NEW YORK, Dec 22 2020 (IPS)* – The year 2020 is ending with the world caught up in an unprecedented human and economic crisis. The pandemic has contaminated 75 million people and killed 1.7 million. With the lockdowns, the global economy has suffered the worst recession in 75 years, causing the loss of income for millions of people. In such a bleak environment, what will the new year bring? Whilst uncertainty is the only certainty, eight points are likely to be key in the year ahead:
Isabel Ortiz
1. A gradual but uneven recovery With the deployment of vaccines and public support, high-income countries will be on the path to recovery from the second half of 2021.
However, middle income and particularly low income countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America will see recovery delayed – unless the UN or China provide them with sufficient COVID19 vaccines and governments escalate public support.
(IOM)* — Faced with the lack of options for safe and legal migration opportunities, thousands of Ethiopians leave the country every year using irregular channels to reach destinations in Northern Africa and Europe, the Gulf States and Southern Africa. These journeys are often risky, with thousands of Ethiopians believed to have died or gone missing, whether due to violence, vehicle accidents, shipwrecks or lack of access to medicine, shelter and food along the way.
(UN News)* — Reports of artillery strikes on civilians and mass killings of non-combatants in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, must be investigated and full access granted to independent investigators, UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet said on Tuesday [22 December 2020].
The appeal by the High Commissioner for Human Rights follows seven weeks of conflict in northern Ethiopia between central Government soldiers and Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) forces that has displaced tens of thousands.
22 December 2020 (UN News)* — A lack of safe water, sanitation and hygiene services have put approximately 250,000 children, displaced by escalating crises in a northern province of Mozambique, at risk from deadly diseases, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has warned.
UNICEF/Mauricio Bisol | The parents of this 10-year old girl at Metuge refugee camp in Cabo Delgado were killed by insurgents.
“In less than two years, children and families in Cabo Delgado have faced a devastating cyclone, flooding, drought, socioeconomic hardship linked to the COVID-19 pandemic and conflict”, said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore, on Monday [21 December 2020].
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 22 2020 (IPS)* – The United Nations, which is commemorating its 75th anniversary, continues to remain bogged down in one of the world’s most politically and militarily volatile regions: the Middle East.
The Leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Yasser Arafat, arrived at UN Headquarters by helicopter. A view of the helicopter as it approached the North Lawn of the UN campus on 13 November 1974. But Arafat was denied a US visa for a second visit to the UN in 1988. Credit: UN Photo/Michos Tzovaras
Virtually every other week, the Security Council has a predictable item on its agenda: “consultations on the Middle East”—perhaps a never-ending saga.
21 December 2020 (Wall Street International)* — Health for all? The conflict between dominant social groups and universal rights is once again exploding loud and clear. It’s blowing up the fictions, the lies and highlighting the mystifications and the harmful consequences of the “world” response of the powerful to Covid-19.
To date, representatives of the populations of more than 90 countries in the world, “low-income” as the powerful define them, are willing to defend the request for the suspension of patents on medicines and vaccines against Covid-19, a request that has already been rejected and which is once again strongly rejected by the most powerful countries in the occidental world.
Workers Still Owed Wages for Months After Informing Government of Abuse
(Beirut) – Qatari authorities have failed to provide redress for hundreds of migrant workers who are suffering from months of unpaid wages at two companies, even though authorities have repeatedly been informed of these abuses, Human Rights Watch on 22 December 2020 said.
21 December 2020 (UN News)* — The United Nations is marking 2021 as the International Year of Fruits and Vegetables, spotlighting their vital role in human nutrition and food security, as well as urging efforts to improve sustainable production and reduce waste.
UNICEF/Giacomo Pirozzi | Fresh fruit and vegetables are set out for cooking in a village in Muzaffargarh district in Pakistan.
As everyone knows, Adam Smith invented the theory that individual self-interest is, and ought to be, the main motivating force of human economic activity, and that this, in effect, serves the wider social interest. He put forward a detailed description of this concept in an immense book, “The Wealth of Nations” (1776).
Adam Smith (1723-1790) had been Professor of Logic at the University of Glasgow, but in 1764 he withdrew from his position at the university to become the tutor of the young Duke of Buccleuch.
In those days a Grand Tour of Europe was considered to be an important part of the education of a young nobleman, and Smith accompanied Buccleuch to the Continent. To while away the occasional dull intervals of the tour, Adam Smith began to write an enormous book on economics which he finally completed twelve years later.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 