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Geneva — The International Labor Organization warns global unemployment is set to rise this year, putting a brake on the gradual recovery of nations from the dire economic straits brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.   Data from the ILO’s World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends 2024 report finds global unemployment in 2023, which stood at 5.1%, was at its lowest level since the start of the pandemic in 2019. That rate is projected to increase to 5.2% in 2024. While the report finds labor markets in 2023 showed “surprising resilience despite deteriorating economic conditions,” it says a deeper analysis of economic trends finds worrying signs of growing fragility and imbalances in labor markets. “In a time of interacting and multiple crises, this is eroding progress toward greater social justice in the world,” said Gilbert Houngbo, ILO director-general, at the launch of the report in Geneva Wednesday. “There is still a significant shortage of decent work, jobs in which employees are secure and treated with respect…We believe high quality, decent work is a pre-requisite for sustainable development and for building social justice.” The ILO chief said an area of great concern was the worsening jobs gap rate, that is, the number of people who would like to work but cannot find employment.   “In 2023, 189 million people were officially reported as being unemployed worldwide. However, more than double that number, 435 million people, wanted employment but could not find it,” he said. The report finds high income countries are doing better than lower income countries in narrowing the jobs gap rate, which stood at 8.2% in the richer countries compared to 20.5% in the poorer ones. Similarly, it notes unemployment in rich countries stood at 4.5% in 2023, while it was 5.7% in low-income countries. The ILO reports the absolute number of workers living in extreme poverty grew by about one million last year to more than 241 million people, each of whom earned less than $2.15 a day. On a slightly more positive note, the report observed that the rates of informal work have returned to close to pre-pandemic levels, “though the number of informal workers reached two billion people in 2023 because of the growing labor force.”  It notes that informal work will account for around 58% of the global workforce in 2024. The return to pre-pandemic labor market participation rates has varied between different groups. While women’s participation has bounced back quickly, the report found that “a notable gender gap still persists,” especially in emerging and developing nations. “The gap between men and women is not improving and that is very worrisome,” said Houngbo. “In the post-COVID environment, women workers have gone more in the informal sector than in the formal economy which in itself has a direct impact on the quality of the job.” The report also found that youth unemployment rates continue to present a challenge for long-term employment prospects. “Youth unemployment is a particular problem in Africa,” said Richard Samans, director of research at the ILO.  “Worldwide, young people — that is people in the workforce of working age, but less than 24 years old — they have an unemployment rate three-and-a-half times that of working age adults.  “Part of the problem here is that in Africa, the number of youths who are not in education, employment, and training is high and is going up quite strongly. So, this is also a worrying development in the case of Africa,” he said. After a brief post-pandemic boost, the ILO report notes labor productivity has returned to the low level seen in the previous decade. It finds that despite technological advances and increased investment, productivity growth has continued to slow. Samans blames under-investment in addressing skills shortages as a main reason for technology’s failure to boost productivity. “We see in countries like the United States a historic under investment in active labor market policies, which is to say skilling as well as employment services and income support during that period.   “All of these things, the low pay, precarity, health issues, ageing populations, and particularly under investment in skills in a very dynamic and changing economic environment are some of the most salient issues that will persist and arguably and potentially even grow larger in the U.S. and a number of other high-income countries,” he said.

Los Angeles — Fresh from its wins at the Golden Globes, Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer" on Wednesday topped the nominations for the influential Screen Actors Guild Awards, which are key to Oscars success. The SAG Awards, voted on by Hollywood actors, are likely to enjoy a profile boost of their own this year as they are broadcast globally on Netflix — an awards show first for the world's biggest streamer. "Oppenheimer," which tells the story of the inventor of the atomic bomb, earned nods for Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr. and Emily Blunt, as well as "outstanding performance by a cast" — the SAG Awards' top prize. Nolan's three-hour epic, which earned nearly $1 billion and received rave reviews from critics, is rapidly becoming the clear favorite for the Academy Awards in March. "Barbie," the other half of last summer's "Barbenheimer" box office phenomenon, and the year's highest grossing film, picked up nominations for Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling and overall cast. The surreal comedy based on the wildly popular doll also picked up an additional nomination for its stunt performers. The other films with three acting nominations were Martin Scorsese's epic "Killers of the Flower Moon" — despite Leonardo DiCaprio missing out — and scathing satire "American Fiction," starring Jeffrey Wright. Both movies are nominated for best cast, with musical remake "The Color Purple" closing out that category. Elsewhere, Globes winners Paul Giamatti and Da'Vine Joy Randolph picked up nods for "The Holdovers," as did Emma Stone and her co-star Willem Dafoe for "Poor Things." Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan were nominated for Leonard Bernstein biopic "Maestro." But all three films missed out on nominations for outstanding cast. The winner of that prize has gone on to win best picture at the Oscars in three of the past four years ("Parasite," "CODA" and "Everything Everywhere All at Once"). The SAG Awards also honor television, with "Succession" on top with five nods, followed by "The Bear," "The Last of Us" and "Ted Lasso," all on four. The 30th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards will take place in Los Angeles on February 24.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Yaounde — Opposition and civil society groups are rallying in support of Gabon’s coup leader, after a bloc of Central African states refused to lift the sanctions on Gabon they imposed after the military ousted President Ali Ben Bongo at the end of August. There were demonstrations this week in the Gabonese cities of Libreville, Oyem and Franceville, as civil society groups call for an end to sanctions, including Gabon’s suspension from the Central African Economic and Monetary Community, CEMAC, and Economic Community of Central African States, ECCAS. Gabon was suspended from the economic blocs on September 1, two days after General Brice Oligui Nguema ousted President Bongo in a bloodless coup. In a New Year's message, Oligui said he rescued Gabon from the iron fisted rule of Bongo, restored political stability and is improving delivery of water, electricity and health care. He said most of Gabon's debts have been settled within his four months of rule. Opposition parties say the junta leader has also liberated scores of political prisoners, invited exiled opposition leaders and critics back to the country and is fighting against corruption that characterized the Ali Bongo regime. They say he should be given time to organize elections, and say the international sanctions should be lifted, immediately. Jean Delors Bitogue Bi Ntougou is a political scientist and researcher at the Libreville-headquartered Omar Bongo University. He says the sanctions deprive Gabon of expressing opinions on topical local, regional and international issues and render the central African states' voice inaudible when countries meet during summits and conferences to discuss peace, security, the well-being of civilians and international cooperation. He says Gabon, like any other nation, wants to take part in discussions that shape the future of the world. The military junta recently sent delegations to the United Nations, CEMAC and ECCAS member states to press for the lifting of the sanctions. Oligui said the coup was essential, because it prevented bloodshed from Gabon's opposition, which said Bongo stole their victory in Gabon’s August 26 election. In remarks to protesters, Oligui said he was surprised the diplomatic outreach didn’t work. Nestor Obiang Nzoghe, an expert in governance and development policy and an adviser to the ousted president’s Gabonese Democratic Party, says if Gabon's military respects its promise to hand power to civilian rule, sanctions imposed by the international community will be lifted. Nzoghe says central Africa's leaders who have clung to power for decades are reluctant to lift sanctions on Gabon for fear of setting a precedent for military takeovers. He says Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who has ruled for about 45 years, Cameroon's President Paul Biya, who has been in power for 41 years, and Congo's Denis Sassou Nguesso, who has been president for about 40 years, may think that lifting sanctions and openly accepting General Oligui as Gabon's president can act as an encouragement for militaries in their countries to also seize power. In November, Gabon's military government announced a program to organize free, transparent and credible elections to restore civilian rule by August 2025. The military leaders say before such elections, the sovereign people of Gabon will meet in a national dialogue in April 2024 to, among other things, adopt the transition plan.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Johannesburg, South Africa — The U.N.’s International Court of Justice will hold hearings this week to decide whether an interim measure needs to be brought against Israel to try and halt the war in Gaza. There is a history behind the South African government’s longstanding solidarity with the Palestinian people. South Africa has gone to the ICJ or International Court of Justice in The Hague, charging that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. On Thursday and Friday the court will hear arguments from both sides and will then decide whether to issue an interim order that Israel stop its bombardment of Gaza. “There are ongoing reports of crimes against humanity and war crimes being committed as well as reports that acts meeting the threshold of genocide or related crimes as defined in the 1948 ‘Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide’ have been and may still be committed in the context of the ongoing massacres in Gaza," said Clayson Monyela, spokesman for South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation South Africa and Israel are both signatories to the convention. Legal experts say the full case to prove Israel is guilty of genocide could take years, but the hearings this week are an urgent measure to seek a quick order against Israel in the meantime. If South Africa wins at what is often dubbed “the World Court,” it will be an international embarrassment for Israel, lawyers told VOA this week. However, while decisions by the court are binding, they are not always followed. Russia for example has still not obeyed a 2022 ICJ order that it halt its invasion of Ukraine. “Enforcement is typically the Achilles heel of international justice at the ICJ," said Mia Swart, a visiting international law professor at South Africa’s University of the Witwatersrand. "It’s probably highly likely that Israel will not, you know, immediately desist from all military action should the court order this and this will then have to go to the Security Council." As a permanent member of the top U.N. body the U.S. has veto powers and is a firm ally of Israel. Washington, like the Israeli government, has called South Africa’s lawsuit “meritless.” South Africa’s support for the Palestinian cause is longstanding, said Gerhard Kemp, a South African law professor at the University of the West of England, Bristol. “There’s also an historic reason for this, the African National Congress, the governing party of South Africa has a very longstanding relationship with the people of Gaza, Palestine, with the Palestinian liberation movements," Kemp said. "So therefore, there’s also historical significance in that South Africa is taking the lead on this by bringing Israel to the ICJ.” The African National Congress, or ANC, was itself once a banned liberation movement that led an armed struggle against the racist white apartheid regime in South Africa, and says it sees echoes of that in the plight of the Palestinians. Former South African President Nelson Mandela was a close friend of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and famously said South Africa's freedom would not be complete until the Palestinians were also free.

AILA member Alexandra Zaretsky describes how the International Refugee Assistance Project decided to find out how USCIS and the State Department process FOIA requests by filing a “meta-FOIA” which unearthed some questionable agency policies of potential interest to others.

The post FOIA Behind the Scenes – How USCIS and DOS Process Immigration-Related Requests first appeared on Blog: Think Immigration.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Islamabad — A senior representative of Afghanistan’s Taliban government told a Pakistan-hosted international health conference Wednesday that his country had recorded an increase in mosquito-borne malaria and dengue fever cases, but infections caused by highly contagious poliovirus declined significantly. Only 12 children around the world were paralyzed by wild poliovirus in 2023, all of them in Afghanistan and Pakistan — with six reported in each. The two countries, sharing a nearly 2,600-kilometer border, have not detected a polio infection this year. "Polio is still a great challenge for both Afghanistan and Pakistan," Qalandar Ebad, the Taliban health minister, said in his English-language speech at the first global health security summit in Islamabad. Delegates from 70 countries worldwide, including those from the United States and the United Nations, are attending the summit in the Pakistani capital. "We are trying our best to eradicate the polio virus from the country and fortunately we have good accomplishments in this area," Ebad said. The World Health Organization says the polio vaccination campaign in Afghanistan has improved in quality and outreach since the Taliban regained control of the war-ravaged country in August 2021, leading to the cessation of years of nationwide hostilities. The Taliban minister noted that there was a "slight increase in HIV/AIDS cases" in the impoverished country, but he did not elaborate. Ebad blamed climate change for some health emergencies facing his South Asian nation of more than 40 million people. He urged the need to assist Afghanistan and other developing countries in improving their national healthcare systems to enable them to utilize locally available expertise to combat infectious diseases. "We are witnessing that the funding in Afghanistan is decreasing, but still, in our country, instead of national capacity [building], many international [workers] with higher salaries are recruited, though the national [workers] can perform the same tasks as internationals do," the Taliban minister asserted. No foreign country has recognized the Taliban, citing their bans on Afghan women's access to education and work. Afghanistan lost billions of dollars in foreign aid after the Taliban takeover as Western countries and international donors suspended their financial support for the country, where the health sector was primarily dependent on the funding. In his address to Wednesday's opening session of the summit, Pakistani Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar urged collective efforts to fight global infectious diseases like COVID-19 and climate change-induced emergencies. Kakar said that "no state in the world, no matter how powerful it is, can meet such challenges" alone. While addressing the gathering, Donald Blome, the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, backed calls for a collaborative international approach to global health security. "Coordination with partners is the most effective way to address regional and global health threats," Blome said. He added that halting infectious disease outbreaks at their point of origin is one of the best and most economical ways to save lives. "Health is the cornerstone to the future of any thriving nation, and the United States will be a strong partner to build this future."

New Delhi — For India, the return of Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League party to the helm in Bangladesh for a fourth consecutive term is a welcome development, according to analysts. While the United States and Britain have said the recent elections that extended Hasina’s rule in the South Asian country were not credible, free or fair, New Delhi considers her a close ally in a neighborhood where its military confronts both Pakistan and China along hostile, disputed borders.     That is why a friendly government in Bangladesh, with which India shares a long land border, is crucial to India’s security, according to Harsh Pant, vice president for studies and foreign policy at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi. “India faced a lot of turbulence in Dhaka-Delhi ties before Hasina came to power, but since taking office in 2009, she has been a steadfast ally,” said Pant. “Given the challenging neighborhood that India lives in where it faces a lot of headwinds like China’s increasing presence, it is natural for India to want her to continue in power.” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was among the first to congratulate Sheikh Hasina after she secured a fourth consecutive term.  “We are committed to further strengthen our enduring and people-centric partnership with Bangladesh,” he wrote on social media platform X, formerly Twitter. For her part, Hasina called India “a great friend” at a news conference held after her victory. For India, the topmost priority is its strategic interests, said analysts, who point out that Hasina has adroitly balanced ties with both India and China. Beijing has significantly expanded its footprint in small South Asian countries with its Belt and Road infrastructure initiative. Dhaka joined Beijing’s BRI in 2016. China is building infrastructure that includes bridges, power plants and rail projects in Bangladesh. China is also Bangladesh’s key supplier of military hardware.   “Some projects that are dual use in nature have raised questions in New Delhi. Beijing is building a submarine base in Bangladesh and has supplied two submarines to Dhaka,” according to Srikanth Kondapalli, dean at the School of International Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University. "Any military cooperation between them will be a matter of concern.” However, he pointed out that Bangladesh “describes its partnership with China as a developmental partnership and has been generally mindful of Indian sensitivities.” The Bay of Bengal where the submarine base is taking shape is a key waterway in the Indian Ocean, where India, along with the United States and other countries, are working together to deter China. Dhaka has allayed New Delhi’s concerns, saying its ties with China are friendly but primarily focused on economic linkages. “We are very prudent in receiving any aid or funds. So people should not be afraid that Bangladesh would succumb to the Chinese," Bangladesh’s foreign minister, Abdul Momen, said in an interview to India Today television after the polls. Analysts said that Hasina’s continuation in Bangladesh is a relief for New Delhi, which recently saw a pro-China government take office in the Maldives, straining ties with the archipelago nation.   “There has been no overt pro-China, anti-India discourse in Bangladesh as we saw in Sri Lanka in the past or in Maldives at present,” according to Sankalp Gurjar, assistant professor in geopolitics and international relations at the Manipal Academy of Higher Education. Bangladesh is also crucial to the security of India’s remote northeastern states where insurgent groups used to be active. They often took sanctuary in Bangladesh, which shares borders with some of these states. “Since Hasina has come to power, India’s northeastern problems have eased because she has not allowed Bangladesh to be used by such groups,” according to Gurjar.   Questions have been raised over the credibility of Hasina’s victory following the elections the opposition boycotted. Thousands of opposition activists were jailed in the run-up to the polls, raising concerns of democratic backsliding and authoritarianism.    In a statement, the U.S. State Department said, “The United States shares the view with other observers that these elections were not free or fair and we regret that not all parties participated.” Despite the divergent stands taken by New Delhi and Washington, India is urging Western countries to work with Bangladesh. “India will have to maintain a delicate balance, but New Delhi is playing the role of a facilitator between Hasina and Western countries,” according to Pant. “It is telling the U.S. that marginalizing or ignoring Bangladesh would only make China a much more central player in the country, which would not serve either India’s or Western interests.”

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

London — False and misleading information supercharged with cutting-edge artificial intelligence that threatens to erode democracy and polarize society is the top immediate risk to the global economy, the World Economic Forum said in a report Wednesday. In its latest Global Risks Report, the organization also said an array of environmental risks pose the biggest threats in the longer term. The report was released ahead of the annual elite gathering of CEOs and world leaders in the Swiss ski resort town of Davos and is based on a survey of nearly 1,500 experts, industry leaders and policymakers. The report listed misinformation and disinformation as the most severe risk over the next two years, highlighting how rapid advances in technology also are creating new problems or making existing ones worse. The authors worry that the boom in generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT means that creating sophisticated synthetic content that can be used to manipulate groups of people won't be limited any longer to those with specialized skills. AI is set to be a hot topic next week at the Davos meetings, which are expected to be attended by tech company bosses including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and AI industry players like Meta's chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun. AI-powered misinformation and disinformation is emerging as a risk just as billions of people in a slew of countries, including large economies like the United States, Britain, Indonesia, India, Mexico, and Pakistan, are set to head to the polls this year and next, the report said. "You can leverage AI to do deepfakes and to really impact large groups, which really drives misinformation," said Carolina Klint, a risk management leader at Marsh, whose parent company Marsh McLennan co-authored the report with Zurich Insurance Group. "Societies could become further polarized" as people find it harder to verify facts, she said. Fake information also could be used to fuel questions about the legitimacy of elected governments, "which means that democratic processes could be eroded, and it would also drive societal polarization even further," Klint said. The rise of AI brings a host of other risks, she said. It can empower "malicious actors" by making it easier to carry out cyberattacks, such as by automating phishing attempts or creating advanced malware. With AI, "you don't need to be the sharpest tool in the shed to be a malicious actor," Klint said. It can even poison data that is scraped off the internet to train other AI systems, which is "incredibly difficult to reverse" and could result in further embedding biases into AI models, she said. The other big global concern for respondents of the risk survey centered around climate change. Following disinformation and misinformation, extreme weather is the second-most-pressing short-term risk. In the long term — defined as 10 years — extreme weather was described as the No. 1 threat, followed by four other environmental-related risks: critical change to Earth systems; biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse; and natural resource shortages. "We could be pushed past that irreversible climate change tipping point" over the next decade as the Earth's systems undergo long-term changes, Klint said.

Helsinki, Finland — Finnish President Sauli Niinisto and China's Xi Jinping on Wednesday said their countries held "constructive dialogue" over a Baltic Sea gas pipeline that Finnish authorities believe was damaged by a Chinese vessel, Helsinki said. Finnish police in late October recovered an anchor believed to have damaged the Balticconnector pipeline between Finland and Estonia on October 8. They said findings suggested it belonged to the Chinese cargo ship Newnew Polar Bear. "The presidents noted the constructive dialogue between the countries regarding the Balticconnector pipeline incident," a statement from the Finnish presidency said. A Chinese statement about the presidents' video-link meeting made no mention of talks on the damaged pipeline. Finnish officials said in late October that China was cooperating in its investigation. The incident came just over a year after underwater explosions struck three of four Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea, cutting off a major supply route to Europe from Russia at a time of heightened tensions between Moscow and the West over the war in Ukraine. The cause of that sabotage remains unknown. The Finnish operator of Balticconnector said in October it would take at least five months to repair the pipeline, leaving Finland dependent on liquefied natural gas imports for the winter. Natural gas accounts for around five percent of Finland's energy consumption, being mainly used in industry and combined heat and power production. In the Finnish statement, Niinisto, whose country joined NATO last year, said he had also raised the issue of the war in Ukraine in his talks with Xi and "stressed the role of China in achieving a just and lasting peace." In a summary of the meeting on Chinese state television CCTV, Xi said the Asian nation was "firmly pursuing an independent foreign policy of peace." 

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.