KINGSTON, Nov 22 (IPS) - When face-to-face Cabinet meetings resumed in Jamaica following more than a year of virtual meetings due to COVID-19, Ministers lined up to have their immunisation cards inspected.

Efforts to reform global pandemic preparedness and response are happening too slowly, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response said on Monday. 

SINGAPORE, Nov 22 (IPS) - It has been said that when Greek meets Greek, then comes the tug of war. The summit of the leaders of world’s two strongest powers, the United States and China, came face to face at long last. Albeit virtually. Still, this was undoubtedly the “mother of summits” this year. There were two telephone conversations earlier, but according to US officials this nearly four hours of summitry was far more “candid intense, and deeper interaction”.

If there was one single take-away from this meeting, it was the establishment beyond all reasonable doubt of the incontrovertible fact that the US and China were indeed the two most influential global state actors. The decisions between the two, represented by their leaders, would profoundly impact the rest of humanity far into the future.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated factors that fuel human trafficking such as poverty, unemployment and gender-based violence, the President of the UN General Assembly said on Monday, urging countries to boost efforts to prevent and respond to this “vile crime”. 

Small arms trafficking is a “defining factor in undermining peace and security”, the Director of the UN Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) told the Security Council on Monday during a ministerial debate. 

UN-appointed independent human rights experts urged the Chinese authorities on Monday to release on humanitarian grounds, imprisoned citizen journalist and human rights defender, Zhang Zhan. 

UN Secretary-General António Guterres is headed to Colombia this week to mark the fifth anniversary of the signing of the peace accords that ended 50 years of conflict in the country, and his activities will include travel to the village of Llano Grande, where the townspeople and former combatants are working together to secure a better future.

WASHINGTON DC/SAN DIEGO, Nov 22 (IPS) - The COVID-19 pandemic has had devastating effects across the globe, but the data and evidence show that women have borne the brunt of the crisis. While inequalities in health, economic power, and other areas existed long before the pandemic began, the pandemic has widened these gaps.

Of the many agreements and initiatives announced at the 26th UN Climate Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, the UN Climate Communications Lead at the Department of Global Communications narrowed down the three that she deemed most impactful. 

The number of musk deer in Mongolia has plummeted by some 83 per cent since the 1970s, landing them on the country’s red list of critically endangered species. A UN-supported biodiversity initiative is helping to stop the deer from disappearing altogether.