A first-of-its-kind, international study of 107,000 children finds that higher temperatures are an equal or even greater contributor to child malnutrition and low quality diets than the traditional culprits of poverty, inadequate sanitation, and poor education. The 19-nation study is the largest investigation of the relationship between our changing climate and children’s diet diversity to date. It […]
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Nonproliferation Experts Warn Biden on Urgent Need for U.S. Reentry into Iran Nuclear Deal
Washington, D.C.January 14, 2021 – As Iran continues to threaten to take further steps in retaliation for Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a group of more than 70 former government officials and leading nuclear nonproliferation experts issued a joint statement today on why “returning […]
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This is apartheid: Israeli regime promotes and perpetuates Jewish supremacy between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River
More than 14 million people, roughly half of them Jews and the other half Palestinians, live between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea under a single rule. The common perception in public, political, legal and media discourse is that two separate regimes operate side by side in this area, separated by the Green Line. […]
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Hong Kong: UN human rights office urges immediate release of arrested activists
January 8, 2021 – The UN human rights office (OHCHR) on Thursday voiced deep concerns over the arrests of over 50 individuals under the new National Security Law in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China, and called for their immediate release. Fifty-three political activists, academics, former legislators, current district councillors, and lawyers, were arrested […]
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Copernicus: 2020 warmest year on record for Europe; globally, 2020 ties with 2016 for warmest year recorded
January 8, 2021 – The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) today reveals that globally 2020 was tied with the previous warmest year 2016, making it the sixth in a series of exceptionally warm years starting in 2015, and 2011-2020 the warmest decade recorded. Meanwhile, Europe saw its warmest year on record, 0.4°C warmer than 2019 […]
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Comment by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet on Wednesday’s events in the USA
GENEVA, January 7, 2021- We are deeply troubled by Wednesday’s attack on the US Capitol, which demonstrated clearly the destructive impact of sustained, deliberate distortion of facts, and incitement to violence and hatred by political leaders. Allegations of electoral fraud have been invoked to try to undermine the right to political participation. We are encouraged […]
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United Kingdom: UN expert cautiously welcomes refusal to extradite Assange to the U.S.
GENEVA, January 5, 2021 – UN Special Rapporteur on torture Nils Melzer today welcomed a British court’s refusal to extradite Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to the United States on the basis that he would be exposed to “oppressive” conditions of imprisonment that would almost certainly cause him to commit suicide. “This ruling confirms my own […]
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WHO issues its first emergency use validation for a COVID-19 vaccine
December 31, 2020 – The World Health Organization (WHO) today listed the Comirnaty COVID-19 mRNA vaccine for emergency use, making the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine the first to receive emergency validation from WHO since the outbreak began a year ago. The WHO’s Emergency Use Listing (EUL) opens the door for countries to expedite their own regulatory approval processes […]
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60 journalists were killed in 2020
Brussels, December 30, 2020 – The year 2020 will go down in history as the year of an unprecedented global pandemic crisis, but also as the year of the resurgence of murders of journalists and media staff around the world. With 60 murders in 2020, the macabre statistics are on the rise again compared to 2019 […]
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Loujain Al-Hathloul Sentenced in Sham Saudi Trial
New York, NY, December 29, 2020 – PEN America condemns the conviction and sentence of five years and eight months handed down to Saudi women’s rights activist and 2019 PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write awardee Loujain Al-Hathloul in a deeply flawed trial that concluded today. The sentence handed down today includes a suspended portion of 2 years and 10 months, […]
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Uganda: UN experts gravely concerned by election clampdown
GENEVA (29 December 2020) – UN human rights experts* today expressed serious concerns about the violence ahead of Uganda’s presidential election, and urged authorities to put an end to the arrest, detention and judicial harassment of political opponents, civil society leaders and human rights defenders. Media outlets have reported that three journalists were hurt on […]
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The Netherlands violated child’s right to acquire a nationality, UN Committee finds
GENEVA (29 December 2020) – In a ground-breaking decision, the Human Rights Committee has found that the Netherlands violated a child’s rights by registering “nationality unknown” in his civil records as this left him unable under Dutch law to be registered as stateless and therefore be given international protection as a stateless child. This is […]
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2020 closes a decade of exceptional heat
December 24, 2020 – As 2020 draws to an end, it closes the warmest decade (2011-2020) on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization. This year remains on track to be one of the three warmest on record, and may even rival 2016 as the warmest on record. The six warmest years have all been […]
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It’s electrifying! This is how Earth could be entirely powered by sustainable energy
December 22, 2020 – Can you imagine a world powered by 100% renewable electricity and fuels? It may seem fantasy, but a collaborative team of scientists has just shown this dream is theoretically possible – if we can garner global buy-in. The newly published research, led by Professor James Ward from the University of South […]
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WHO: SARS-CoV-2 Variant – United Kingdom
December 22, 2020 – On 14 December 2020, authorities of the United Kingdom (UK) reported to WHO that a new SARS-CoV-2 variant was identified through viral genomic sequencing. This variant is referred to as SARS-CoV-2 VUI 202012/01 (Variant Under Investigation, year 2020, month 12, variant 01). Initial analysis indicates that the variant may spread more […]
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Fire-resistant tropical forest at brink of disappearance in Indonesian regions due to human modification
December 21, 2020 – Tropical deforestation exacerbates recurrent peatland fire events in this region. These release globally significant greenhouse gas emissions and produce toxic haze events across South East Asia. An area of tropical forest and peatland larger than the Netherlands has burned in Indonesia in the past five years, according to Greenpeace. Yet the […]
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The Great iPwn: Journalists Hacked with Suspected NSO Group iMessage ‘Zero-Click’ Exploit
December 20, 2020 – In a report published today, researchers at the Citizen Lab reveal that four government operators used NSO Group’s “Pegasus” spyware to hack at least 36 phones belonging to journalists, producers, anchors and executives at the Al Jazeera news organization. The phone of a journalist at the London-based news organization, Al Araby TV was also hacked. […]
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Current food production systems could mean far-reaching habitat loss
The global food system could drive rapid and widespread biodiversity loss if not changed, new research has found. Findings published in Nature Sustainability show that the world’s food system will need to be transformed to prevent habitat loss across the globe. The international research team, led by the University of Leeds and the University of […]
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Two billion COVID vaccine doses secured, WHO says end of pandemic is in sight
December 18, 2020 – 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 Friday, as he welcomed the news that the global vaccine partnership COVAX has lined up almost two billion doses of existing and candidate vaccines for […]
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UN experts alarmed by sixth Palestinian child killing by Israeli forces in 2020, call for accountability
GENEVA (17 December 2020) – UN human rights experts* today called for an impartial and independent investigation into the killing of a 15-year-old boy by Israeli security forces at a West Bank protest this month, saying they were deeply troubled by the overall lack of accountability for the killings of Palestinian children in recent years. […]