2008/09 financial crisis, wage growth was propelled by relatively strong wage growth in developing countries and regions. More recently, however, this trend has slowed or reversed.
AN INCREDIBLE piece of legislation is now being debated in Jerusalem.
Uri Avnery
The country is busy with a settlement called Amona. There, deep in the occupied territories, a few dozen Jewish families have set up an illegal settlement – illegal even under Israeli law, not to mention international law.
Trouble is, they did not take the trouble to find out who owns the land on which they settled. As it turns out, it actually belongs to private Arab farmers. The Israeli Supreme Court ordered the settlers to evacuate the site.
Evacuate Jews? Unthinkable! The Amonites swore “passive” resistance. This means calling upon tens of thousands of settlers from all over the occupied Palestinian territories to rush to the scene.
18 Dec, 2016 (RT)* – Has the Iran deal already been breached by Tehran? Even if it has, scrapping this deal brokered by President Obama, is not only foolish but against all that Trump stands for despite his Middle East hawks craving to bomb Iran.
A view of the Milad Tower and some residential buildings in the West Town of Tehran.| Author: Mehrad Watson | Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
President-elect Trump’s first foreign policy test could be his most polemic and one which Russia will watch carefully.
Geneva, Switzerland. The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) on 16 December 2016 reported that 7,189 migrants and refugees have died or remain missing on world migratory routes.*
Credit: OIM
This is the highest yearly number IOM has ever recorded, and represents an average of 20 deaths per day, suggesting the deaths of another 200-300 men, women and children well may be recorded worldwide before 2016 comes to an end.
This week’s number of migrant deaths recorded globally in 2016 was compiled by IOM’s Missing Migrants Project and Global Migration Data Analysis Centre.
By comparison, total fatalities compiled by IOM in 2014 (5,267) and 2015 (5,740) both fell hundreds of victims short of the 6,000 mark, a figure that was surpassed this year before the end of November.
18 December 2016 – Despite appearances and media spin, “migration does not have to be chaotic or seem like an invasion,” and as yet another turbulent year for millions of people on the move comes to an end, the United Nations is marking International Migrants Day with a worldwide call for more cooperation and a resolute rejection of intolerance and policies driven by xenophobic rhetoric.
Thousands of migrant workers, mainly from Egypt and Tunisia, wait to cross into Tunisia from Libya. (file) UN Photo/UNHCR/A Duclos
“We have seen the continued devastating effect of armed conflict on civilian populations […], witnessed the unacceptable loss of thousands of lives of people in transit in the Mediterranean and elsewhere, and the rise of populist movements that seek to […] blame [refugees and migrants] them for various ills of society,” said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in his message on the International Day.
14 December 2016 (UNICEF –Photography and social change)* – More than 4 million people — close to 40 percent of the population — are food insecure and the world’s youngest country is facing a crisis of malnutrition among children, according to UNICEF. In seven out of the country’s 10 states, more than 15 percent of the population is malnourished — which is above the global emergency threshold, it adds. An estimate 360,000 children under five years are suffering from severe acute malnutrition.
The United Nations human rights chief on 14 December 2016 urged the African Union to quickly establish the hybrid court for South Sudan to investigate and prosecute those bearing criminal responsibility for the atrocities.
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Thousands of internally displaced people gather at Emmanuel Church Compound in Yei, South Sudan. Photo: UNHCR/Rocco Nuri
“The knowledge that accountability structures exist and will be deployed against the perpetrators of mass atrocities can have real preventive impact,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, told the Human Rights Council during its 26th special session.
15 December 2016 – According to new figures released by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), some 1,300 children were recruited by armed forces and armed groups in 2016, bringing the total number of children used in conflict since 2013 to more than 17,000.
On 26 October 2016, children associated with the Cobra faction wait to be demobilized in Pibor, South Sudan. A total of 145 children from the Cobra Faction and SPLA-IO were disarmed and released by the two armed groups. Photo: UNICEF/Charles Lomodong
“Since the first day of this conflict, children have been the ones most devastatingly affected by the violations,” said Leila Gharagozloo-Pakkala, UNICEF’s Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa.
Given the scale of the disaster in South Sudan, the United Nations Security Council, regional organizations and the international community must step up to their responsibility to the help the country’s people, who have suffered through three years of bloody conflict, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on 16 December 2016 said in an opinion piece published by Newsweek.
Internally displaced persons (IDPs) line up early in the morning for a general food distribution at the UN Protection of Civilians Site, Malakal, South Sudan. Photo: IOM/Bannon
The UN chief recalled that following decades of war, South Sudan became the world’s newest country five years ago and when he attended the 2011 independence celebrations in the capital, Juba, “hopes were high that the long-suffering people of the oil-rich country would finally see the fruits of a peace dividend after a prolonged civil war. Instead, the people of South Sudan now face a more dismal anniversary.”
MINAWAO CAMP, Cameroon, Dec 16 2016 (IPS) – Tears spring to Aichatou Njoya’s eyes as she recalls the day Islamic militants from Boko Haram arrived on her doorstep in Nigeria.
UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi is received at the Minawao Camp in Cameroon’s Far North region on Dec. 15, 2016, where some 60,000 refugees have fled attacks by Boko Haram. Credit: Mbom Sixtus/IPS
“It was on May 24, 2013. My husband was sleeping in his room while I was on the other side of the house with our six children. The youngest was only one month old,” she mutters, pausing to collect herself.
Njoya told IPS when the armed insurgents broke into the house, they grabbed her husband and dragged him into her room.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 