18 December 2020 (UN News)* — The end of the pandemic is in sight but we must not let our guard down, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on 18 December 2020, as he welcomed the news that the global vaccine partnership COVAX has lined up almost two billion doses of existing and candidate vaccines for use worldwide.
BioNTech | The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is the first vaccine to be made readily available in some parts of the world.
The huge vaccine reservoir means that COVAX, a 190-country international initiative that seeks to ensure all countries have equal access to coronavirus vaccines, can plan to start delivering the shots in the first quarter of 2021.
(IWGIA)* –– “We cannot ignore the fact that year after year, Indigenous Peoples across the world have warned of the impending path we are on. They have been experiencing the effects of climate change first-hand. Despite constituting a mere 6% of the world’s population, they are protectors of vast territories that contain 80% of our remaining biodiversity. We should be listening to them for solutions for how to keep the global temperature rise within limits,” Stefan Thorsell, IWGIA Climate Advisor, said.
18 December 2020 (ILOSTAT)* — The international migration of women, either together with their family or on their own, is an increasingly important and complex phenomenon but remains insufficiently documented owing to a lack of data. New ILOSTAT data offer some insights on the profile of women looking for work and better opportunities abroad.
In 2017, women accounted for 42 per cent of the 164 million migrant workers around the world. ILOSTAT data show that the share of women in the working-age migrant population increased over the past decade in 24 out of the 63 countries for which time series are available, with particularly significant growth observed in Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Indonesia and Viet Nam.
BONN, Germany, Dec 18 2020 (IPS)* – While Afghanistan ends a historic year, filled with the hope for peace as the government and Taliban sat down for almost three months of consecutive peace talks for the first time in 19 years, it was also a year filled with violence with provisional statistics by the United Nations showing casualties for this year being higher than 2019.
19 December 2020 (United Natiions)* — The Sustainable Development Agenda is centred on people & planet, underpinned by human rights and supported by a global partnership determined to lift people out of poverty, hunger and disease. It will, thus, be built on a foundation of global cooperation and solidarity.
(UN News)* — Attacks by armed groups in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado, Nampula, Zambezia and Niassa provinces have displaced more than 530,000 people, many of whom have been forced to move multiple times, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Friday [18 December 2020].
UNICEF/Daniel Timme | A father in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique, receives supplementary food packs for his children.
According to the agency, majority of the affected families have sought refuge in the safer southern districts of Cabo Delgado province, where around 90 per cent of those displaced are sheltered by host communities.
(UN News)* — Driven by insecurity, the effects of COVID-19, an on-going economic crisis, and the impact of flooding on livelihoods, three UN agencies called on Friday [18 December 2020] for immediate humanitarian access to eastern South Sudan’s Pibor county, where people are facing catastrophic levels of hunger.
WFP/Marwa Awad | Children eat porridge their mother cooked with the food she received at a World Food Programme (WFP) distribution site in Pibor, South Sudan.
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), World Food Programme (WFP) and other humanitarian aid organizations, are scaling up their responses to save lives and avert a total collapse of livelihoods in hard-to-reach areas.
Hawaiian Flag (top); Queen Liliuokalani, last Monarch of Hawaii (bottom) – On 17 Jan 1893, Hawaii’s monarchy was overthrown when a group of businessmen and sugar planters aided by US Marines forced Queen Liliuokalani to abdicate.
Lt. Col. Danny Davis was a hero on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. Our army hero then became a whistleblowing legend by exposing the chronic monumental lies the military has told and continues to peddle about achieving victory in those convulsed and splintered nations. The costs of the military’s prevarications have been steep: trillions of dollars squandered on fool’s errands; the killing, maiming or displacement of millions; and the awakening of hatreds or revenge against the United States that make all citizens potential targets.
(UN News)* — As the end of another year of war looms, “families in Syria remain without respite after almost a decade of conflict”, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator told the Security Council on Wednesday [16 December 2020].
Speaking via videoconference, Humanitarian Affairs chief Mark Lowcock said that millions have been left displaced, impoverished, traumatized and suffering “deep personal loss”.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 