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Grim milestone reached in world’s fastest-growing displacement crisis as fighting uproots 11,400 within Burkina Faso. | Español | Français
Aguiratou Diallo (right) and her family pictured in Ouahigouya, Burkina Faso. © UNHCR/Moussa Bougma
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, January 18
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)
Stephen F. Somerstein/Getty ImagesMartin Luther King, Jr. Day was signed into law as a federal holiday in 1983. I do not wish to trivialize this accomplishment: it took great persistence by civil society groups and it had to conquer serious opposition. Yet what it has established is an indigestible paradox in the nation’s list of saints and heroes.
Recall that the jury in the 1999 civil trial examining the assassination reached a startling conclusion on December 8, 1999: US government agencies had conspired successfully to kill Dr. King.
Mainstream media carried little about this trial and verdict in 1999 and they persist in ignoring it to this day.
Due to Covid, the World Economic Forum will be virtual this January – and its elite audience will only meet in person in May – in Singapore. A symbolic move showing how geopolitics are shifting, especially as many countries in Asia deal so much more competently with Covid-19 than Europe or North America.
(UN News)* — The COVID-19 pandemic “will not end for anyone, until it ends for everyone”, an independent UN human rights expert said on Friday [22 January 2021], advocating for an equitable and globally-coordinated vaccine distribution programme.
“The virus can still travel from the vastly unvaccinated massive population of the Global South to the Global North, including in its increasingly mutating forms”, Obiora Okafor, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and international solidarity, said in a statement.
He explained that with mutations constantly evolving, only inoculating rich countries would likely “complicate or delay” the eradication of the virus.
With an intensive information campaign the Danes would learn to see themselves as members of a multi-cultural society
22 January 2021 | Wall Street International* — Denmark is known as a country where social justice prevails and where everyone has secured a daily life without having to live in worry about tomorrow, even if sickness and unemployment knock on the door. I was born in Denmark, two generations ago, and couldn’t help but feeling a bit proud, when the Democratic candidate for the US presidency, Bernie Sanders, pointed to Denmark as a model to be emulated by the USA. What is it worth to be big and mighty, if it does not contribute to give better living conditions to people, asked Sanders.
– A war-mongering president, with his finger on the nuclear trigger— and who threatened to attack North Korea and Iran– was unceremoniously drummed out of office on January 20.
Launching of “Reverse the Trend” and welcoming the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Credit: Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
And two days later, the world rejoiced the historic entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) – a landmark event greeted by peace activists and anti-nuclear campaigners worldwide.
But still there are two lingering questions: Does the TPNW, along with the inglorious departure of an irrational Donald Trump from the White House, make chances of a nuclear war only a remote possibility?
22 January 2021 (UN News)* — The first multilateral nuclear disarmament treaty in more than two decades, came into force just after midnight on Friday [22 January 2021], hailed by the UN Secretary-General as “an important step towards a world free of nuclear weapons”.
António Guterres said that the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) also represents a “strong demonstration of support for multilateral approaches to nuclear disarmament” overall.
In a video message and statement, the UN chief commended the States that have ratified the Treaty and welcomed the “instrumental role of civil society in advancing the TPNW’s negotiation and entry into force”.
Child and maternal diets particularly vulnerable
The report stresses how social protection systems and transfers can promote the affordability of healthy diets for the poor and most vulnerable.20 January 2021, Bangkok/Rome – The economic impact of COVID-19 on the world’s most populous region is threatening to further undermine efforts to improve diets and nutrition of nearly two billion people in Asia and the Pacific who were already unable to afford healthy diets prior to the pandemic, says a new report published today [20 January 2021] by four specialized agencies of the United Nations.
More than 2,200 asylum seekers and refugees have now been relocated from reception centres on Greek islands and elsewhere in Greece to other European countries.
Somali refugee, Nasro, 18, waits in a hotel room in Athens with her mother and brother before their relocation flight to Germany. © UNHCR/Achilleas Zavallis
20 January 2021 (UNHCR)* — Nasro Mohamed was desperate for a fresh beginning when she and her family were flown from Greece to start lives in Germany under a programme organized by the European Union.
The 18-year-old from Somalia landed in Germany on 10 December on a humanitarian flight along with her mother, Hindi Adan, 41, and her brother who suffers a severe form of epilepsy.
19 January 2021 (UN News)* — Israel’s decision to advance plans for some 800 new settlement units, most of which are located deep inside the occupied West Bank, has sparked the concern of UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 