COVID-19

South African Firm to Manufacture COVID-19 Vaccine for Patients in Need

By Lisa Vies, Global Information Network

NW YORK (IDN) – The South African firm Aspen may soon be rolling out drugs to combat COVID-19 on the continent after signing a deal with the U.S.-based Johnson & Johnson.

The American pharma company has conducted the only major study testing the efficacy of a single dose of Covid vaccine among 60,000 volunteers. In October, the company announced that the single-dose drug “induced a strong neutralizing antibody response in nearly all participants aged 18 years and older and was generally well tolerated.”

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 14 December 2020

Photo: “Manhattan cocktail” (Creative Commons image) served at the UN North Delegates' Lounge (designed by Hella Jongerius and Rem Koolhaas) "where Diplomats and Renegades Rendezvous!” (Image source: dezeen.com)

Great Expectations! The Non-Proliferation Treaty and The Coming of The Messiah!

Viewpoint by Tariq Rauf* from Vienna for IDN

Great Expectations is a novel published in July 1861 by the renowned British writer, Charles Dickens. It depicts the education of an orphan nicknamed Pip who has a stroke of good luck and great expectations but then loses both his luck and his expectations. Against that backdrop, the writer – an eminent nuclear disarmament expert – cautions that the taking of office by Joe Biden as US President next January would not mark the coming of the Messiah for nuclear arms control as wished for by his supporters. Besides, he argues, the already postponed tenth review conference of the parties to the NPT should be held in April-May 2022 in the Austrian capital city Vienna and not in August 2021 at the UN headquarters in New York. And this for two reasons: the wide-ranging impact of COVID-19 pandemic and Vienna offering an ideal venue for nuclear disarmament conferences.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 14 December 2020

Climate Action: UN Insists on Developed Countries Meeting 100 Billion Dollar Annual Pledge

By Santo D. Banerjee

NEW YORK (IDN) – A new report by independent experts has proposed urgent actions to meet the pledge by developed countries to mobilize at least US$100 billion a year to support developing countries in mitigating and adapting to climate change. The study released by the United Nations on December 11 accentuates that "COVID-19 pandemic has drastically altered the context for international climate finance".

: Santo D. Banerjee; COVID-19; 12 December 2020

Australia-China Spat: It's More Than Just Trade

Viewpoint by Kalinga Seneviratne

SYDNEY (IDN) – A one-sided trade war has been gathering momentum between China and Australia, ever since Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison called for an “independent” international investigation of the origins of Covid-19, which infuriated China.

China is Australia’s biggest trading partner with two-way trade worth A$ 235 in financial year 2018-19, which amounts to 26% of Australia’s total trade.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; OPINION; 11 December 2020

Photo: Plastic waste on a beach in Hawaii. Credit: NOAA

Pacific Ocean’s Delicate Ecology Under Threat

By Jodie L Rummer, Bridie JM Allan, Charitha Pattiaratchi, Ian A Bouyoucos, Irfan Yulianto and Mirjam van der Mheen*

In the run-up to the COP26 climate change conference scheduled for November 2021 in Glasgow, Scotland, The Conversation has prepared a five-part series entitled Oceans 21 examining the history and future of the world’s oceans. This is the second article in the series which looks at the Pacific Ocean, an ocean so vast that it may seem invincible. Click here for the first article on the series.

: Phil Harris; SUSTAINABILITY; Climate Action; 09 December 2020

Photo: The panorama of Port Vila, capital and largest city of Vanuatu. CC BY 2.0

Vanuatu's Development Success Overshadowed by COVID-19

Viewpoint by Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana is Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

BANGKOK (IDN) – The Pacific Island Developing State of Vanuatu has emerged as one of the region’s great success stories. Vanuatu has joined the ranks of Samoa and the Maldives as one of only six countries to graduate from being a least developed country since the category was introduced by the United Nations in 1971.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 08 December 2020

Photo: Artist in the Central African Republic, CAR, painting on walls various tips on how to protect oneself from COVID-19. Credit: MINUSCA/Screenshot

Africa Alliance Launched to Combat Misinformation on COVID-19

By Sean Buchanan

LONDON (IDN) – The World Health Organisation (WHO) has just launched a new alliance, the Africa Infodemic Response Alliance (AIRA), to coordinate actions and pool resources in combating misinformation around COVID-19 pandemic and other health emergencies in Africa.

It brings together 13 international and regional organisations, together with fact-checking groups which have expertise in data and behavioural science, epidemiology, research, digital health and communications.

: Phil Harris; THE WORLD; Africa; 07 December 2020

Photo: Somar Wijayadasa speaking on World AIDS Day at the UN – 1998.

The Forgotten HIV/AIDS Pandemic

Viewpoint by Somar Wijayadasa*

NEW YORK (IDN) – Since the first identification of HIV/AIDS in the United States of America (USA), in 1981, approximately 76 million people have been infected with HIV, and nearly 35 million people have died of AIDS — the highest global death toll of all time — and also one of the world’s most politicized, feared and controversial diseases in the history of modern medicine.

However, this year, the deadly coronavirus (COVID-19) has thus far infected over 65 million and killed over 1.5 million people around the world.

: Somar Wijayadasa; OPINION; 03 December 2020

Photo: Families in Gaza receive food baskets through the UNRWA home delivery programme. Credit: UNRWA/Khalil Adwan

Gaza Strip Rapidly Becoming 'Unliveable'

By Sean Buchanan

LONDON (IDN) – “The UN said some three years ago that it expects Gaza to become ‘unliveable’ by 2020,” recalls Majed Abusalama, award-winning Palestinian journalist, scholar, campaigner and human rights defender.

“Since then, Israel not only refused to take action to reverse Gaza’s rapid deterioration into a post-apocalyptic wasteland but intensified its attacks on the Strip, hindering efforts by activists, NGOs and locals to keep this open prison habitable for a little longer. With the novel coronavirus now spreading throughout refugee camps and communities across Gaza, we cannot afford to wait any longer for the world to acknowledge our suffering and take action.”

: Phil Harris; THE WORLD; Middle East; 29 November 2020

Photo credit: Global Bioeconomy Summit 2020:

A Global Summit Calls for Transition to the Bioeconomy

By Rita Joshi

BERLIN (IDN) – Global environmental threats, the opportunities brought by new sciences, and the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic call for the transition to the bioeconomy, says the communiqué emerging from the Global Bioeconomy Summit 2020 organised by the International Advisory Council on Global Bioeconomy (IACGB) composed of about forty high-level policy experts and drivers of the bioeconomy in all hemispheres. The transition is "more critical than ever before".