Since late November, braving the bitter cold, hundreds of thousands of farmers have set up protest camps at various points on the borders of India’s capital, New Delhi. Their main demand is the withdrawal of the three farm laws rammed through parliament by the right-wing Narendra Modi government in September. Farmers fear these laws will drive down the prices they get for their produce and pave the way for greater corporatization of agriculture. Noted economist Prabhat Patnaik analyzes some of the key arguments being made in this context.
A farmer looks skyward as he sits amid his wheat crop in the Indian state of Rajasthan. (AP / Deepak Sharma)
Nairobi, 14 January 2021 (UNEP)* – As temperatures rise and climate change impacts intensify, nations must urgently step up action to adapt to the new climate reality or face serious costs, damages and losses, a new UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report finds.
Adaptation – reducing countries’ and communities’ vulnerability to climate change by increasing their ability to absorb impacts – is a key pillar of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. The agreement requires its signatories to implement adaptation measures through national plans, climate information systems, early warning, protective measures and investments in a green future.
Geneva, 14 January 2021 (WMO)* – The year 2020 was one of the three warmest on record, and rivalled 2016 for the top spot, according to a consolidation of five leading international datasets by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). A naturally occurring cooling climate phenomenon, La Niña, put a brake on the heat only at the very end of the year.
2020 was the warmest decade on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization.
All five datasets surveyed by WMO concur that 2011-2020 was the warmest decade on record, in a persistent long-term climate change trend. The warmest six years have all been since 2015, with 2016, 2019 and 2020 being the top three.
The differences in average global temperatures among the three warmest years – 2016, 2019 and 2020 – are indistinguishably small. The average global temperature in 2020 was about 14.9°C, 1.2 (± 0.1) °C above the pre-industrial (1850-1900) level.
15 January 2021 (UN News)* — UN agencies have stepped up efforts to help thousands of Rohingya refugees left without shelter after a devastating fire tore through a crowded refugee camp in south-eastern Bangladesh on Thursday [14 January 2021].
WFP Bangladesh | A devastating fire broke out on 14 January in Nayapara refugee camp, southern Bangladesh, destroying over 500 shelters.
The fire erupted shortly after midnight on Thursday (local time) in the Nayapara refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, gutting about 550 shelters and 150 shops. A community centre is also said to have been destroyed.
14 January 2021 (UN News)* — Israel’s “impressive” vaccination programme against the COVID-19 pandemic must include Palestinians under occupation, UN independent human rights experts stressed on Wednesday [13 January 2021].
UNRWA/Louise Wateridge | A health worker provides COVID-19 information to a patient visiting the Jerusalem Health Center.
“In this early stage of the worldwide inoculation programme, Israel has delivered the vaccines to a higher percentage of its citizens than any other country”, said Special Rapporteurs Michael Lynk and Tlaleng Mofokeng.
While noting that Israel has offered Palestinians with resident status in occupied East Jerusalem the vaccines, they noted however, that it has not ensured that those under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza will have any near-future access to the vaccine.
(UN News)* — The UN’s labour agency (ILO) on 13 January 2021 called for greater recognition and protection for the hundreds of millions of people who work from home, accounting for almost eight per cent of the global workforce even before the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Since movement restrictions linked to the global spread of the virus were implement in many countries, the number of people working from home has increased sharply, and that trend is expected to continue in coming years, despite the rollout of vaccines that began in late 2020.
(Brussels) – The Covid-19 pandemic had a profound impact on the lives and rights of people across the European Union, Human Rights Watch on 13 January 2021 said in its World Report 2021.
(New York) – The Indian government increasingly harassed, detained, and prosecuted activists, journalists, and others critical of the government or its policies, Human Rights Watch o 11 January 2021 said in its World Report 2021.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government brought politically motivated cases, including under broadly worded sedition and counterterrorism laws, against human rights defenders, student activists, academics, opposition members, and other critics.
Innovative FAO study maps urban-rural catchment areas and points to ways to optimize policy and planning coordination for agriculture, services and agri-food systems
Southern Africa’s rural-urban pattern.
ROME, 12 January 2021 (FAO)* — Fewer than one percent of the global population live in truly remote hinterlands, sharpening the need for better understanding of how urban forms impact food systems as well as social and economic development, according to ground-breaking new research by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the University of Twente.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 