February 23, 2025
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J. Tuyet Nguyen, a journalist with years of experience, has covered major stories in New York City and the United Nations for United Press International, the German Press Agency dpa and various newspapers. His reports focused mostly on topics with international interests for readers worldwide. He was president of the United Nations Correspondents Association (2007 and 2008), which is composed of more than 250 journalists representing world media with influence over policy decision makers. He has chaired the organization of the annual UNCA Awards, which seeks to reward journalists around the world who have done the best broadcasts and written reports on the UN and its specialized agencies. He has traveled the world to cover events and write stories, from politics to the environment as well cultures of different regions. But his most important reporting work has been with the United Nations since the early 1980s. He was bureau chief of United Press International office at the UN headquarters before joining dpa in 1997. Prior to working at the UN, he was an editor on the International Desk of UPI World Headquarters in New York. He worked in Los Angeles and covered the final months of war in Vietnam for UPI.

First technology summit calls for more technology governance to improve lives, respond to global challenges

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UPDATE

Tokyo/New York, April 8 – The first global summit on the Fourth Industrial Revolution dedicated to shaping the future of technology backed the need for more technology governance because it would help a beleaguered world to tackle pressing problems particularly the ongoing pandemic.

Organized by the government of Japan and the World Economic Forum (WEF), over 2,000 government, business and civil society representatives took part in a virtual meeting April 6-7 in Tokyo to discuss key issues, including ethical artificial intelligence, blockchain and data privacy.

WEF said the summit built on the work of the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution Japan and the Forum’s global Network of centers in 13 countries.

The summit was opened by Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who emphasized the timeliness of discussions among leaders on the implementation of digital technologies in the post-COVD era, WEF said. Suga also reaffirmed his commitment to accelerating reforms to create the world’s most advanced digital society.

The World Economic Forum Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR) Network will develop this work throughout 2021 and beyond, WEF said.

Following is a press release from WEF:

COVID-19 has radically transformed the role of IoT in just a few months. Connected devices have been useful tools for monitoring and containing the disease around the world and are expected to play a critical role in safely distributing future vaccines.

 But the situation has also highlighted the need to strike a proper balance between the public interest in protecting health in the face of future pandemics and the need to ensure the full range of human rights, such as protecting freedom of expression, association and movement.

As societies emerge from the COVID-19 crisis, a unique window of opportunity has opened to reimagine our relationship with IoT, realize new opportunities for growth and unlock a safer and more inclusive use of the technology.

The economic impacts of COVID-19 are also shaking up the IoT ecosystem.

Business that prioritized IoT investment to monitor machine health are now using connected devices monitor and protect human health, while also investing in remote working capabilities and automation.

The IoT market is expected to grow even faster once the world enters a new post-COVID-19 business environment, thanks to the release of pent-up demand and new investment in technology to minimize impacts from future disruptions.

Conclusion: Charting a path to a brighter connected future
In response to the findings of this report, the World Economic Forum in partnership with the Global IoT Council has developed a Global Action Plan that aims to encourage collective action on the most pressing challenges the connected world currently faces.

 IoT is already an indispensable part of our daily lives and fundamental infrastructure. As it grows in extent and capabilities, we must act if we want to realize the full potential of IoT.

The Global Action Plan is structured around a set of high-level actions, which are tied to related initiatives and commitments, learn more about those initiatives here.

The World Economic Forum in partnership with the Council on the Connected World intends to provide regular updates on the progress of the Global Action Plan. An updated and expanded version of this report will be published in two years in order to track progress of the Global Action Plan and stay abreast of emerging governance gaps.

“As the internet of things becomes a part of our daily lives, it is essential that we build upon the last three decades of learning from the World Wide Web, ensuring that these technologies create a digital future that is safe and empowering for everyone.”

—Adrian Lovett, President & CEO, World Wide Web Foundation

“As we become increasingly reliant on connected devices throughout our daily lives, privacy and security are of paramount importance. They will be crucial to the safe and secure digital transformation of industries throughout the next decade”

—Cristiano Amon, President, Qualcomm Incorporated

For more information:

The Internet of things describes the network of physical objects—“things” or objects—that are embedded with sensors, software, and other technologies for the purpose of connecting and exchanging data with other devices and systems over the Internet. Wikipedia

Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution Japan

 Global Technology Governance Summit

Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution Network.

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World needs an international treaty to deal with the next pandemic, governments and WHO say; report on Covid-19 origins published

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Geneva/New York, March 30 – Deeply battered by the Covid-19 pandemic that has entered into a second year, more than 20 heads of government and the World Health Organization have decided to work on a treaty to deal with the next pandemic, which they say is certain to strike again.

“There will be other pandemics and other major health emergencies,” the governments and WHO said in a statement. “No single government or multilateral agency can address this threat alone. The question is not if, but when.”

“We are convinced that it is our responsibility, as leaders of nations and international institutions, to ensure that the world learns the lessons of the Covid-19 pandemic,” it said, adding that the pandemic was the biggest challenge to the world since the 1940s.

The statement was signed by WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and the leaders of countries including Britain, France, Germany, Spain, South Africa, South Korea and Indonesia. The United States and China have not signed but the two countries, which have been at loggerheads, have expressed support for the proposal.

“From the discussions we had during member states sessions, the comment from member states including U.S. and China was actually positive and we hope the future engagements will bring all countries,” the WHO chief said.

“The proposals are not sufficiently detailed at the moment,” said an adviser to a Western government helping craft the proposal. “It’s going to take a number of years of negotiation… you’re talking two to four years.”

“This comes down to what governments are willing to agree to in terms of allowing investigative teams into their countries,” the adviser said.

WHO also issued a separate statement calling for a “more robust international health architecture.” It said the new treaty would “foster an all-of-government and all-of-society approach, strengthening national, regional and global capacities and resilience to future pandemics.”

It called for greatly enhancing international cooperation to improve alert systems, data-sharing, research and local, regional and global production and distribution of vaccines, medicines, diagnostics and personal protective equipment. The treaty should also build mutual accountability, shared responsibility, transparency and cooperation within the international system with rules and norms.

The statement was signed by:

J. V. Bainimarama, Prime Minister of Fiji; Prayut Chan-o-cha, Prime Minister of Thailand; António Luís Santos da Costa, Prime Minister of Portugal; Mario Draghi, Prime Minister of Italy; Klaus Iohannis, President of Romania; Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda; Uhuru Kenyatta, President of Kenya; Emmanuel Macron, President of France; Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany; Charles Michel, President of the European Council; Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Prime Minister of Greece; Moon Jae-in, President of the Republic of Korea; Sebastián Piñera, President of Chile; Carlos Alvarado Quesada, President of Costa Rica; Edi Rama, Prime Minister of Albania; Cyril Ramaphosa, President of South Africa; Keith Rowley, Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago; Mark Rutte, Prime Minister of the Netherlands; Kais Saied, President of Tunisia; Macky Sall, President of Senegal; Pedro Sánchez, Prime Minister of Spain; Erna Solberg, Prime Miniser of Norway; Aleksandar Vučić, President of Serbia; Joko Widodo, President of Indonesia; Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine; Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization.

14 countries raise “concerns” about WHO report on Covid-19 origins

The WHO made public the report on the investigation of the origins of the pandemic’s virus, which was drawn together by an international team composed of 17 members from WHO and 17 members from China. The investigation took place in Wuhan, China, January 10 to February 14, 2021.

 “As far as WHO is concerned, all hypotheses remain on the table,” the WHO chief said. “This report is a very important beginning, but it is not the end. We have not yet found the source of the virus, and we must continue to follow the science and leave no stone unturned as we do. Finding the origin of a virus takes time and we owe it to the world to find the source so we can collectively take steps to reduce the risk of this happening again. No single research trip can provide all the answers.


In Washington, the United States joined 13 other countries to raise “concerns” about the released report because the investigators were not given full access to information they neede

“We voice our shared concerns that the international expert study on the source of the SARS-CoV-2 virus was significantly delayed and lacked access to complete, original data and samples,” the 14 countries said in a joint statement.

“Scientific missions like these should be able to do their work under conditions that produce independent and objective recommendations and findings. Going forward, there must now be a renewed commitment by WHO and all Member States to access, transparency, and timeliness,” the statement said.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said: “They have not been transparent, they have not provided underlying data, that certainly doesn’t qualify as cooperation.”

“We don’t believe that in our review to date that it meets the moment,” Psaki said of the report.

The 14 countries are Australia, Canada, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Israel, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, South Korea, Slovenia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

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UN says long-term spending in the tens of billions of dollars a year could thwart the likelihood of another pandemic

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New York, March 25 – The United Nations called for spending US$70-120 billion in the next two years and US$20-40 billion annually thereafter in sustainable and smart investment in order to significantly reduce the possibility of another pandemic.

It said such a spending contrasted with the economic losses worth trillions of dollars to the world economy inflicted by the pandemic.

The call followed the release of The Financing for Sustainable Development Report 2021, which said the pandemic has widened the already unequal world and led to the elimination of development gains achieved in the last decade by millions of people in poor countries.

 The report, a joint product of 60 United Nations agencies, said the pandemic has caused the worst recession in 90 years to the global economy and has affected disproportionately the world’s most vulnerable people. The pandemic has also eliminated 114 million jobs and pushed about 120 million people in extreme poverty.

The report said, “sustainable and smart investment, for example in infrastructure, would reduce risks and make the world more resilient to future shocks. It would create growth; allow better life for millions; and combat climate change. “

“Provide ultra-long-term financing [e.g., over 50 years] to developing countries, at fixed interest rates, to take advantage of current historically low interest rates; 

“Better use public development banks as a tool for sustainable development investment; 

Reorient capital markets toward aligning with sustainable development by removing short-term incentives along the investment chain and mitigating the risk of Sustainable Development Goals-washing. “

The report recommended to: 

“Find a global solution for taxation of the digital economy to combat corporate tax avoidance, reduce harmful tax competition; and better use technology to combat illicit financial flows. 

Create a global reporting framework to hold companies accountable for their social and environmental impact and incorporate climate risks into financial regulation.”

“Review regulatory frameworks, such as antitrust regulations, to reduce the market power of large digital platforms. 

Modernize labour market and fiscal policies to reflect the reality of a changing global economy, including an increasingly digitalized world. “

Only immediate action can prevent a lost decade for development for many countries.”

“What this pandemic has proven beyond all doubt is that we ignore global interdependence at our peril. Disasters do not respect national boundaries,” UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said. “A diverging world is a catastrophe for all of us. It is both morally right and in everyone’s economic self-interest to help developing countries overcome this crisis.” 

“The growing gap between rich and poor countries is troublingly retrogressive, and requires an immediate course correction,” said UN Under Secretary-General Liu Zhenmin, Under-Secretary-General of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, which produced the report. “Countries must be helped to not only stay afloat financially, but to invest in their own development. To rebuild better, both the public and private sectors must invest in human capital, social protection, and sustainable infrastructure and technology.” 

The world’s response to the pandemic has been highly uneven and has widened the gap between rich and poor. The report cited a historic total of US$16 trillion in stimulus and recovery funds have been approved to fight the pandemic and restore the economy, but less than 20 per cent of that amount was spent on developing countries. It said by January 2021, all but nine of the 38 countries rolling out vaccines were developed countries.  

The report urged immediate action from governments, including: 

Reject vaccine nationalism and step up contributions to the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator to close the remaining funding gap of over US$20 billion for 2021; 

Meet the 0.7% Official Development Assistance (ODA) commitment and provide fresh concessional financing for developing countries, especially least developed countries; 

Avert debt distress by providing liquidity and debt relief support so developing countries can fight COVID-19 and its economic and social fallout. 

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UN: Indigenous and tribal peoples are best guardians of Latin America and the Caribbean’s forests

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Santiago, Chile/New York, March 25 – Indigenous and tribal peoples are the best caretakers of the immense forests in Latin America, physically occupying a total of 404 million hectares of lands, said a new report issued by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Development of Indigenous Peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean (FILAC).

Some 237 million hectares, or almost 60 per cent of the total 404 million hectares, are in the Amazon Basin, the size of which is larger than France, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Norway and Spain combined.

The report entitled “Forest Governance by Indigenous and Tribal Peoples” said improving tenure of the forests by indigenous and tribal peoples can lower deforestation rates and biodiversity loss, avoiding C02 emissions, but more investment is urgently needed to address rising threats.

More information can be found in: https://burness.com/press-room/fao-forest-governance-indigenous-tribal-peoples

The report said deforestation rates in Latin America and the Caribbean are significantly lower in  indigenous and tribal territories where “governments have formally recognized collective territorial rights, and improving the tenure security of these territories is an efficient and cost-effective way to reduce carbon emissions.”

“Based on a review of more than 300 studies published in the last two decades, the new report reveals for the first time the extent to which science has shown that Indigenous and Tribal Peoples have generally been much better guardians of their forests when compared to those responsible for the region´s other forests.”

“The research also suggests that their protective role is increasingly at risk, at a time when the Amazon is nearing a tipping point, with worrisome impacts on rainfall and temperature, and, eventually, on food production and the global climate.

“Indigenous and tribal peoples and the forests in their territories play vital roles in global and regional climate action and in fighting poverty, hunger, and malnutrition,” FAO’s Regional Representative, Julio Berdegué. “Their territories contain about one third of all the carbon stored in the forests of Latin America and the Caribbean and 14 percent of the carbon stored in tropical forests worldwide.”

Following is from the press release on the report: The best results were seen in indigenous territories that have recognized collective legal titles to their lands: between 2000 and 2012, deforestation rates in these territories in the Bolivian, Brazilian, and Colombian Amazon were only one half to one third of those in other forests with similar ecological characteristics.

The report calls on governments, climate financiers, civil society and the private sector to invest in initiatives that strengthen the role that Indigenous and Tribal Peoples play in forest governance, bolster communal territorial rights, compensate indigenous and tribal communities for the environmental services they provide, and facilitate community forest management.

It also states the vital importance of revitalizing traditional cultures and knowledge, strengthening territorial governance as well as supporting the organizations of indigenous and tribal peoples, recognizing the fundamental role of indigenous youth and indigenous women.

Titled territories suffer lower deforestation, emit less carbon

According to one of the studies analyzed in the FAO/FILAC report, the deforestation rate inside indigenous woodlands where land property has been ensured where 2.8 times lower than outside such areas in Bolivia, 2.5 times lower in Brazil and 2 times less in Colombia.

Titled collective territories avoided between 42.8 and 59.7 million metric tons (MtC) of CO2 emissions each year in these three countries; these combined emissions were the equivalent of taking between 9 and 12.6 million vehicles out of circulation for one year.

Of the 404 million hectares occupied by the indigenous peoples, governments have formally recognized their collective property or usufruct rights over about 269 million hectares; while the impact of guaranteeing tenure security is great, the cost is very low: only US 6 dollars are needed to title a hectare of land in Colombia, and US 45 dollars in Bolivia.

The FAO/FILAC report says that the costs of securing indigenous lands are 5 to 42 times lower than the average costs of avoided CO2 through fossil carbon capture and storage for both coal and gas fired power plants.

Indigenous and tribal peoples are invaluable agents against climate change

“Almost half (45 percent) of the intact forests in the Amazon Basin are in indigenous territories –said Myrna Cunningham, president of FILAC-, and the evidence of their vital role in forest protection is crystal clear: while the area of intact forest declined by only 4.9 percent between 2000 and 2016 in the region’s indigenous areas, in the non-indigenous areas it fell by 11.2 percent. This makes evident why their voice and vision should be taken into account in all global initiatives and frameworks relating to climate change, biodiversity and forestry, among many other topics.”

Indigenous and tribal peoples are involved in the communal governance of between 320 and 380 million hectares of forests in the region, which store about 34,000 million metric tons of carbon, more than all the forests in Indonesia or in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

While Amazon Basin indigenous territories lost less than 0.3% of the carbon in their forests between 2003 and 2016, non-indigenous protected areas lost 0.6%, and other areas that were neither indigenous territories nor protected areas lost 3.6%: ss a result, even though indigenous territories cover 28% of the Amazon Basin, they only generated 2.6% of the region’s (gross) carbon emissions.

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UN launches new system to measure global economic growth by integrating value of nature in gross domestic product (GDP)

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New York, March 10 – The United Nations has launched a ground-breaking system to measure economic growth by integrating natural capital like forests, wetlands and other ecosystems in annual GDP reports. It said the new statistical accounting framework may reshape policy and decision-making towards sustainable development.
The new framework, called the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting—Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA), was adopted by the UN Statistical Commission. The UN said the new system would go beyond the commonly used statistic of GDP that has been used since the end of World War II. The current system, however, failed to reflect the dependency of the economy on nature’s overall contributions to human well-being.

Information on the new framework can be found at https://seea.un.org/ecosystem-accounting

“This is a historic step forward towards transforming how we view and value nature,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres on welcoming the adoption of the new economic and environmental framework.  “We will no longer be heedlessly allowing environmental destruction and degradation to be considered economic progress.”

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Guterres told the annual UN Statistic Commission meeting on March 2 that the global economy has increased almost five-fold in the past 50 years but that growth is at a massive cost to the environment.
“The bottom line,” he said, “is that we need to transform how we view and value nature. We must reflect nature’s true value in all our policies, plans and economic systems. With a new consciousness, we can direct investment into policies and activities that protect and restore nature and the rewards will be immense.”
The commission said the new economic reporting system would “mark a major step forward to incorporating sustainable development in economic planning and policy decision-making and could have a significant impact on efforts to address critical environmental emergencies, including climate change and biodiversity loss.”
It said two crucial conferences later this year, the summit on Biodiversity in Kunming, China, and the Glasgow Climate Conference known as COP 26, would demonstrate the benefits of the SEEA-EA to help policy makers make decisions based on hard data.
“The new framework would go beyond the commonly used statistic of gross domestic product (GDP) and would ensure that natural capital—the contributions of forests, oceans and other ecosystems—are recognized in economic reporting,” the commission said.

Elliott Harris, who is the UN Assistant General for Economic Development and top UN Chief Economist, said, “In the past, we have always measured our progress in the form of goods and services that we produce and consume, and value in the marketplace. But we have never done that for nature. We’ve treated nature as if it were free and as if it were limitless. So, we have been degrading nature and using it up without really being aware of what we were doing and how much we were losing in the process.”
The new framework “will allow us to see how our economic activities may affect our ecosystems, how the presence of nature affects us, and how our activities could be changed to achieve prosperity without damaging or destroying nature in the process,” Harris said.

The commission said more than half of global GDP depends on nature. But globally it is estimated that natural capital has declined 40 per cent in just over two decades.
It is estimated that human activity has severely altered 75 per cent of the planet’s terrestrial–and 66 per cent of its marine environment – leading to an average decrease in ecosystem extent and condition of 47 per cent against their natural baselines.  

Governments worldwide continue to make decisions on the economy without consideration to environmental impacts. Globally, countries now spend some US$4-6 trillion dollars a year on subsidies that damage the environment.
Climate change on the other hand contributed to extreme weather with the 2011-2020 period the warmest decade on record according to the World Meteorological Organization.

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Food waste is global while millions of people go hungry every day, UN report says

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Nairobi/New York, March 4 – An estimated 931 million tons of food were discarded by households, retailers, restaurants and food services, or about 17 per cent of the total food available to consumers in 2019, the UN Environment Program (UNEP) said in a comprehensive report on food waste’s environmental, social and economic impacts.

UNEP’s Food Waste Index Report 2021, carried out with partner organization Waste and Resources Action Program (WRAP), studied food waste that occurred in retail outlets, restaurants and homes taking into account both food and inedible parts like bones and shells.

Building on the work of the report, UNEP plans to launch regional working groups to discuss how to measure and prevent food waste in order to meet Sustainable Developing Goals by 2030.

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The Nairobi-based UN organization said food waste is substantial and it’s happening in all parts of society regardless of income levels. The study said households topped the list as they discarded 11 per cent of food available at the consumption stage of the supply chain. They are followed by food services and retail outlets with 5 per cent and 2 per cent.

On a global level each person wastes 121 kilograms of consumer level food each year, with 74 kilograms of the waste happening in households.

The report said food that is not consumed is responsible for 8 to 10 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions responsible for global warming.

An estimated 690 million people suffered hunger in 2019 and that the number has sharply increased during 2020 under the pandemic. In addition, some 3 billion people worldwide are unable to afford a healthy diet.

Inger Andersen, the Executive Director of UNEP, said, “Reducing food waste would cut greenhouse gas emissions, slow the destruction of nature through land conversion and pollution, enhance the availability of food and thus reduce hunger and save money at a time of global recession.”

“If we want to get serious about tackling climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste, businesses, governments and citizens around the world have to do their part to reduce food waste. The UN Food Systems Summit this year will provide an opportunity to launch bold new actions to tackle food waste globally.”

“For a long time, it was assumed that food waste in the home was a significant problem only in developed countries,” said Marcus Gover, CEO of WRAP. “With the publication of the Food Waste Index report, we see that things are not so clear cut.

“With only nine years to go, we will not achieve SDG 12 Target 3 if we do not significantly increase investment in tackling food waste in the home globally. This must be a priority for governments, international organizations, businesses and philanthropic foundations.”

For more information: www.unep.org 

(Following are explanations provided by UNEP: “food waste” is defined as food and the associated inedible parts removed from the human food supply chain in the following sectors: retail, food service and households.

 (“Removed from the human food supply chain” means one of the following end destinations: landfill; controlled combustion; sewer; litter/discards/refuse; co/anaerobic digestion; compost / aerobic digestion; or land application.

 Food is defined as any substance – whether processed, semi-processed or raw – that is intended for human consumption.

 “Food” includes drink, and any substance that has been used in the manufacture, preparation or treatment of food. Therefore, food waste includes both: • “edible parts”: i.e., the parts of food that were intended for human consumption, and • “inedible parts”: components associated with a food that are not intended to be consumed by humans. Examples of inedible parts associated with food could include bones, rinds and pits/stones.)

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Hunger increased fourfold in Central American nations over two years, World Food Program says

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Rome/New York, February 23 – The constant economic crises plus the coronavirus pandemic and extreme climate-related weather in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua over a two-year period have pushed up the number of hungry people from 2.2 million to close to 8 million in 2021, including 1.7 million who are considered emergency cases that require urgent food aid, the World Food Program said.

Surveys made by the Rome-based UN organization in January 2021 showed that the four Central American nations have had a series of severe setbacks that included homes and farms destroyed by hurricanes and rampant unemployment due to economic difficulties. About 15 per cent of the people just surveyed said they considered migrating as opposed to 8 per cent in 2018 when the region was hit by drought.

“Considering the level of destruction and setbacks faced by those affected, we expect this to be a long and slow recovery,” said Miguel Barreto, WFP Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean. “2020 was a year to forget across the world, and even more so for communities in Central America that were dealt a series of blows.”

“Urban and rural communities in Central America have hit rock bottom. The COVID-19-induced economic crisis had already put food on the market shelves out of reach for the most vulnerable people when the twin hurricanes Eta and Iota battered them further,” said Barreto. “Many now have nowhere to live and are staying in temporary shelters, surviving on next to nothing”.

WFP said it plans to assist 2.6 million people in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua in 2021 and requires US$47.3 million over the next six months.

Central America was hit by a record Atlantic hurricane season in 2020, which destroyed 200,000 hectares of farmlands and severely hurt the region’s economy, tourism and informal jobs. WFP said 6.8 million people who had a relatively stable life suddenly lost homes and livelihoods.

The pandemic further exacerbated living conditions in the region, doubling the number of hungry people in Guatemala and Honduras. People in those two countries and in El Salvador reported income losses or unemployment during the pandemic.

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UN chief calls on Myanmar’s military to immediately stop repression, release prisoners

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New York, February 22 – UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed his full support to the people in Myanmar and called on the country’s military to respect human rights and democracy.

The UN leader said in a speech delivered to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva that he welcomes a resolution to be issued by the council regarding the military coup that toppled the civilian government in Myanmar. Following is Guterres’ statement on the situation in Myanmar:

“We see the undermining of democracy, the use of brutal force, arbitrary arrests, repression in all its manifestations. Restrictions of civic space. Attacks on civil society. Serious violations against minorities with no accountability, including what has rightly been called ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya population. The list goes on. It is all coming together in a perfect storm of upheaval.

Today, I call on the Myanmar military to stop the repression immediately. Release the prisoners. End the violence. Respect human rights, and the will of the people expressed in recent elections.

Coups have no place in our modern world. I welcome the resolution of the Human Rights Council, pledge to implement your request, and express my full support to the people of Myanmar in their pursuit of democracy, peace, human rights and the rule of law.”

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UN chief: Pandemic used to stoke racism, xenophobia and inequality; calls for action to defend human rights

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Geneva/New York, February 22 – UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres denounced in a blistering speech to the Human Rights Council in Geneva that the coronavirus pandemic has been used by groups and powerful people to incite racism and violence.

He urged the council as it opened its annual meeting to urgently fight the blight of racism, discrimination and xenophobia and “the most pervasive human rights violation of all: gender inequality. These evils are fed by two of the deepest wells of injustice in our world: the legacy of centuries of colonialism; and the persistence, across the millennia, of patriarchy.”

“Stoking the fires of racism, anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim bigotry, violence against some minority Christian communities, homophobia, xenophobia and misogyny is nothing new,” he said. “It has just become more overt, easier to achieve, and globalized. When we allow the denigration of any one of us, we set the precedent for the demonization of all of us.”

“The danger of these hate-driven movements is growing by the day. Let us call them what they are: White supremacy and neo-Nazi movements are more than domestic terror threats. They are becoming a transnational threat.”

He said those people promoting racism and violence has exploited the pandemic to boost their ranks and they are often cheered by people in power. “We need global coordinated action to defeat this grave and growing danger.”

Guterres called on the council to implement a Call to Action for Human Rights that he launched last year which is based on the words and values of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

“Using the pandemic as a pretext, authorities in some countries have deployed heavy-handed security responses and emergency measures to crush dissent, criminalize basic freedoms, silence independent reporting and curtail the activities of non-governmental organizations.”

Turning to the issues of availability of Covid-19 vaccines, Guterres said the pandemic has deepened existing inequalities between rich and poor.

“Extreme poverty is rising for the first time in decades. Young people are struggling, out of school and often with limited access to technology. The latest moral outrage is the failure to ensure equity in vaccination efforts.”

He said 75 per cent of existing Covid-19 vaccines have been administered in just 10 countries while more than 130 countries have not received a single dose despite the fact that vaccine equity is “ultimately about human rights.”

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News Feature: 2020 was the worst year for international tourism: 1 billion fewer arrivals, US$1.3 trillion in export revenues loses

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Madrid/New York – The year 2020 saw the collapse of international tourism after lockdowns and strict travel bans were imposed worldwide to fight the spread of Covid-19 virus. Vaccine rollouts this year give hopes that tourism would bounce back but the most optimistic scenarios by the UN World Tourism Organization say it would take until 2024 or later for a return to 2019 tourism levels.

The UN organization headquartered in Madrid updated its quarterly World Tourism Barometer in January 2021 and found that global tourism suffered the greatest crisis on record in 2020 during which the pandemic inflicted unprecedented health, social and economic emergency.

It said international tourist arrivals (overnight visitors) plunged by 74 per cent in 2020 over the previous year, or about 1 billion fewer arrivals, representing an estimated loss of US$1.3 trillion in export revenues, which was more than 11 times the economic losses recorded during the 2009 global economic crisis.

 “While much has been made in making safe international travel a possibility, we are aware that the crisis is far from over,” said Zurab Pololikashvili, the UNWTO secretary-general. “The harmonization, coordination and digitalization of Covid-19 travel-related risk reduction measures, including testing, tracing and vaccination certificates, are essential foundations to promote safe travel and prepare for the recovery of tourism once conditions allow.”

The collapse in international travels put between 100 and 120 million direct tourism jobs at risk, many of them in small and medium-sized enterprises.  

January and February 2021 have seen health conditions worsening in many parts of the world and governments have had to re-impose stricter travel restrictions, mandatory Covid-19 tests, quarantine and border closure.

Surveys conducted by WTO showed prospects for a rebound in touristic activities in 2021 were not possible because of the continuing health crisis and half of respondents to the surveys expected the rebound to happen in 2022 as compared to 21 per cent in October 2020. When tourism does restart, the WTO Panel of Experts foresee growing demand for open-air and nature-based tourism activities, with domestic tourism and ‘slow travel’ experiences gaining increasing interest. 

“Looking further ahead, most experts do not to see a return to pre-pandemic levels happening before 2023. In fact, 43 per cent of respondents point to 2023, while 41 per cent expect a return to 2019 levels will only happen in 2024 or later. WTO’s extended scenarios for 2021-2024 indicate that it could take two-and-a-half to four years for international tourism to return to 2019 levels.”

The organization said its World Tourism Barometer “monitors short-term tourism trends on a regular basis to provide global tourism stakeholders with up-to-date analysis on international tourism.”

It found that Asia and the Pacific suffered an 84-per-cent decline in tourism and was “the first region to suffer the impact of the pandemic and the one with the highest level of travel restrictions currently in place – recorded the largest decrease in arrivals in 2020 (300 million fewer).”

The Middle East and Africa both recorded a 75-per-cent decline.

It said Europe recorded a 70-per-cent decrease in arrivals, “despite a small and short-lived revival in the summer of 2020. The region suffered the largest drop in absolute terms, with over 500 million fewer international tourists in 2020.”

The Americas saw a 69-per-cent decrease in international arrivals, following somewhat better results in the last quarter of the year.

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