World Politics

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Nikki Haley claims credit for already planned cuts to U.N. peacekeeping budget

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley declared victory after member nations agreed to a $600 million cut from the annual peacekeeping budget. Neglected in her Twitter declaration is that the cuts had already been planned, prior to Trump’s election. The UN peacekeeping budget declined from $7.87 billion to $7.3 billion with the U.S. contributing a smaller percentage as compared to last year.

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World Bank launches insurance scheme to fund pandemic responses

The World Bank has launched a global insurance fund aimed aimed at speeding up the international community’s response to pandemic disease outbreaks. The impetus for the innovative financial scheme was the 2013-2016 West Ebola outbreak that, due in part to the global community’s slow response, killed more than 11,000 people and ended up costing more than $10 billion to put down.

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Highest inequality in decades underpins Hong Kong protests

Hong Kong will soon mark 20 years since Britain returned the former colony to China and Chinese state media is touting the milestone by promoting the city’s greater prosperity under its “one country, two systems” strategy. But few Hong Kongers are feeling very prosperous or celebratory given that recent data has revealed the wealth gap is now the widest it’s been since the city began tracking income equality 46 years ago.

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Corporations secretly lobbying UN to allow tax avoidance in its anti-poverty agenda

Multinational corporations are lobbying the U.N. behind closed doors to keep tax avoidance off the list of targets in the Sustainable Development Goals, say advocates of global tax reform. Many experts cite tax avoidance by corporations and wealthy individuals as a major driver of inequality and poverty worldwide. The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), established by international consensus as a series of goals for reducing poverty and inequity, included reducing tax avoidance and evasion.

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Funding fails to keep pace with record number of people in need of aid

Humanitarian needs are growing worldwide and international donors are not keeping up. So far, only one-quarter of the money requested for 2017 is available to respond to crises ranging from Syrian refugees to the more than 20 million people at risk of famine. More money is needed due to deteriorating conditions in conflict regions and the recent rapid growth of violence in the Kasai province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

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UN urges Caribbean nations to see benefits from surge in refugees

The United Nations is urging countries around the Caribbean to view the recent surge in refugees, from near and far, as a long-term benefit and not just a short-term challenge. More than 5,000 people came to various Caribbean nations last year seeking asylum, representing a 257 percent increase in the number of asylum seekers between mid-2015 and mid-2016 for the region.

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