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.
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.
7 January 2021 (Wall Street International)* — By mid-February 2021, American deaths from Covid-19 may well surpass the country’s 405,400 deaths during the Second World War.
By around mid-May, more Americans will have died from Covid-19 than during the Civil War, which killed 655,000, and the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, when 675,000 are estimated to have perished.
Meanwhile,” the COVID-19 pandemic has worsened the already dire humanitarian and socio-economic situation” Secretary-General António Guterres said at a meeting online last November, marking the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.
Patients arrive at a health centre in Gaza. Credit: UNRWA
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 7 2021 (IPS)* – If the coronavirus is not deemed a biological weapon, is the heavily-publicized Covid-19 vaccine in danger of being weaponized when over 159,000 Palestinians who have tested positive in Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) are being denied treatment during a deadly pandemic?
The London-based human rights organization Amnesty International (AI) says Israel’s vaccine roll-out plan excludes the nearly 5 million Palestinians who live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip under Israeli military occupation.
‘Lockdown’ was declared by Collins Dictionary as the Word of the Year for 2020.
Looking back, the world will remember 2020 as the year that disrupted our present-day lives: most of us were locked up for months and doing everything from home, unable to see and be with friends and loved ones, when everyone wore masks, scrubbed our hands with soap or alcohol, and practiced social distancing. Many felt worried and anxious about the uncertainties that came with lockdown living.
But amidst a raging pandemic, humanity was not spared from a much bigger threat. While some were feeling safe and secure in their homes, thousands of people were fighting for their survival against a raging climate.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 