Verbal abuse, threats of sexual violence and discrimination have not been isolated incidents during the wave of anti-government protests that have been spreading through Colombia since 28 April. There have been at least 113 cases of gender-based violence, according to a report by the Office of the Ombudsman, an official government agency tasked with overseeing the protection of citizens’ human and civil rights.

“They started calling us bitches, whores, sluts,” Karla Cardoso says of the abuse police officers hurled at her and other women during an anti-government protest in Medellín on 20 May. “They asked us what we were doing out at night, threatening to kill us,” the 25-year-old student says.

41 million people in 43 countries are at imminent risk of famine, with nearly 600,000 others in four countries already experiencing famine-like conditions, the World Food Programme (WFP) has warned.

“I am heartbroken at what we’re facing in 2021,” said WFP’s Executive Director David Beasley. “It’s just tragic – these are real people with real names.”

Wars, climate change and economic shocks have been driving the increase in hunger while soaring prices for basic items compound existing pressures on food security this year. Currency depreciation in countries such as Lebanon, Nigeria, Sudan, Venezuela and Zimbabwe is adding to these pressures and driving prices even higher, stoking food insecurity.

World food prices rose in May to their highest levels in a decade, UN figures show, with basics like cereals, oilseeds, dairy products, meat and sugar up a combined 40 percent versus year-ago levels. Global maize prices have soared almost 90 percent year-on-year, while wheat prices are up almost 30 percent over the same period.

The WFP says about 690 million people, go to bed hungry each night.

UN World Food Programme says 41 million on verge of famine | Hunger News | Al Jazeera

 While many poor people became poorer, five million people became millionaires across the world in 2020 despite economic damage from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Because of recovering stock markets and soaring house prices helping to boost their wealth in 2020 more than 1% of adults worldwide were millionaires for the first time.

Total global wealth grew by 7.4%.

Wealth creation appeared to be “completely detached” from the economic woes of the pandemic, the researchers said.

Anthony Shorrocks, economist and author of the Global Wealth Report, said, “Global wealth not only held steady in the face of such turmoil but in fact rapidly increased in the second half of the year,” 

Wealth differences between adults widened in 2020, and  Shorrocks said if asset price increases, such as house price rises, were removed from the analysis, “then global household wealth may well have fallen”.

 “In the lower wealth bands where financial assets are less prevalent, wealth has tended to stand still, or, in many cases, regressed,” he said.

Nannette Hechler-Fayd’herbe, chief investment officer at Credit Suisse, said:  “The lowering of interest rates by central banks has probably had the greatest impact. It is a major reason why share prices and house prices have flourished, and these translate directly into our valuations of household wealth.”

Millions become millionaires in Covid pandemic – BBC News

 Oxfam has released a report saying that while supermarkets enjoyed a bumper pandemic 2020, food labourers were victims of “modern slavery.”

Entitled “Pandemic profiteers and virus losers,” the report examined working conditions on tea plantations in the Assam state in India, as well as coffee plantations in Brazil, grape fields in South Africa and in the fishing industry in Thailand. All four countries showed “exploitation and shocking cases of modern slave labour.”

 Supermarket chains experienced a “boom in sales” in the pandemic year of 2020 while producers in many poorer countries lost their jobs, worked in slave-like conditions and were inadequately protected from the coronavirus, Oxfam said.

“While the supermarket chains were cashing in, the workers who produce our food are fighting for their livelihoods,” wrote Tim Zahn and Annika Zieske, authors of the report.

Oxfam cited extreme physical labour without running water and a lack of protection against pesticides and COVID-19 among coffee plantation workers in Brazil. The pandemic was hitting women particularly hard, the report highlighted. Female workers were dismissed more often than the average worker and had to shoulder most of the additional nursing and care work.

The situation looked very different for German supermarkets. Oxfam found that their sales went up to 17% in 2020 and that the assets of their owners grew by up to 30%.

“The pandemic profits of the owners of Aldi Süd alone would have been enough to pay the living wages of around 4 million workers in the Brazilian coffee sector,” the report said.

Due to the ongoing pandemic, “workers who make the food get less and less of the price of the products on sale in the supermarket,” Oxfam said.

Oxfam found that in South Africa, for example, workers received only 1% percent of the sales price of the grapes they produce.

Oxfam: Supermarkets cashing in as food labourers suffer | News | DW | 22.06.2021

 The size of the UK’s nuclear arsenal had been on a downwards trajectory. Britain was set to reduce the number of warheads from 225 in 2010 to 180 by the mid-2020s, a decision made by David Cameron’s coalition government of 2010-15. This downsizing was part of three decades of gradual reductions in the UK’s nuclear arsenal, which included retiring its free-fall nuclear bombs in 1998. Britain now has roughly 195 warheads.

The UK government has now announced it is increasing the number of nuclear warheads for its Trident submarine fleet to 260. It had not been expected that the UK would increase its nuclear arsenal by over 40%. The Office of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the UK decision was contrary to its obligations under Article VI of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) — in other words, it is illegal under international law. The NPT requires countries that have nuclear weapons to disarm, and those that don’t have them not to get them. 

 Johnson’s government unveiled in its “Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy”  which has changed Britain’s stance on the use of nuclear weapons. The British government is also threatening to use its nuclear arsenal against non-nuclear weapons states that are said to be heading in the direction of acquiring nuclear weapons — or, as the Integrated Review puts it, those states judged to be “in material breach of their non-proliferation obligations”. The UK now reserves the right to use nuclear weapons not only against nuclear threats but against enemies possessing chemical and biological weapons or “emerging technologies that could have a comparable impact”. 

 It is easily understood as a thinly veiled reference to Iran. The British government has repeatedly said that “Iran must never develop a nuclear weapon”. The Integrated Review says the UK will embark on “a renewed diplomatic effort to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon”. But London appears to be sending a message to Tehran that is not just about diplomacy. 

The legal opinion also finds that the UK’s change in stance on the use of nuclear weapons is in breach of international law. Any use of nuclear weapons would violate international humanitarian law and a whole raft of legal obligations.

The UK’s new nuclear strategy is illegal and dangerou… (dailymaverick.co.za)

 The size of the UK’s nuclear arsenal had been on a downwards trajectory. Britain was set to reduce the number of warheads from 225 in 2010 to 180 by the mid-2020s, a decision made by David Cameron’s coalition government of 2010-15. This downsizing was part of three decades of gradual reductions in the UK’s nuclear arsenal, which included retiring its free-fall nuclear bombs in 1998. Britain now has roughly 195 warheads.

The UK government has now announced it is increasing the number of nuclear warheads for its Trident submarine fleet to 260. It had not been expected that the UK would increase its nuclear arsenal by over 40%. The Office of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the UK decision was contrary to its obligations under Article VI of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) — in other words, it is illegal under international law. The NPT requires countries that have nuclear weapons to disarm, and those that don’t have them not to get them. 

 Johnson’s government unveiled in its “Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy”  which has changed Britain’s stance on the use of nuclear weapons. The British government is also threatening to use its nuclear arsenal against non-nuclear weapons states that are said to be heading in the direction of acquiring nuclear weapons — or, as the Integrated Review puts it, those states judged to be “in material breach of their non-proliferation obligations”. The UK now reserves the right to use nuclear weapons not only against nuclear threats but against enemies possessing chemical and biological weapons or “emerging technologies that could have a comparable impact”. 

 It is easily understood as a thinly veiled reference to Iran. The British government has repeatedly said that “Iran must never develop a nuclear weapon”. The Integrated Review says the UK will embark on “a renewed diplomatic effort to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon”. But London appears to be sending a message to Tehran that is not just about diplomacy. 

The legal opinion also finds that the UK’s change in stance on the use of nuclear weapons is in breach of international law. Any use of nuclear weapons would violate international humanitarian law and a whole raft of legal obligations.

The UK’s new nuclear strategy is illegal and dangerou… (dailymaverick.co.za)

 The size of the UK’s nuclear arsenal had been on a downwards trajectory. Britain was set to reduce the number of warheads from 225 in 2010 to 180 by the mid-2020s, a decision made by David Cameron’s coalition government of 2010-15. This downsizing was part of three decades of gradual reductions in the UK’s nuclear arsenal, which included retiring its free-fall nuclear bombs in 1998. Britain now has roughly 195 warheads.

The UK government has now announced it is increasing the number of nuclear warheads for its Trident submarine fleet to 260. It had not been expected that the UK would increase its nuclear arsenal by over 40%. The Office of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the UK decision was contrary to its obligations under Article VI of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) — in other words, it is illegal under international law. The NPT requires countries that have nuclear weapons to disarm, and those that don’t have them not to get them. 

 Johnson’s government unveiled in its “Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy”  which has changed Britain’s stance on the use of nuclear weapons. The British government is also threatening to use its nuclear arsenal against non-nuclear weapons states that are said to be heading in the direction of acquiring nuclear weapons — or, as the Integrated Review puts it, those states judged to be “in material breach of their non-proliferation obligations”. The UK now reserves the right to use nuclear weapons not only against nuclear threats but against enemies possessing chemical and biological weapons or “emerging technologies that could have a comparable impact”. 

 It is easily understood as a thinly veiled reference to Iran. The British government has repeatedly said that “Iran must never develop a nuclear weapon”. The Integrated Review says the UK will embark on “a renewed diplomatic effort to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon”. But London appears to be sending a message to Tehran that is not just about diplomacy. 

The legal opinion also finds that the UK’s change in stance on the use of nuclear weapons is in breach of international law. Any use of nuclear weapons would violate international humanitarian law and a whole raft of legal obligations.

The UK’s new nuclear strategy is illegal and dangerou… (dailymaverick.co.za)

 The continuing exodus of millions of Venezuelans is reaching “a tipping point”. More than 5.6 million have left the country since 2015, when it had a population of 30 million, escaping political, economic and social hardships. But by the end of 2020, 3.9 million Venezuelans were designated as being displaced abroad without formal refugee status – but still judged in need of international protection. Stein said 1,800 to 2,000 people had been leaving Venezuela daily in the past three months, many taking dangerous paths out, including using people traffickers.

It has become the largest external displacement crisis in the region’s history, and the most underfunded.

 Eduardo Stein, special representative of the UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), explained, “Whatever fails in one of the largest and richest countries in the subcontinent is going to affect the rest of the region. Latin America will never be the same.”

He claimed “donor fatigue” threatened funding, saying: “This pandemic has hit very hard those developed countries who have been traditional donors.”

Last year’s UN response plan received less than half the $1.41bn requested. The Red Cross has said it needs to raise $264m to support Venezuelans and 17 host countries over the next three years.

Dany Bahar, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, in Washington DC, told the Guardian there remained “a big gap” in help for Venezuelan refugees, compared with other modern crises, such as Syria. He said the total funding per capita for Syrian refugees was more than 10 times that for Venezuelans – at $3,150 compared with $265, based on figures for 2020. Venezuela is second only in the world to Syria in terms of external displacement. The majority of refugees are being hosted in Latin America and the Caribbean. Colombia hosts more Venezuelans than any other country, accounting for 1.73 million people.

“Most of the host countries in the Venezuelan refugee crisis are in the region, and are developing countries,” Bahar said, “whereas Europe had much skin in the game in the case of the Syrians. Maybe that triggered much more generous funding.”

Roger Alonso Morgui, at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), said the crisis was “not news any more”, adding: “When the big population movement happened a few years ago, there was still some attention. That now has become more silent in a way.”

Dominika Arseniuk, director in Colombia for the Norwegian Refugee Council, said,  “International solidarity and financial support is woefully insufficient and falls desperately short of what is needed to respond to the mass exodus from Venezuela.”

‘Latin America will never be the same’: Venezuela exodus reaches record levels | Global development | The Guardian

 The UN rights chief,  Michelle Bachelet told the opening of the UN Human Rights Council’s 47th session, “To recover from the most wide-reaching and severe cascade of human rights setbacks in our lifetimes, we need a life-changing vision and concerted action.” 

Bachelet said she was deeply disturbed by reports of “serious violations” in Tigray, racked by war and with about 350,000 people threatened by famine. She pointed to “extrajudicial executions, arbitrary arrests and detentions, sexual violence against children as well as adults,” and said she had “credible reports” that Eritrean soldiers were still operating in the region. Other parts of Ethiopia, which held elections on Monday, were also seeing “alarming incidents of deadly ethnic and inter-communal violence and displacement”, Bachelet said.

“The ongoing deployment of military forces is not a durable solution,” she said.

Bachelet also decried the situation in northern Mozambique, ravaged by recent deadly jihadist violence, where she said food insecurity was rising and “almost 800,000 people, including 364,000 children” had now been forced to flee their homes.

She  also pointed to the “chilling impact” of a sweeping national security law introduced in Hong Kong. The law, which took effect on the eve of 1 July, 2020, is seen as the spear tip of a sweeping crackdown on Beijing’s critics in the semi-autonomous city of Hong Kong following 2019’s huge democracy protests. It has criminalised much dissent, given China jurisdiction over some cases and awarded authorities powerful new investigative powers. She also pointed to “reports of serious human rights violations” in China’s Xinjiang region, and said she hoped Beijing would grant her a long-discussed visit there, including “meaningful access” this year. At least one million Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim minorities have been held in camps, according to rights groups.

Bachelet also criticised recent measures by the Kremlin shrinking the space for opposing political views and access to participation in September elections. She highlighted the recent moves to dismantle the movement of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Barring his organisations from working in the country, a Moscow court earlier this month branded them as “extremist” in a ruling Bachelet said was “based on vaguely defined allegations of attempting to change the foundations of constitutional order”. Putin, has signed legislation outlawing staff, members and sponsors of “extremist” groups from running in parliamentary elections.

“I call on Russia to uphold civil and political rights,” Bachelet said.

UN warns of worst ‘cascade of human rights setbacks in our lifetimes’ | United Nations | The Guardian