16/02/2021
UN Environment Assembly sets stage for green recovery

REUTERS/Pilar Olivares / 15 Feb 2021
15 February 2021 (UNEP)* — In addition to the tragic loss of life, COVID-19 has rolled back decades of progress on poverty, gender and health. It has exposed social and economic inequalities and the inextricable link between human and planetary health.
The pandemic is just one symptom of the damage that human activity has caused. The extraction and consumption of nature’s resources have also resulted in crises of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and growing volumes of pollution and waste.
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15/02/2021
Victoria Nuland exemplifies the neocons who have led US foreign policy from one disaster to another for the past 30 years while evading accountability. It is a bad sign that President Joe Biden has nominated Victoria Nuland for the third highest position at the State Department, Under Secretary for Political Affairs.

Rick Sterling
As a top-level appointee, Victoria Nuland must be confirmed by the US Senate. There is a campaign to Stop her confirmation.
The following review of her work shows why Victoria Nuland is incompetent, highly dangerous and should not be confirmed.
Afghanistan and Iraq
From 2000 to 2003, Nuland was US permanent representative to NATO as the Bush administration attacked then invaded Afghanistan. The Afghan government offered to work with the US remove Al Qaeda, but this was rejected.
After Al Qaeda was defeated, the US could have left Afghanistan but instead stayed, established semi-permanent bases, split the country, and is still fighting there two decades later.
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15/02/2021
By Hilde F. Johnson, Norway’s Former Minister of International Development*
This is certainly not the time to leave the region to its own devices
The Horn of Africa is the playground for the rising aspirations of several geopolitical actors | Image from Wall Street International.
15 February 2021 (Wall Street International)* — The Trump administration left a vacuum in many parts of Africa. This had consequences. When the US retreats, others come in and occupy the space. China has gone full speed ahead with the Belt and Road initiative, massively investing in many African countries, nurturing new friendships. The Gulf States have used the opportunity to approach new allies on the African continent, in a battle for hegemony in the Middle East and beyond.
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13/02/2021
A letter to Greta Thunberg: connecting with the Earth
Dear Greta,
After I’d begun learning about telecommunications’ public health and environmental impacts; after more children than I can count became screen addicts; after studies showed that using a mobile phone increases risk of cancer (but didn’t get media attention) and far too many people got brain or tongue or thyroid cancer; after countless legislative sessions prohibited policymakers from considering the health or environmental effects of exposure to electromagnetic radiation when they voted to permit or deny new transmitting cellular antennas; after learning that 5G mobile networks’ deployment will increase telecommunications’ energy use and greenhouse gas emissions exponentially and increase the public’s and wildlife’s exposure to electromagnetic radiation, I admitted to myself that I am powerless over telecom corporations and that my life has become unmanageable.
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13/02/2021
ADDIS ABABA/NAIROBI/GENEVA/NEW YORK, 12 February 2021 (UNICEF)* – As more supplies and emergency personnel reach crisis-affected people in Tigray, an incomplete but troubling picture is emerging of severe and ongoing harm to children.
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Between 4 February and 7 February, a UNICEF team accompanied by the Regional Health Bureau Head travelled from Mekelle to the town of Shire in Central Tigray, with six trucks filled with 122 tons of emergency supplies. This was the first UN mission to Shire since the conflict erupted on 4 November 2020.
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13/02/2021
(UN News)* — More children could be pushed into the joining armed forces and armed groups due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, senior United Nations and European Union (EU) officials said on International Day against the Use of Child Soldiers, observed on Thursday
[12 February 2021].
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UNICEF/Sebastian Rich | A child solider sits on a log during a ceremony to release children from an armed group in South Sudan, in 2018. However, the risks of recruitment and use of children by armed forces and groups have risen due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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In a joint statement EU High Representative Josep Borrell and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict Virginia Gamba also warned that very few among those released by armed forces and groups are able to access reintegration programmes or support.
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12/02/2021
BELGRADE, Serbia/LAGHMAN PROVINCE, Afghanistan /ESKİŞEHİR, Turkey, 11 February 2021 (UNFPA)* – How much is a girl worth? If you are Maja, the answer is a chicken, a six-pack of beer and €100. That is how much her family, living in a Roma settlement in Serbia, received in exchange for her hand “in marriage.” She was 11 years old at the time. “They benefited maybe a month from it, and I was left with a problem for my whole life,” Maja, now 18, said.
Sixteen-year-old Fethiye fled war in Iran – and the likelihood of child marriage – to Turkey. © UNFPA Turkey
“My three sisters didn’t do much better. One gave birth when she turned 13. They were not sold, but they ran away from our mother at an early age. I was the only one who was sold.”
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12/02/2021
10 February 2021 (UN News)* — The challenge of tackling climate change is one that the UN needs to talk about “honestly, without scaremongering” and by focusing on scientific fact, according to Inger Andersen, the Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).
© UNICEF/Maria Louise De La Gua | Some 700,000 people have been affected by floods in South Sudan, including in Pibor.
The UN agency which Ms Andersen describes as the “environmental conscience of the United Nations”, is at the centre of the global debate about sustainability, the environment and climate change.
The UNEP chief was interviewed by the Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications at the UN, Melissa Fleming, as part of the podcast series Awake at Night.
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12/02/2021
The United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), through a Quick Impact Project, supports community radio in Gao, Mali. PHOTO: UN Photo/Harandane Dicko
12 February 2021 (United Nations)* — World Radio Day 2021 (WRD 2021) celebrates radio as part of humanity’s history by following the various developments in our society and adapting its services. As the world changes, so does radio.
Thus, during the Covid-19 pandemic, radio made it possible, for example, to ensure continuity of learning, to fight against misinformation, and to promote barrier gestures.
“New World, New Radio” is, therefore, an ode to the resilience of radio. It is a tribute to its capacity for perpetual adaptation at the rate of societal transformations and listeners’ new needs. Accessible anywhere and anytime, radio reaches a broad audience. It presents itself as an arena where all voices can be expressed, represented, and heard hence why radio is still the most consumed medium worldwide today.
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