Kia ora koutou. Ko Ngāpuhi tōku iwi. Ko Ngāti Manu toku hapu. Ko Karetu tōku marae. Ko Myles Thomas toku ingoa.

I grew up with David Beatson, on the telly. Back in the 1970s, he read the late news which I watched in bed with my parents. Later, David and I worked together to save TVNZ 7 and also regional TV stations.

The Better Public Media (BPM) trust honours David each year with our memorial address, because his fight for non-commercial TV was an honourable one. He wasn’t doing it for himself.

• READ MORE: Other Better Public Media reports
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He wasn’t doing it so he could get a job or because it would benefit him. He fought for public media because he knew it was good for Aotearoa NZ.

Like us at Better Public Media, he recognised the benefits to our country from locally produced public media.

David knew, from a long career in media, including as editor of The Listener and as Jim Bolger’s press secretary, that NZ’s media plays an important role in our nation’s culture, social cohesion, and democracy.

NZ culture is very important. NZ culture is so unique and special, yet it has always been at risk of being swamped by content from overseas. The US especially with its crackpot conspiracies, extreme racial tensions, and extreme tensions about everything to be honest.

Local content the antidote
Local content is the antidote to this. It reflects us, it portrays us, it defines New Zealand, and whether we like it or not, it defines us. But it’s important to remember that what we see reflected back to us comes through a filter.

This speech is coming to you through a filter, called Myles Thomas.

Commercial news reflects our world through a filter of sensation and danger to hold our attention. That makes NZ seem more shallow, greedy, fearful and dangerous.

The social media filter makes the world seem more angry, reactive and complaining.
RNZ’s filter is, I don’t know, thoughtful, a bit smug, middle class.

The New Zealand Herald filter makes us think every dairy is being ram-raided every night.

And The Spinoff filter suggests NZ is hip, urban and mildly infatuated with Winston Peters.

These cultural reflections are very important actually because they influence us, how we see NZ and its people.

It is not a commodity
That makes content, cultural content, special. It is not a commodity. It’s not milk powder.

We don’t drink milk and think about flooding in Queenstown, drinking milk doesn’t make us laugh about the Koiwoi accent, we don’t drink milk and identify with a young family living in poverty.

Local content is rich and powerful, and important to our society.

When the government supports the local media production industry it is actually supporting the audiences and our culture. Whether it is Te Mangai Paho, or NZ On Air or the NZ Film Commission, and the screen production rebate, these organisations fund New Zealand’s identity and culture, and success.

Don’t ask Treasury how to fund culture. Accountants don’t understand it, they can’t count it and put it in a spreadsheet, like they can milk solids. Of course they’ll say such subsidies or rebates distort the “market”, that’s the whole point. The market doesn’t work for culture.

Moreover, public funding of films and other content fosters a more stable long-term industry, rather than trashy short-termism that is completely vulnerable to outside pressures, like the US writer’s strike.

We have a celebrated content production industry. Our films, video, audio, games etc. More local content brings stability to this industry, which by the way also brings money into the country and fosters tourism.

We cannot use quota
New Zealand needs more local content.

And what’s more, it needs to be accessible to audiences, on the platforms that they use.

But in NZ we do have one problem. Unlike Australia, we can’t use a quota because our GATT agreement does not include a carve out for local music or media quotas.

In the 1990s when GATT was being negotiated, the Aussies added an exception to their GATT agreement allowing a quota for Aussie cultural content. So they can require radio stations to play a certain amount of local music. Now they’re able to introduce a Netflix quota for up to 20 percent of all revenue generated in Aussie.

We can’t do that. Why? Because back in the 1990s the Bolger government and MFAT decided against putting the same exception into NZ’s GATT agreement.

But there is another way of doing it, if we take a lead from Denmark and many European states. Which I’ll get to in a minute.

The second important benefit of locally produced public media is social cohesion, how society works, the peace and harmony and respect that we show each other in public, depends heavily on the “public sphere”, of which, media is a big part.

Power of media to polarise
Extensive research in Europe and North America shows the power of media to polarise society, which can lead to misunderstanding, mistrust and hatred.

But media can also strengthen social cohesion, particularly for minority communities, and that same research showed that public media, otherwise known as public service media, is widely regarded to be an important contributor to tolerance in society, promoting social cohesion and integrating all communities and generations.

The third benefit is democracy. Very topical at the moment. I’ve already touched on how newsmedia affect our culture. More directly, our newsmedia influences the public dialogue over issues of the day.

It defines that dialogue. It is that dialogue.

So if our newsmedia is shallow and vacuous ignoring policies and focussing on the polls and the horse-race, then politicians who want to be elected, tailor their messages accordingly.

There’s plenty of examples of this such as National’s bootcamp policy, or Labour’s removing GST on food. As policies, neither is effective. But in the simplified 30 seconds of commercial news and headlines, these policies resonate.

Is that a good thing, that policies that are known to fail are nonetheless followed because our newsmedia cater to our base instincts and short attention spans?

Disaster for democracy
In my view, commercial media is actually disaster for democracy. All over the world.

But of course, we can’t control commercial media. No-one’s suggesting that.

The only rational reaction is to provide stronger locally produced public media.

And unfortunately, NZ lacks public media.

Obviously Australia, the UK, Canada have more public media than us, they have more people, they can afford it. But what about countries our size, Ireland? Smaller population, much more public media.

Denmark, Norway, Finland, all with roughly 5 million people, and all have significantly better public media than us. Even after the recent increases from Willie Jackson, NZ still spends just $44 per person on public media. $44 each year.

When we had a licence fee it was $110. Jim Bolger’s government got rid of that and replaced it with funding from general taxation — which means every year the Minister of Finance, working closely with Treasury, decides how much to spend on public media for that year.

This is what I call the curse of annual funding, because it makes funding public media a very political decision.

National, let us be honest, the National Party hates public media, maybe because they get nicer treatment on commercial news. We see this around the world — the Daily Mail, Sky News Australia, Newstalk ZB . . . most commercial media quite openly favours the right.

Systemic bias
This is a systemic bias. Because right-wing newsmedia gets more clicks.

Right-wing politicians are quite happy about that. Why fund public to get in the way? Even if it it benefits our culture, social cohesion, and democracy.

New Zealand is the same, the last National government froze RNZ funding for nine years.

National Party spokesperson on broadcasting Melissa Lee fought against the ANZPM merger, and now she’s fighting the News Bargaining Bill. As minister she could cut RNZ and NZ On Air’s budget.

But it wouldn’t just be cost-cutting. It would actually be political interference in our newsmedia, an attempt to skew the national conversation in favour of the National Party, by favouring commercial media.

So Aotearoa NZ needs two things. More money to be spent on public media, and less control by the politicians. Sustainable funding basically.

The best way to achieve it is a media levy.

Highly targeted tax
For those who don’t know, a levy is a tax that is highly targeted, and we have a lot of them, like the Telecommunications Development Levy (or TDL) which currently gathers $10 million a year from internet service providers like Spark and 2 Degrees to pay for rural broadband.

We’re all paying for better internet for farmers basically. When first introduced by the previous National government it collected $50 million but it’s dropped down a bit lately.

This is one of many levies that we live with and barely notice. Like the levy we pay on our insurance to cover the Earthquake Commission and the Fire and Emergency Levy. There are maritime levies, energy levies to fund EECA and Waka Kotahi, levies on building consents for MBIE, a levy on advertising pays for the ASA, the BSA is funded by a levy.

Lots of levies and they’re very effective.

So who could the media levy, levy?

ISPs like the TDL? Sure, raise the TDL back up to $50 million or perhaps higher, and it only adds a dollar onto everyone’s internet bill. There’s $50 million.

But the real target should be Big Tech, social media and large streaming services. I’m talking about Facebook, Google, Netflix, YouTube and so on. These are the companies that have really profited from the advent of online media, and at the expense of locally produced public media.

Funding content creation
We need a way to get these companies to make, or at least fund, content creation here in Aotearoa. Denmark recently proposed a solution to this problem with an innovative levy of 2 percent on the revenue of streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney.

But that 2 percent rises to 5 percent if the streaming company doesn’t spend at least 5 percent of their revenue on making local Danish content. Denmark joins many other European countries already doing this — Germany, Poland, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, France and even Romania are all about to levy the streamers to fund local production.

Australia is planning to do so as well.

But that’s just online streaming companies. There’s also social media and search engines which contribute nothing and take almost all the commercial revenue. The Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill will address that to a degree but it’s not open and we won’t know if the amounts are fair.

Another problem is that it’s only for news publishers — not drama or comedy producers, not on-demand video, not documentary makers or podcasters. Social media and search engines frequently feature and put advertising around these forms of content, and hoover up the digital advertising that would otherwise help fund them, so they should also contribute to them.

A Media Levy can best be seen as a levy on those companies that benefit from media on the internet, but don’t contribute to the public benefits of media — culture, social cohesion and democracy. And that’s why the Media Levy can include internet service providers, and large companies that sell digital advertising and subscriptions.

Note, this would target large companies over a certain size and revenue, and exclude smaller platforms, like most levies do.

Separate from annual budget
The huge benefit of a levy is that it is separate from the annual budget, so it’s fiscally neutral, and politicians can’t get their mits on it. It removes the curse of annual funding.

It creates a funding stream derived from the actual commercial media activities which produce the distribution gaps in the first place, for which public media compensates. That’s why the proceeds would go to the non-commercial platform and the funding agencies — Te Mangai Paho, NZ On Air and the Film Commission.

One final point. This wouldn’t conflict with the new Digital Services Tax proposed by the government because that’s a replacement for Income Tax. A Media Levy, like all levies, sits over and above income tax.

So there we go. I’ve mentioned Jim Bolger three times! I’ve also outlined some quite straight-forward methods to fund public media sustainably, and to fund a significant increase in local content production, video, film, audio and journalism.

None of it needs to be within the grasp of Melissa Lee or Willie Jackson, or David Seymour.

All of it can be used to create local content that improves democracy, social cohesion and Kiwi culture.

Myles Thomas is a trustee of the Better Public Media Trust (BPM). He is a former television producer and director who in 2012 established the Save TVNZ 7 campaign. Thomas is now studying law. This commentary was this year’s David Beatson Memorial Address at a public meeting in Grey Lynn last night on broadcast policy for the NZ election 2023.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa are experts on authoritarian states who warned America about election hacking years before 2016. Here, they take a deep dive on the news, skipping outrage to deliver analysis, history, context, and sharp insight on global affairs.

There’s an alert too from WHO on Africa where a “third wave “of coronavirus infections is feared, along with some good news – and some not so good – from South Sudan, where schools have reopened after lockdown, and positive news from the United States, which has decided to lift patent restrictions on COVID vaccines. 

That’s the message from Dr. Yasmin Ali Haque, Representative of the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, in the country, who spoke to our colleague Anshu Sharma in Delhi.

Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa are experts on authoritarian states who warned America about election hacking years before 2016. Here, they take a deep dive on the news, skipping outrage to deliver analysis, history, context, and sharp insight on global affairs.

That’s according to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) India Representative, Dr. Roderico Ofrin, speaking exclusively to UN News, who told Anshu Sharma that tried and trust methods of bringing down the numbers would surely work, if India can get “ahead of the game”.

Just ahead of World Press Freedom Day on 3 May, Julia Dean from the UN Country Team in Australia, spoke to Swe Win, Editor-in-Chief of the news agency Myanmar Now. She started by asking him how vital press freedom is for democracy.

We’ll also hear an alert from UNICEF in the Central African Republic over ongoing violence that’s leaving youngsters vulnerable to exploitation – and a warning from the UN agency for sexual and reproductive health, over the devastating consequences for women, girls and their families from the UK’s $180 million funding cut.

Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa are experts on authoritarian states who warned America about election hacking years before 2016. Here, they take a deep dive on the news, skipping outrage to deliver analysis, history, context, and sharp insight on global affairs.

UN News’ Vibhu Mishra speaks with Sheetal Vyas, Founding Executive Director of International Fund for Public Interest Media,  about the Fund’s bold, billion dollar rescue plan to help save journalism for the public good.

With the details about this latest tragedy which happened just off the Libyan coast, here’s Safa Msehli, from the UN migration agency, IOM, speaking to UN News’s Daniel Johnson.

And, a warning from UN Secretary-General that the world is on the edge of an abyss from climate change, at the White House’s Climate Leaders’ Summit – as UNHCR unveils new data showing that climate shocks has displaced twice as many people as conflict in the last decade.

As ever, we have closing comments from regular guest Solange Behoteguy-Cortes, thanks for listening.

Ahead of the Leaders’ Summit on Climate convened by the United States on Thursday, here’s WMO meteorologist Laura Paterson, outlining the main findings of the UN agency’s State of the World Climate 2020 report, speaking to UN News’s Daniel Johnson.

On Earth Day, we host an extended conversation with two of the two dozen Indigenous scholars behind the new book, “The Red Deal: Indigenous Action to Save Our Earth,” described as “not simply a response to the Green New Deal nor a ‘bargain’ with the elite and powerful. It is a deal with the humble people of the earth; an affirmation that colonialism and capitalism must be overturned for human and other-than-human life to live with dignity. It is a pact with movements for liberation, life, and land for a new world of peace and justice that must come from below and to the left.” In Albuquerque, Melanie Yazzie is a co-founder of The Red Nation, a grassroots Indigenous liberation organization, and chair of the board of directors for Red Media, an imprint of Common Notions. Yazzie is a citizen of the Navajo Nation and an assistant professor of Native American studies and American studies at the University of New Mexico. We are also joined from Toronto by Uahikea Maile, a Kanaka Maoli scholar and activist from Maunawili, O’ahu. He is also a member of the Red Nation and an assistant professor of Indigenous politics at the University of Toronto.

Although people’s concerns are totally justified, it is also worth bearing in mind that the filtering process used to strip the water of radioactive elements is used at nuclear power stations all around the world – as Mr. Grossi tells UN News’s Daniel Johnson. 

Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa are experts on authoritarian states who warned America about election hacking years before 2016. Here, they take a deep dive on the news, skipping outrage to deliver analysis, history, context, and sharp insight on global affairs.

That’s the disturbing assessment of the UN Children’s Fund UNICEF, which is deeply concerned for the more than million people displaced by six months of violence.

Just back from the conflict zone, here’s the latest from UNICEF spokesperson James Elder, who’s been talking to UN News’s Daniel Johnson.

UN News’s Matt Wells, began by asking him to describe the state of the world’s youngest country, when he first arrived in the capital Juba.

Also we’ll be finding out about a UN-partnered plan to tackle the “kissing bug” –  a neglected tropical disease which you definitely don’t want to embrace; it’s something that our regular guest Solange Behoteguy-Cortes remembers all too well from her childhood growing up in Bolivia…tune in to hear her story.

Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa are experts on authoritarian states who warned America about election hacking years before 2016. Here, they take a deep dive on the news, skipping outrage to deliver analysis, history, context, and sharp insight on global affairs.

Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa are experts on authoritarian states who warned America about election hacking years before 2016. Here, they take a deep dive on the news, skipping outrage to deliver analysis, history, context, and sharp insight on global affairs.

It will also be possible to flag when anyone suffering from severe depression or other degenerative brain conditions might need help from a relative or carer, as Irene Kitsara from WIPO tells UN News’s Daniel Johnson.

The post Eat the Airwaves! Podcast 04/03/21 appeared first on KODX 96.9 FM – Seattle.

Also – the Sahel attack on civilians that’s prompted a protection call from the UN refugee agency…the latest on the Myanmar crisis and help for child victims of the insurgency in northern Mozambique.  

With Daniel Johnson and Solange Behoteguy-Cortes from UN Geneva. 

According to UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF),  youngsters have been separated from their parents, and every single one desperately needs help. 

UNICEF’s head of communications in Mozambique, Daniel Timme, spoke to UN News’s Daniel Johnson from an aid hub in the provincial capital, Pemba.

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This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa are experts on authoritarian states who warned America about election hacking years before 2016. Here, they take a deep dive on the news, skipping outrage to deliver analysis, history, context, and sharp insight on global affairs.

That’s the assessment of maritime expert Jan Hoffman at UN trade and development agency UNCTAD, who also explains why the cost of sending freight around the world has increased dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Here he is, talking to UN News’s Daniel Johnson. 

Monica Grayley spoke to Aboubacar Koulibaly, leader of an expert team from the UN Development Programme (UNDP) that is currently in Mozambique to increase support to people battered by the complex, multilayered crisis.

Also – the UN’s human rights office OHCHR announces a probe into grave rights abuses in Ethiopia’s Tigray region; a call for solidarity for the tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees who’ve lost everything in a huge camp fire in Bangladesh; a call for an emergency summit to stop the violence in Myanmar and the latest global COVID data from the UN World Health Organization. 

With Daniel Johnson and Solange Behoteguy-Cortes from UN Geneva. 

Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa are experts on authoritarian states who warned America about election hacking years before 2016. Here, they take a deep dive on the news, skipping outrage to deliver analysis, history, context, and sharp insight on global affairs.

That’s the latest on Tuesday from UN teams and refugee volunteers on the ground at Cox’s Bazaar, who need to rebuild quickly ahead of the upcoming monsoon, as UN Children’s Fund spokesperson James Elder, tells UN News’s Daniel Johnson. 

Fortunately, that never happened, thanks to a successful new medicines distribution scheme – and a little bit of help from social media platforms too – as UNAIDS country director Vladanka Andreeva told UN News’s Daniel Johnson.

With Daniel Johnson and Solange Behoteguy-Cortes, from UN Geneva. 

Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa are experts on authoritarian states who warned America about election hacking years before 2016. Here, they take a deep dive on the news, skipping outrage to deliver analysis, history, context, and sharp insight on global affairs.

She reads her poem for UN News.

The photographs he took and the stories he heard feature in a campaign to raise awareness about their plight. It’s called Inside Yemen, Portraits of Resilience, and it wasn’t easy, as he explained in this UN News interview. 

With Daniel Johnson, Solange Behoteguy-Cortes and Alpha Diallo from UN Geneva.

Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa are experts on authoritarian states who warned America about election hacking years before 2016. Here, they take a deep dive on the news, skipping outrage to deliver analysis, history, context, and sharp insight on global affairs.

In the final episode of Island Voices, Sergeant Bianca Simeon and her colleagues describe the challenges they face.

That’s according to Zeina Hilal of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), the UN partner organization working to make parliaments more representative. 

Holocaust survivor Rabbi Arthur Schneier has spent decades leading efforts toward religious freedom, human rights and coexistence around the world.

After seeing his own synagogue in Austria go up in flames, Rabbi Schneier lived through the Holocaust in Hungry before beginning his quest for coexistence.

With Daniel Johnson and Solange Behoteguy-Cortes from UN Geneva.

In an interview with UN News’s Daniel Johnson, rights investigator Hanny Megally from the Commission of Inquiry on Syria, explains what steps the international community is taking to try to resolve the situation – and what obstacles it still faces. 

In the second episode of Island Voices, Georgilla Worwor, and Anthea Arukole, a political advisor to the Vanuatu Government, discuss their political ambitions.

Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa are experts on authoritarian states who warned America about election hacking years before 2016. Here, they take a deep dive on the news, skipping outrage to deliver analysis, history, context, and sharp insight on global affairs.

”Solwota Sista” is the first episode of Island Voices, a three-part podcast series which looks at the ways that women in Vanuatu are attempting to break down barriers.

Despite the dangers, boys and girls are returning in their thousands to places that were previously in the grip of Boko Haram extremists, according to UN Children’s Fund UNICEF. 

UN News’s Daniel Johnson spoke to the agency’s representative in Nigeria, Peter Hawkins.  

And after gunmen abducted around 40 students and teachers from a boarding school in rural Nigeria, an interview with UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) country representative Peter Hawkins; such attacks are a way of life, he tells us… not forgetting closing comments from regular guests Solange Behoteguy-Cortes and Alpha Diallo.  

For five years, the family of four watched anti-Semite SS officers deport thousands of Jews on trains, never to return. Mr. Zajbert’s parents did everything in their power to keep their family alive, despite the nightmarish conditions in which they lived. 

Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa are experts on authoritarian states who warned America about election hacking years before 2016. Here, they take a deep dive on the news, skipping outrage to deliver analysis, history, context, and sharp insight on global affairs.

Stay with us too for an interview with top rights expert Fionnuala Ni Alouain, who throws light on the miserable situation for thousands of mainly women and children with links to ISIL extremists who are stuck in camps in Syria’s northeast … and not forgetting a very welcome appearance from regular guests Solange Behoteguy-Cortes and Alpha Diallo.  

When her father decided to move the family from the Warsaw Ghetto, she learned The Lord’s Prayer in Polish, in case her identity was questioned.

Having previously participated in a UN Holocaust remembrance event, Mrs. Wolloh sat down with Natalie Hutchison to detail her testimony in this edition of In Their Words: Surviving the Holocaust. Finding Hope about how, even in the darkest of times, expressions of humanity emerge.

Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa are experts on authoritarian states who warned America about election hacking years before 2016. Here, they take a deep dive on the news, skipping outrage to deliver analysis, history, context, and sharp insight on global affairs.

Recognized for going above and beyond, he changed the way parents perceive education and innovated classrooms to engage students and spark their interests. This extraordinary teacher even had a hand in helping to call off underage marriages.  

Speaking to UN News’ Anshu Sharma, Mr. Disale began by telling what it means for him to have received this accolade.  

In an appeal to well over 50 countries whose nationals are languishing in Al Hol and Roj centres because of their alleged links to ISIL extremists, Special Rapporteur Fionnuala Ní Aoláin told UN News’s Daniel Johnson that many western Europeans countries could do more to bring them home. 

In an interview with Daniel Johnson, the UN health agency’s Dr André Ilbawi from WHO’s Department of Noncommunicable Diseases, explains how the coronavirus has had a “profound” impact on cancer care everywhere.

JHGC Collection, Johannesburg

Now aged 94, Veronica Phillips asks herself why, and how, she survived the Holocaust whilst some six million other Jews did not. 
The appalling treatment she endured, designed to kill Jews and other groups systematically targeted under the Nazi regime, caused her to suffer eight miscarriages. 

Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa are experts on authoritarian states who warned America about election hacking years before 2016. Here, they take a deep dive on the news, skipping outrage to deliver analysis, history, context, and sharp insight on global affairs.

In this week’s 15-minute catch-up, we hear from the UN Refugee Agency on efforts to stop human traffickers from exploiting vulnerable people who’ve lost their jobs because of COVID-19, plus the week’s top stories from the UN and comments from regular guests Alpha Diallo and Solange Behoteguy-Cortes – with poetry to boot from Uruguayan scribe Eduardo Galeano. Enjoy the show!  

In this week’s 15-minute catch-up, we hear from the UN Refugee Agency on efforts to stop human traffickers from exploiting vulnerable people who’ve lost their jobs because of COVID-19, plus the week’s top stories from the UN and comments from regular guests Alpha Diallo and Solange Behoteguy-Cortes – with poetry to boot from Uruguayan scribe Eduardo Galeano. Enjoy the show!  

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

She speaks to Natalie Hutchison for this edition of In Their Words: Surviving the Holocaust. Finding hope from her home in Jerusalem, with a message of warning on discrimination that goes unchallenged.

Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa are experts on authoritarian states who warned America about election hacking years before 2016. Here, they take a deep dive on the news, skipping outrage to deliver analysis, history, context, and sharp insight on global affairs.

But this year, the annual commemoration programme was held online for the first time ever, due to COVID-19, under the theme “Facing the Aftermath: Recovery and Reconstitution after the Holocaust”.  

For this latest edition of our Lid is On podcast, Ana Carmo brings you some of those voices of survival, along with the poignant contribution of German leader, Angela Merkel, and leading UN officials, speaking out against intolerance and racism, with neo-Nazism seemingly on the rise.  

We have the latest on fighting Yemen, and the rusting supertanker Safer, off the Hudaydah coast, plus an appeal from UN-appointed independent rights experts over the cremation of coronavirus victims in Sri Lanka. Host Daniel Johnson will be joined by regular guests Solange Behoteguy-Cortes and Alpha Diallo.

That’s according to Dr. Roderico H. Ofrin, Representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) in India, which is one of the main UN agencies supporting the government-led drive. 

In an interview with UN News’s Daniel Johnson, ILO’s Dorothea Schmidt-Klau maintains there is hope that the crisis will lead to new opportunities in the green economy, which is where young jobseekers in particular, should seek work. 

Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa are experts on authoritarian states who warned America about election hacking years before 2016. Here, they take a deep dive on the news, skipping outrage to deliver analysis, history, context, and sharp insight on global affairs.

Plus, insight from guests Solange Behoteguy-Cortes and Alpha Diallo…thanks for listening! 

Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa are experts on authoritarian states who warned America about election hacking years before 2016. Here, they take a deep dive on the news, skipping outrage to deliver analysis, history, context, and sharp insight on global affairs.

In an interview for UN News, António Vitorino wants migrants to be included in all plans. The agency’s Yasmina Guerda, began by asking the Director General to outline the overall impact of the pandemic on migrants and the displaced.

The emergency has created a massive protection challenge for the UN refugee agency in Sudan, UNHCR, which is doing everything it can to provide what they need, as spokesperson Axel Bisschop tells UN News’s Daniel Johnson. 

Dr. Neufeld warns that, whilst the pandemic should have allowed governments to invest more use of green technologies, and bounce back stronger than before, there is little evidence so far that this is happening.
 

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi holds a press conference where she addresses President Trump’s impeachment [1]
President-elect Joe Biden announces his plan for covid-19 vaccine distribution, some public health officials are skeptical [2]
Fast food workers strike today [3]

[1] https://kpfa.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/HAAS-BLINMAN-on-impeachment-insurrection.mp3
[2] https://kpfa.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/HERDMAN-on-biden-vaccine-rollout.mp3
[3] https://kpfa.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/ANDERSON-on-fast-food-workers.mp3

Jorge Bravo from the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), explained to Conor Lennon from UN News that the longer-term trend is showing an increase in the numbers of people leaving their countries of origin to live elsewhere.

Charlotta Lomas spoke to Keith Cressman, who said that $80 million was still needed to control the scourge, through the coming months.

Valerie Kapos, from  the UNEP’s World Conservation Monitoring Centre, discusses the findings of the latest UNEP Adaptation Gap report with host Tim Albone.

In an interview with UN News’s Daniel Johnson, WFP’s regional director for southern Africa, Lola Castro, explains how the UN agency is helping by empowering communities to withstand future climate shocks

A new ILO report, released on Wednesday, lays out the penalties paid by those now having to work from home, which include higher health risks, lower wages, and social isolation.

Sergei Soares, a labour economist at the ILO,  explained to Conor Lennon from UN News that the impetus behind the report was the fact that very few countries have ratified the ILO’s Home Work Convention.

One of them, perhaps, is the fact that more people in low and middle income countries, than in rich nations, called for greater global solidarity for communities badly hit by the pandemic. UN News’s Daniel Johnson, spoke to Under-Secretary-General Fabrizio Hochschild, about meeting the needs of millions in the years ahead.

In an interview with UN News’s Daniel Johnson, Peter Auweraert (Hour-Urt) chief of mission in Bosnia for the UN Migration Agency IOM, describes the difficulties of trying to find a quick solution to the urgent problem. 

The agency in 2021 is working on finally achieving food security for all – with nutrition, diplomacy, technological advances and environmental sustainability all in play. 

Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa are experts on authoritarian states who warned America about election hacking years before 2016. Here, they take a deep dive on the news, skipping outrage to deliver analysis, history, context, and sharp insight on global affairs.

A group of House Republicans and Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., have said they plan to challenge the Electoral College votes from key battleground states on Jan. 6, when Congress meets to validate the results in a joint session.

It marks the end of a force that can withdraw, knowing that government is now “in the right hands”, according to the UN Joint Special Representative, Jeremiah Mamabolo, although as he tells UN News in this exclusive interview it does not mean the UN is leaving.

Mr. Mamabolo begin by telling Abdelmonem Makki of our UN News Arabic team and a Darfuri himself, what UNAMID had achieved since 2007, beyond fulfilling its core mandate of keeping civilians safe.