05/02/2019
4 February 2019 — The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – the UN’s blueprint for a better and more sustainable future for all – calls for a reduction in inequality between and within countries. Nevertheless, global inequality is increasing. So what can be done?
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@ UNICEF/Sebastian Rich| Five-year-old Kiara makes a sale in a commuter train car in Buenos Aires, the capital. She has been working in the Subte, the city’s mass transit system, selling hairpins and other cheap goods, since she was three years old.
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Inequality is an “entrenched imbalance”
The question of inequality was raised several times by the UN in January: speaking at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, UN chief António Guterres pointed out that, while technological progress and globalization have led to “fantastic improvements” in many areas, they have also increased inequality and marginalized millions.
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05/02/2019
With mercenaries undermining global peace and security and weakening States’ capacities to protect their people, the UN Security Council on Monday [4 February 2019] shone its spotlight on their activities as a source of destabilization in Africa.
UN Photo/Evan Schneider | Secretary-General António Guterres addresses the Security Council meeting on mercenary activities as a source of insecurity and destabilization in Africa.
“From antiquity to the medieval era to the present-day, those who fight for financial reward or other material compensation have been a near constant on the battlefield”, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Council, noting that the shadowy nature of mercenary activities has evolved over the years.
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04/02/2019
How respecting fruits and vegetables can help fight food waste.

Nicole Klaski, Founder of THE GOOD FOOD, finds a heart-shaped potato while going through discarded produce at a local farm. Last year the farm had to abandon roughly half of its potato harvest. ©FAO/Gregory Beals
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4 February 2019 (FAO)* — The carrots are shaped like crow’s feet. The cucumbers are crooked. The potatoes are heart-shaped or just too small. A cob of corn is missing a few kernels. For most German supermarkets, such oddly-shaped vegetables do not qualify for the shelves. More often than not they end up in the garbage heap.
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03/02/2019
World Wetlands Day on 2 February is a chance to highlight the vital role of peatlands in mitigating climate change.
1 February 2019 (UN Environment)* — “Strategies that address climate change must include the wise use of wetlands,” says UN Environment peatlands expert Dianna Kopansky.
“We’ve already lost 35 per cent of them since 1970. Individuals, communities and governments must work together to protect these amazing ecosystems, which help us prepare for, cope with and bounce back from the impacts of climate change.”
Peatlands cover only about three per cent of our planet’s land, but account for nearly half the world’s wetlands.
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03/02/2019
As Trump suspends the 1987 INF Treaty [Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty], Putin retaliates. What can be done to prevent a new nuclear arms race from endangering Europe – and the world – again?

3 February 2019 (openDemocray)* — On
1 February the White House announced US “suspension” of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev signed in 1987. A day later Vladimir Putin announced Russia would suspend as well.
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Freed of the Treaty’s restraints, Russia is now posed to deploy a new generation of medium-range nuclear weapons on its territory again.
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03/02/2019
The US suspension of and withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) is an irresponsible move that opens the path for a new-nuclear arms race and highlights the importance of real multilateral, binding solutions like the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
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With Russia and the US putting the entire world at risk, it is urgent for all responsible states to stand up and join the Nuclear Ban Treaty.
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03/02/2019
By Robert J. Burrowes Ph.D.
DAYLESFORD, Australia, 3 February 2019

Robert J. Burrowes
To the People of Venezuela
Yet again, the United States elite has decided to attempt to impose its will on the people of another nation, in this case, and not for the first time either, your country Venezuela.
On 23 January 2019, following careful secret planning in the preceding weeks and a late night telephone call the previous day from US Vice President Mike Pence – see ‘Pence Pledged U.S. Backing Before Venezuela Opposition Leader’s Move’ and ‘Venezuela – Trump’s Coup Plan Has Big Flaws’ – the US initiated a coup against your President, Nicolás Maduro, and his Government, whom you democratically re-elected to represent you on 20 May 2018. See ‘The Case for the Legitimacy of Maduro’s Second Term’.
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02/02/2019
1 February 2019 — Small shelters, some covered in the ubiquitous white sheeting provided by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), dot the dusty grey sun-bleached plain around the village of Goura, in the far north-east of Cameroon.
UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe | Some 35,000 Nigerians have fled across the north-eastern border into Cameroon in the last two weeks of January. (1 February 2019)
Hebibi Toudjum‘s shelter is so low to the ground she needs to crawl into it. She arrived from the village of Rann 7km across the border in Nigeria six days ago after fleeing a killing spree perpetrated by the terrorist group Boko Haram.
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02/02/2019
“High impact weather” has gripped much of the world so far this year, the UN weather agency, WMO, reported on Friday [1 February 2019], with “dangerous and extreme cold in North America, record high heat and wildfires in Australia, heavy rains in parts of South America, and heavy snow on the Alps and Himalayas.
Daniel Johnson/UNOG | A view of the Palais des Nations, seat of the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG), ahead of snowstorm. 01 February 2019.
The WMO assessment of January’s weather, published on Friday, describes it as “a month of extremes”, with large parts of North America gripped by bitterly cold temperatures, caused by the influence of the
Polar Vortex.
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01/02/2019
Call to revitalize ‘language of the ancestors’ for survival of future generations: Indigenous chief
UN Photo/Manuel Elias | Cultural performance by the Kwakwaka Dancers during a High-level Event to launch the International Year of Indigenous Languages.
Hundreds of ancestral languages have gone silent in recent generations, taking with them the culture, knowledge and traditions of the people who spoke them. To preserve and revitalize those that remain, the United Nations on Friday [1 February 2019] officially launched the International Year of Indigenous Languages, at UN Headquarters in New York.
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