Indicators such as the level of poverty, healthcare capacity, access to internet and social protection can portray how severe the effects of the COVID-19 crisis might be in each of 189 countries.
Community workers promote coronavirus prevention awareness and distribute hygiene packages among poor urban households in Bangladesh / Photo: UNDP Bangladesh/Fahad Kaize.
New York (UNDP)* – The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) today [29 April 2020] released two new data dashboards that highlight the huge disparities in countries’ abilities to cope with and recover from the COVID-19 crisis.
29 April 2020 (IWGIA)* — As large parts of the world’s population are sitting at home in self- and authority-imposed isolation watching the development of the major public health crisis, governments in some countries are taking advantage of the situation and moving on with their repressive agendas cracking down on opposition groups , silencing human rights defenders and independent media, and subjecting entire ethnic groups to brutal military campaigns.
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 29 2020 (IPS) – China and India, which went to war back in 1962 largely over a disputed Himalayan border– and continue a longstanding battle for military supremacy in Asia– have set a new record in arms spending.
Credit: SIPRI
For the first time, the world’s two most populous nations, accounting for a total of over 2.7 billion people, are now among the top three military spenders, ranking behind the United States.
In its latest report on global military expenditures, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) says the five largest spenders in 2019, accounting for 62 per cent of expenditures, were the United States, China, India, Russia and Saudi Arabia, in descending order.
27 April 2020 (UN Environment)* — The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the vulnerability of our global systems when it comes to environmental, health and economic issues. As the crisis continues, there is an increasing recognition of how multiple economic, social and institutional drivers exacerbate environment risks, including global heating, resilience and human health.
Authoritarian-leaning countries in southeast Asia are using the Covid-19 pandemic as a pretext to further repress human rights, which the Australian government cannot afford to ignore.
In Cambodia, a new state of emergency law will further entrench the rule of strongman Prime Minister Hun Sen, already one of the world’s longest-serving political leaders.
The number of people fleeing conflict or violence but remaining within their own countries has reached an all-time high, according to a report published today [28 April 2020] by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC). | Español | Français
The report reveals that 8.5 million new displacements resulting from conflict or violence were recorded in 2019. Another 25 million were triggered by disasters such as cyclones and hurricanes.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 