COVID-19 and climate change are two sides of the same coin. To overcome both we must confront their root cause: an economic system that is killing the planet.
Xinhua/SIPA USA/PA Images
7 January 2021 (openDemocracy)* — Last year will be remembered for many things, and let’s be honest: most of them will be bad. But amidst the hardship and suffering, there is a positive story to be told.
2020 was perhaps the first time in living memory when governments around the world took radical action to put the interests of public health and wellbeing above that of private profit. For a world that is so dominated by the logic of capitalism, that’s no small triumph.
10 January 2021 (Wall Street International)* — Paul Hoffman is the former editor of Discover magazine. He tells how in the April 1995 issue, the magazine announced a startling development in the world of science. Respected wildlife biologist Dr. Aprile Pazzo found a news species of mammal he named the Hotheaded Naked Ice Borer. It was a hairless mole-like creature that lived in tunnels under the Antarctic ice shelf. The top of its head was covered with bony plates fed by blood vessels that could turn the plates red-hot.
Italy has been given, for 2021, the Chairmanship of the Group of 20 | Image from Wall Street International.
9 January 2021 (Wall Street International)* — Italy has been given, for 2021, the Chairmanship of the Group of 20, which gather the 20 most important countries of the world. They represent, on paper, 60% of the world population, and 80% of the World’s Gross Domestic Product.
While the shaky Italian government will somehow absorb this task (in the general indifference of the political system), fact remains that this apparently prestigious position is in fact very deceiving: the G20 is now a very weak institution, that does not bring anything to the rotating chairman.
The roll-out of COVID vaccines gives much-needed hope. But without fundamental reform of the drug industry, inequality and mistrust will cost lives both nationally and globally.
A woman getting vaccinated at a drive-through Covid-19 vaccination centre in Manchester |Peter Byrne/PA Wire/PA Images
9 January 2021 (openDemocracy)* — If there’s one thing keeping us going through this dark and difficult January, it is surely this: the end is in sight, a vaccine is here. While many of us in Britain are in a state of deep despair at the incompetence of our government, the speed and ingenuity of those who have researched and developed the vaccines is something to applaud.
7 January 2021 (IWGIA)* — Human rights violations have escalated in Asia during the COVID-19 pandemic. Indigenous Peoples are disproportionately affected, putting the structural inequalities and discrimination that Indigenous Peoples face into sharper focus as they are met by multiple threats simultaneously.
Governments in Asia are passing legislation for controversial development projects on the basis of the need for economic recovery, meaning that Indigenous communities witness their land being overtaken by development activities to an exacerbating degree.
FAO Food Price Index reached a three-year high over all of 2020
Robiola cheese in Italy.
Rome (FAO)* – World food prices rose for the seventh consecutive month in December, led by dairy products and vegetable oils, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations on 7 January 2021 reported.
The FAO Food Price Index averaged 107.5 points in December, 2.2 percent higher than in November. Over the whole of 2020, the benchmark index, which tracks monthly changes in the international prices of commonly-traded food commodities, averaged 97.9 points, a three-year high and a 3.1 percent increase from 2019 although still more than 25 percent below its historical 2011 peak.
8 January 2021 (UN News)* — People worldwide have overwhelmingly highlighted their faith in multilateralism to address global challenges, the results of a year-long survey by the United Nations has shown.
The UN75 initiative was launched by Secretary-General António Guterres, in January last year, to understand the global public’s hopes and fears for the future, as well as their expectations and ideas for international cooperation, and for the UN in particular.
More than 1.5 million people from 195 countries took part in the campaign through surveys and dialogues. “The UN75 global consultation showed that 97 per cent of respondents support international cooperation to tackle global challenges,” Mr. Guterres said on the results.
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 8 2021 (IPS)* – The storming of Capitol Hill in Washington DC by an unruly mob is reminiscent of an insurrection in a “banana republic” –as hilariously portrayed in the 1971 Woody Allen comedy “Bananas” spoofing a revolt in a fictional Latin American country.
But judged by the disastrous four-year administration of President Trump such a description is an insult to all banana republics.
US President Donald Trump at a meeting of the Security Council. Credit: United Nations
Trump’s presidency has been characterized by misgovernment, corruption, lies, xenophobia, nepotism, arrogance, and ultimately, contempt for the country’s democratic electoral process.
For long, America has been the world’s self-appointed cop ousting dictatorships and overthrowing authoritarian regimes (read: Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan), upholding human rights and preaching peace – even while selling millions of dollars in weapons to conflict-ridden countries.
7 January 2021 (openDemocracy)* — Filipino healthcare workers have found themselves thrust to the frontlines of the pandemic to care for the most vulnerable across the globe. The Philippines is one of the world’s leading labour-sending countries, facilitating the migration of an estimated 2.2 million overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) during the period April to September 2019.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 