Donald Trump announced a war crazed, hypersonic-weapon-fascinated businessman as the acting Defense Secretary to replace Jim Mattis.
Trump announced Patrick Shanahan as the new acting Defense Secretary of the United States. | Photo: Reuters | Photo fromteleSur.
23 December 2018 (teleSur)* — The United States President Donald Trump Sunday said he was replacing Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Jan. 1 with Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan in an acting capacity after Mattis resigned over policy differences, and offered to stay in his post for two more months.
Rome (FAO)* –FAO applauded 20 December 2018′s decision by the United Nations to create two new international days and one entire year devoted to central issues in global food security and nutrition.
Pulses for sale in Karachi, Pakistan. | Photo from FAO.
The UN General Assembly approved three new resolutions creating three awareness-raising initiatives, focused on plant health, food safety and pulses.
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia, 17 December 2018 (UNICEF)* —A new fish-based wafer snack – Nutrix, has been developed to treat severe acute malnutrition in children by UNICEF, the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD), Copenhagen University (CU) and Danish Care Foods (DCF), in collaboration with the Royal Government of Cambodia.
At the launch of the Nutrix production site in Phnom Penh, the partners announced that the ready-to-use-therapeutic food will be produced at scale, to address malnutrition in children in Cambodia.
(Greenpeace International)* — Flooding in Japan, unprecedented monsoons in India, a nearly 30% increase in rainfall throughout the Americas and 40% across Europe. Africa is seeing deadly droughts across Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya. Australia, Greece, Sweden, Portugal and the American Northwest’s horizons glowed red with wildfires because of heatwaves and drier seasons. The Philippines and Fiji were battered by some of the worst cyclones in history and the Maldives and the Marshall Islands are gradually drowning by sea level rise.
New York, 22 December 2018 (Human Rights Watch)* – A repressive political environment in Bangladesh ahead of the December 30, 2018 national elections is undermining the credibility of the process, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Bangladeshi authorities should impartially investigate allegations of election violence and ensure that those responsible are held to account.
21 December 2018 (UNHCR)* — They are dressed in extra-large white shirts, black leggings and a rainbow of scarfs. Some of the girls cover their heads with veils, others wear beads, braids or colourful nails. Coming from 19 different countries as refugees or immigrants, the girls and young women who form Pihcintu choir may look very different from each other, but when they sing, they do it in one voice.
“When we sing together, we sing as a family,” says Sara Ali, 16, from Sudan.
On the occasion of International Migrants Day, the ILO premieres a new documentary that aims to challenge common perceptions about migrant domestic workers.
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BEIRUT, 18 December 2018 (ILO)* – Like millions of others, Soma, now 57, left her home, friends and young children to become a domestic worker and provide for her family.
Some 30 years later, she travelled to her home village in Sri Lanka with Nour Sidani, the 24-year-old Lebanese woman she helped raise.
22 December 2018 (FAO)* – Diets vary greatly from place to place based on food availability, eating habits and culture. Yet, when it comes to food, there is a lot that we know about what is and what is not good for us and this is true no matter where we live.
After the Nicaraguan Government announced that it has asked two key human rights institutions to leave the country, the UN human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, said on 21 December 2018 that she was “extremely alarmed” by a decision that means, in effect, there will be “no functioning independent human rights bodies left in Nicaragua”.
Artículo 66 | Students protest in the Nicaraguan capital, Managua. (file July 2018)
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According to High Commissioner Bachelet, the two non-profit human rights organisations were set up by the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights (IACHR), “in full cooperation with the Government after the violence and unrest earlier this year”.
21 December 2018 – Women in Hoi An city in Viet Nam are profiting from rubbish and other waste while helping to create a more sustainable urban environment, thanks to a project supported by the UN Development Programme (UNDP).
UNDP Viet Nam | Women in Hoi An in Viet Nam have set up a waste management plan which not only recycles waste but also provides them with an income. (April 2017)
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Hoi An, a city of 120,000, has become a significant tourist destination with around 21 million visitors in 2016. Those tourists are producing around 75 tonnes of solid waste every single day – waste which a group of underprivileged women is turning into a profit.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 