Egypt: the world is on a highway to hell when it comes to global warming, if it does not take serious action says UN chief

World leaders and diplomats framed the fight against global warming as a battle for human survival during opening speeches at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt on Monday, with the head of the United Nations declaring a lack of progress so far had the world speeding down a "highway to hell".

Read more at: https://www.cbc.com

Russian invasion Ukraine: Russia rejoins UN grain deal

Russia has performed an abrupt U-turn and again agreed to allow the safe shipment of millions of tonnes of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea.

Russia’s defence minister Sergei Shoigu told his Turkish counterpart on Wednesday that Moscow has agreed to return to the Turkish and UN-brokered deal.

In a statement, the ministry later confirmed that Ukraine had pledged not to use a designated Black Sea corridor to attack Russian forces.

Read  more at: https;//www.euronews.com

Grain Deal: Putin thanks Erdoğan for mediating Ukraine grain exports

Russian President Vladimir Putin thanked his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for his efforts to mediate discussions on the export of grain from Ukraine. "With your mediation, we have moved forward," Putin told Erdoğan in Tehran on Tuesday, according to the Kremlin.

"All issues about Ukrainian grain exports out of Black Sea ports have not yet been resolved, but having progress is already a good sign," Putin said.

Read more at: Putin thanks Erdoğan for mediating Ukraine grain exports | Daily Sabah

Russia-Ukraine war: missile strikes on Odesa threaten grain deal, says Ukraine; US calls Russian attack ‘outrageous’

The US ambassador to Kyiv said Moscow should be held to account for what she said was an “outrageous” Russian strike on the port city of Odesa on Saturday.

Russian missiles hit infrastructure in Odesa a day after Russia and Ukraine, with mediation by the United Nations and Turkey, signed a deal to reopen Black Sea ports and resume grain exports.

Read more at: Russia-Ukraine war: missile strikes on Odesa threaten grain deal, says Ukraine; US calls Russian attack ‘outrageous’ – live

Ukraine war: UN votes in favour of suspending Russia from Human Rights Council

LRussia's war in Ukraine is taking on a new dimension with growing evidence of human rights atrocities by Vladimir Putin's troops, accused of killing civilians in cold blood as they retreated from the Kyiv region.

Despite Moscow denying the accusations, there are fears similar massacres could be discovered in the coming days.

Ukraine is calling for more weapons from NATO and stronger Western sanctions against Russia.

Read more at: Ukraine war: UN votes in favour of suspending Russia from Human Rights Council | Euronews

Ukraine war: More than 1.9 million internally displaced by Russia's invasion, says UN

An estimated 1.9 million people are displaced within Ukraine, according to UN officials, adding to the more than 2.3 million who have fled the country following Russia's invasion.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Thursday that most of the internally displaced people are moving away from the front lines and heading west toward Lviv. The humanitarian situation “continues to deteriorate at an alarming pace,” he said.

Read more at: Ukraine war: More than 1.9 million internally displaced by Russia's invasion, says UN | Euronews

China - US Relations: China anger after space station forced to move to avoid Elon Musk Starlink satellites

Beijing has called on the UN to remind the US to abide by the treaty regulating outer space after space satellites launched by tech tycoon Elon Musk’s aerospace company SpaceX almost collided with its space station twice in the past year.

China said its space station deployed prevention collision avoidance control measures in July and October to avoid colliding with Starlink satellites in a recent report submitted by Beijing to the UN’s Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space earlier this month.

Read more at: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/dec/28/china-complains-to-un-after-space-station-is-forced-to-move-to-avoid-starlink-satellites?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

EU: Reimagining care –by Anne-Marie Slaughter

The recent United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) and the ongoing negotiations over the social infrastructure bill of the United States president, Joe Biden, known as the Build Back Better Act, share an important feature. At the heart of global efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change is a commitment to care for our planet. Similarly, Biden’s bill is a down-payment on building an entire infrastructure of care—including paid family leave, childcare, a child tax credit and affordable community and home-based care for anyone else who needs support—in the US.

Read more at Reimagining care – Anne-Marie Slaughter

"Alien" invasions and the need for planetary biosecurity

The era of space exploration brings with it a new risk: invasion. The peril comes not from little green men arriving on flying saucers but, rather, from microbiological contamination of Earth from extraterrestrial environments and vice versa. Writing in BioScience, Anthony Ricciardi, of McGill University, and colleagues describe the dangers posed by such organisms and outline an approach to address the threat.

The authors caution that biological contamination endangers both ecosystems and human well-being. "Owing to their massive costs to resource sectors and human health, biological invasions are a global biosecurity issue requiring rigorous transboundary solutions," say Ricciardi and colleagues. And that threat may be more immediate than previously anticipated. Despite considerable microbial caution among space agencies, say the authors, "bacterial strains exhibiting extreme resistance to ionizing radiation, desiccation, and disinfectants have been isolated in NASA 'clean rooms' used for spacecraft assembly."

Read more at: "Alien" invasions and the need for planetary | EurekAlert!

'UN General Assembly Meeting 2021: The world must wake up': Tasks daunting as UN meeting opens - by E. Ledere

In person and on screen, world leaders returned to the United Nations’ foremost gathering for the first time in the pandemic era on Tuesday with a formidable, diplomacy-packed agenda and a sharply worded warning from the international organization’s leader: “We face the greatest cascade of crises in our lifetime.”

Read more at: 'The world must wake up': Tasks daunting as UN meeting opens

US distances itself from demands for Israel-Hamas cease-fire - by E. Knickmeyer, M. Lee and E. M. Lederer

The Biden administration distanced itself Monday from growing calls by Democrats and others for an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers as fighting entered a second week, with more than 200 people dead, most of them Palestinians in Gaza.

The United States, Israel’s top ally, also blocked for the third time what would have been a unanimous statement by the 15-nation U.N. Security Council expressing “grave concern” over the intensifying Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the loss of civilian lives. The final U.S. rejection Monday killed the Security Council statement, at least for now.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki and national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the United States instead was focusing on “quiet, intensive diplomacy.” As missile and rocket exchanges between Israel and Hamas surged to their worst levels since 2014 and the international outcry grew, the Biden administration — determined to wrench U.S. foreign policy focus away from the Middle East and Afghanistan — has declined so far to criticize Israel’s part in the fighting, send a top-level envoy to the region or press Israel publicly to wind down its latest military operation in the thickly populated Gaza Strip, as some past U.S. administrations have done. Appeals by other countries so far show no sign of progress.

Read more at: US distances itself from demands for Israel-Hamas cease-fire

Israel-Hamas conflict: China calls for UN council action, slams US

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has called on the U.N. Security Council to seek an early de-escalation of violence between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers. He also blamed the U.S. for the council’s lack of action so far.

“Regrettably, the council has so far failed to reach an agreement, with the United States standing on the opposite side of international justice,” the state-run Xinhua News Agency quoted Wang as saying in a phone conversation Saturday with Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi.

He expressed support for a two-state solution, just like the EU recently did, and said China, which holds the Security Council presidency this month, expects all parties to speak with a unified voice when the council discusses the conflict later Sunday.

Read more at: The Latest: China calls for UN council action, slams US

UN: - the Environment: ′Red Alert′ for National Climate Goals

"Today's interim report from the UNFCCC is a red alert for our planet," said UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres.

The report, released Friday, looks at the national climate efforts of 75 states that have already submitted their updated "nationally determined contributions," or NDCs. The countries included in the report are responsible for about 30% of the world's global greenhouse gas emissions.

While most have increased their individual climate efforts, only two of the worst emitters, including the UK and the EU, have stepped up their goals considerably. And the member states' plans to tackle the climate crisis "are very far from putting us on a pathway that will meet our Paris Agreement goals," said Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of UN Climate Change.

Read more at UN: ′Red Alert′ for National Climate Goals  | Environment| All topics from climate change to conservation | DW | 26.02.2021

The Netherlands: Should the Dutch ‘Black Pete’ tradition be abolished?

Many children in the Netherlands have grown up with the image of Black Pete, a helper for St Nicholas, an equivalent of Santa Claus.

The character is highly controversial, as the figure is usually portrayed by a white person wearing blackface makeup with exaggerated lips and an afro wig

Note EU-Digest: Indeed quite controversial. This has been a centuries old tradional Childrens celebration, before it became a racial issue. Amazing that the people promoting this as a racial issue have no qualms with the flagrant human rights violations of Saudi Arabia and many other countries around the world?

Read more at: Should the Dutch ‘Black Pete’ tradition be abolished? | Netherlands | Al Jazeera

Global Food Shortages: World food prices hit 6-year high amid COVID pandemic

An index published by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on Thursday said prices for several food products had risen significantly.

The index, which measures monthly changes for a basket of food products, averaged 105 points in November compared with the previous month when it stood at 101 according to an adjusted figure.

Read more at: https://www.dw.com/en/world-food-prices-hit-6-year-high-amid-covid-pandemic/a-55809293

US Nuclear Weapons stored in Europe: The New Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty Will Be an Early Trial for Biden - by Miles A. Pomper

With support from nearly half the world’s nations, a new United Nations treaty banning the possession and use of nuclear weapons will take effect early next year. The U.N. confirmed last month that the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, or TPNW, had been ratified by the required 50 countries. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called it “a tribute to the survivors of nuclear explosions and tests, many of whom advocated for this treaty.”

Many non-nuclear-armed states, as well as pro-disarmament activists and organizations like the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, have celebrated the agreement, which they see as a milestone in global efforts to prevent nuclear war. However, it has drawn strong opposition from nuclear-armed states, especially the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council: Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom and the United States. The Trump administration has called on the treaty’s 84 signatories to back out of it. Its entry into force on Jan. 22, 2021, will pose a thorny diplomatic challenge for the incoming Biden administration.

Still, the treaty could pose a political problem in the future for NATO members and other countries that shelter under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, given the TPNW’s call not to support actions inconsistent with the treaty. That challenge is especially acute for the five NATO members that host an estimated 150 forward-deployed U.S nuclear weapons: Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Turkey. German, Dutch and Belgian disarmament advocates, in particular, enjoy strong mainstream political support among center-left parties in all three countries. And 56 former world leaders, including many from NATO countries, argued recently in an open letter that the new nuclear ban treaty can “help end decades of paralysis in disarmament.”

Note EU-Digest: Five NATO members, including, Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey still shelter large numbers of US Nuclear weapons on their soil. Hopefully the UN TPNW Treaty will force the disarmament of these weapons from these countries, which presently makes them a major target for massive destruction and death in case of war.

Read more at: The New Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty Will Be an Early Trial for

Famine Expected in 2021: Nobel-winning UN agency warns of 'famines of biblical proportions' in 2021

The head of the World Food Program says the Nobel Peace Prize has given the U.N. agency a spotlight and megaphone to warn world leaders that next year is going to be worse than this year, and without billions of dollars “we are going to have famines of biblical proportions in 2021.”

Read more at: Nobel-winning UN agency warns of 'famines of biblical proportions' in 2021 | Euronews

Middle East: Libya 'one hell of a mess' as civil war spirals into international free-for-all

Libya's new leaders had called for "forgiveness, tolerance and reconciliation."

Nine years later, there is very little of that. The UN seems powerless, and civilians are once again suffering.

Some 350,000 have been displaced inside the country. Tens of thousands risk dangerous sea crossings into Europe, where they are barely tolerated if they make it at all.

Libya's civil war continues, spiralling into an international free-for-all.

Read more at:
Libya 'one hell of a mess' as civil war spirals into international free-for-all | CBC News

UN Trade Agency: Coronavirus update: COVID-19 likely to cost economy $1 trillion during 2020, says UN trade agency

Apart from the tragic human consequences of the COVID-19 coronavirus epidemic, the economic uncertainty it has sparked will likely cost the global economy $1 trillion in 2020, the UN’s trade and development agency, UNCTAD, said on Monday.

Read more at:
Coronavirus update: COVID-19 likely to cost economy $1 trillion during 2020, says UN trade agency | | UN News

Middle East: Boxed in by US and Israel, an ailing Abbas takes defiant stance against Trump peace plan

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is 84 years old and in fragile health. Speaking Tuesday at the UN, he roundly rejected US President Donald Trump’s plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian co…

Read more at:
https://www.france24.com/en/20200211-palestinian-leader-mahmoud-abbas-peace-plan-defiant-stance-trump