United States

“We needed the World Health Assembly to unite behind a People’s Vaccine, not a Trump Administration seeking scapegoats for a pandemic it has mis-handled from the start", said Anna Marriott, Health Policy Manager at Oxfam, commenting at the closure of the World Health Assembly today.

There has been a catastrophic failure by the international community to forge a global ceasefire in order for countries in conflict – and the world at large – to stop the coronavirus and save millions of lives, said Oxfam today.

Oxfam’s humanitarian work in Iraq is restricted due to heightened security concerns, road checkpoints and travel difficulties, following Iranian missile attacks on US military bases in Iraq overnight in retaliation for the US killing of the Iranian General Suleimani.

The United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement is an indefensible, pointless and morally bankrupt capitulation that will only serve to weaken the global effort to combat the climate crisis, Oxfam said.

Reaction to today’s ruling by the US Supreme Court that the International Finance Corporation (IFC) was not categorically immune from lawsuits under US law.

One year on from the historic United Nations summit for refugees and migrants, the international community has failed to make meaningful progress towards meeting the goals of the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants.

The discriminatory Executive Order bars Syrian refugees from entering the United States indefinitely, suspends all refugee admissions for 120 days, imposes bans on refugees on the basis of their religion, and blocks citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries, refugees or otherwise, from entering the United States for 90 days: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

Oxfam praised President Barack Obama and President Xi Jinping for officially joining their countries to the Paris climate agreement today.

De-risking’ refers to financial institutions closing the accounts of clients perceived as high risk for money laundering or terrorist financing abuse, namely money service businesses, non-profit organizations, correspondent banks and foreign embassies. This report explores the linkages between bank de-risking and the ascendance of the risk-based approach to anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT). 

The joint US-China statement on new domestic policy commitments and a vision for a global climate change deal underscores the importance the world’s two largest emitters place on solving the climate crisis, says Oxfam, but collective action is needed.