25 January 2021 – The 1,000 richest people on the planet recouped their COVID-19 losses within just nine months, but it could take more than a decade for the world’s poorest to recover from the economic impacts of the pandemic, reveals a new Oxfam report today. ‘The Inequality Virus’ is being published on the opening day of the World Economic Forum’s ‘Davos Agenda’.
The report shows that COVID-19 has the potential to increase economic inequality in almost every country at once, the first time this has happened since records began over a century ago. Rising inequality means it could take at least 14 times longer for the number of people living in poverty to return to pre-pandemic levels than it took for the fortunes of the top 1,000, mostly White male, billionaires to bounce back.
31 January 2021 (UN News)* — Helping women start and grow businesses in the world’s poorest countries is a path to lifting them and their families out of poverty, the high-profile businesswoman, and new UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) Goodwill Ambassador Sonia Gardner, has told UN News, in the second of our two part series this weekend, on the role the financial sector can play in reducing inequality.
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UNCDF | The United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) is supporting women’s economic empowerment in the world’s 47 Least Developed Countries (LDCs).
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Moroccan-born Ms. Gardner, is one of the most prominent senior women in the financial sector, and has been an industry leader for over two decades, as president of a multi-billion dollar New York-based global alternative investment fund.
Sophisticated nation-state cyber-attacks involved U.S. federal agencies | Image from Wall Street International.
You’ve been hacked. It was by a nation-state.
27 January 2021 (Wall Street International)* — The latest example of this type of cyber attack involved U.S. federal agencies and high-profile companies that were breached via a compromised and weaponized version of a software update from a connected third party.
World Food Programme calls for more than $130m to reach displaced people and host communities on the brink
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People who’ve fled Cabo Delgado wait for humanitarian assistance in Palma, Mozambique. Photo: WFP/Sean Rajman
Escalating violence in northern Mozambique is pushing hundreds of thousands of people into food insecurity, according to Lola Castro, the World Food Programme (WFP)‘s Regional Director for Southern Africa.
“The situation is dire,” she says. “The food assistance WFP is providing every month is not enough for people to survive. ”
Without a cash injection of US$132.4 million to sustain operations for a year, rations may be cut and food distribution may stop altogether — the operation needs US$10.5 million for the next month.
World Food Programme and UNICEF call on governments to act on nutrition crisis as Covid-19 school closures reduce the diets of 370 million of the most vulnerable children by 40 percent
Mozambique: Schoolgirls in Beira receive rations before schools close in April. Photo: Karel Prinsloo/Arete/UN Mozambique
(UN News)* — The European Union’s failure to lift 20 million people out of poverty by 2020, is “a defeat for social rights”, an independent UN human rights expert said on Friday [29 January 2021], urging the bloc to boldly rethink its whole socio-economic approach.
World Bank/Mano Strauch | Some 20 million children in the EU are at risk of poverty according to the Special Rapporteur’s report.
“Since the EU has experienced steady economic and employment growth until very recently, the only explanation for this failure is that the benefits have not been evenly distributed”, he said.
30 January 2021 (UN News)* — Reducing inequality is one of the UN’s flagship goals, but the gulf between rich and poor worldwide, remains persistently high. In the first of a special two-part series on the financial sector this weekend, Hiro Mizuno, the newly-appointed UN Special Envoy on Innovative Finance and Sustainable Investments, explains how the industry can help to create a fairer, more equitable world.
Before his appointment as Special Envoy, on 30 December 2020, Mr. Mizuno, of Japan, served as Chief Investment Officer of the Japan Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF). He serves on the board of the Principles for Responsible Investment Association (PRI, an UN-backed body that aims to create sustainable markets that contribute to a more prosperous world for all), and has taken part in UN discussions on promoting the Sustainable Development Goals.
(UN News)* — Violence and insecurity related to the recent elections in the Central African Republic (CAR) has forced more than 200,000 people to flee their homes in less than two months, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Friday [29 January 2021], warning tens of thousands are facing dire living conditions.
More than half are displaced within the country, but 92,000 people have crossed into the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), while more than 13,200 are now in Cameroon, Chad and the Republic of the Congo.
The majority of Americans, and the vast majority of people in other countries throughout the world, heaved a sigh of relief when Joe Biden won the 2020 US presidential election. Hopes for the future soared, as the world seemed to be rid of Trump at last!
There is so much wrong with Donald Trump that one hardly knows where to start. He is a bully, braggart, narcissist, racist, misogynist, habitual liar, and tax evader, in addition to being demonstrably ignorant.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 