The world’s 10 richest men have more than doubled their collective fortunes – from $700 billion to $1.5 trillion – in the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, UK-based charity Oxfam said on Monday.

Incomes of the 99% of the world population have dropped in the same period, and over 160 million people slipped into poverty, according to Oxfam, which released a report titled Inequality Kills.

“If these ten men were to lose 99.999 percent of their wealth tomorrow, they would still be richer than 99 percent of all the people on this planet,” said Gabriela Bucher, the charity’s executive director, adding, “They now have six times more wealth than the poorest 3.1 billion people.”

According to Oxfam, inequality caused the death of one person every four seconds, or at least 21,000 people every day.

“This is a conservative finding based on deaths globally from lack of access to healthcare, gender-based violence, hunger, and climate breakdown,” the statement said.

According to the report, the pandemic has set gender parity back from 99 years to 135 years.

“Women collectively lost $800 billion in earnings in 2020, with 13 million fewer women in work now than there were in 2019. 252 men have more wealth than all 1 billion women and girls in Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean combined,” it added.

The charity also stated that the inequality amongst ethnic minorities soared during the pandemic, adding that people of Bangladeshi origin are five times more likely to die of COVID-19 than the White British population in the second wave of the pandemic in England.

“Black people in Brazil are 1.5 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than White people. In the US, 3.4 million Black Americans would be alive today if their life expectancy was the same as White people — this is directly linked to historical racism and colonialism,” it added.

Bucher said, as quoted in the statement, “Inequality at such pace and scale is happening by choice, not chance.”

“Not only have our economic structures made all of us less safe against this pandemic, they are actively enabling those who are already extremely rich and powerful to exploit this crisis for their own profit,” she added.

According to Forbes figures as of Nov. 30, 2021, cited by the charity, the world's 10 richest people are Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bernard Arnault and family, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Ballmer, and Warren Buffet./aa

A mass funeral prayer was held on Sunday for the Muslims who lost their lives in the deadly apartment fire in the Tremont section of the Bronx, New York City.

The funeral was held at the Islamic Cultural Center in the Bronx for 15 of the 17 victims of the apartment building fire. The attendance was mostly from the Gambia.

"This is a very sad situation. But everything comes from Allah. Tragedies always happen, but we should thank Allah that we are all able to come together," said the uncle of a victim named Haja Dukuray -- who lost her entire family of five, including her husband and their three kids.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, as well as two officials from the Gambian government, were present at the funeral.

"When tragedies occur, we come together," Schumer said at the funeral.

Besides, "I'm here to voice the pain that all New Yorkers feel," Adams said.

After the funeral ceremony, 11 of the bodies were sent to New Jersey to be buried, and four others will be buried in the Gambia at the request of their families.

At least 17 people, including eight children, died in the apartment fire and 63 people were poisoned by smoke on Jan 9.

According to the New York Mayor's Office, the majority of the residents in the building were immigrant Muslims from Gambia, a country in West Africa./aa

US Muslim groups have condemned Saturday's hostage-taking incident at a synagogue in the US state of Texas.

Four people including a rabbi were held by a gunman who entered the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville during a religious service. After hours of standoff with law enforcement, all hostages were freed and the captor was dead, police said.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, denounced the incident.

"This latest antisemitic attack at a house of worship is an unacceptable act of evil. We stand in solidarity with the Jewish community," CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said in a statement on Sunday.

Meanwhile, the US Council of Muslim Organizations said it stands in complete solidarity against antisemitism with the Jewish community and "condemns the evil, unjust, and unjustifiable hostage-taking of members of the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue."

"This heinous attack on a synagogue, a sacred and inviolable place of worship – and its congregants in the act of prayer – is utterly unacceptable," said Council Secretary-General Oussama Jammal.

The FBI identified the hostage-taker as British national Malik Faisal Akram, 44.

Matthew DeSarno, special agent in charge of the FBI's Dallas Field Office, said the captor acted alone with no other involved in the hostage-taking./aa

Iraq and Lithuania held talks on Sunday to discuss ways of ending the crisis of Iraqi migrants stranded on Belarusian-Lithuanian border.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein met with his Lithuanian counterpart Gabrielius Landsbergis, who arrived in the capital Baghdad earlier Sunday.

"Iraq was able to return 4,000 Iraqis, who were stranded on Belarus’ border with Lithuania and Poland,” Hussein told a press conference following his talks with Landsbergis.

He said there are still some Iraqi migrants stranded on the border, without giving an exact number.

“They will be returned to Iraq voluntarily upon their approval,” he added.

Landsbergis, for his part, said Iraq was the first country to stop flights with Belarus to stop the influx of migrants on the EU border.

He said his talks in Iraq also dwelt on ways of boosting bilateral cooperation in various fields.

Since August, the EU countries bordering Belarus -- Lithuania, Latvia and Poland -- have reported a dramatically growing number of irregular crossings.

Over 8,000 people have tried to enter the bloc via the Belarus-EU border so far in 2012, up sharply from just 150 last year.

According to the EU, Belarus reaches out to potential travelers through seemingly official channels, including diplomatic missions and travel agencies, and invites them to Belarus by offering them visas. They are then allegedly guided to the EU border./aa

Sudanese authorities have revoked the license of Al Jazeera Mubasher TV, citing “unprofessional coverage” of developments in Sudan.

The Information Ministry said in a letter to the director of Al Jazeera television in Sudan on Saturday that the move was taken due to the channel’s “unprofessional approach” and broadcast of media content that “harmed the country’s higher interests and national security.”

The Doha-based network condemned the Sudanese move. “Al Jazeera condemns the interference with its duty to convey fair and objective coverage of events in the country and to allow its journalists to operate unhindered and to practice their profession,” it said in a statement.

The network described the Sudanese move as “an attack on press freedom as a whole,” calling on international human rights and media organizations to condemn “this infringement of journalists’ safety.”

This was the second time for the Sudanese authorities to close Al Jazeera office in Sudan. In May 2019, its office was shut down by Sudanese authorities, which reversed its decision two months later.

Sudan has been in turmoil since Oct. 25, 2021 when the military dismissed Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok's transitional government and declared a state of emergency.

Prior to the military takeover, Sudan was governed by a sovereign council of military and civilian officials tasked with overseeing the transition period until elections in 2023.

Hamdok was reinstated on Nov. 21 following an agreement, but protesters denounced the deal, insisting on the removal of any military influence over the transitional governing coalition. He resigned on Jan. 2, citing a political deadlock./aa

Communication difficulties were reported in Tonga following a massive underwater volcanic eruption in the Pacific country, according to local media on Sunday.

In a news conference, New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said communication with the country had been difficult due to the eruption but that her country’s Defense Force and the Foreign Ministry were working to help Tonga, the public broadcaster Radio New Zealand (RNZ) reported.

“New Zealand's High Commission in (Tonga's capital) Nuku'alofa is in contact with local authorities and damage assessments are underway,” it added.

While phone lines and the internet remain down for part of Tonga, people began using social media to connect with their loved ones, RNZ also said.

“There are unconfirmed reports that the tsunami advisory in Tonga is still active and that Tonga's prime minister has authorized bakeries, petrol stations, and shops to provide necessities,” it noted.

The Tsunami Warning Center of the US National Weather Service has issued a tsunami warning for the western coast of the US and Canada after the volcanic eruption hit Tonga.

The volcano, located 65 kilometers (40 miles) north of Nuku'alofa, had begun spewing ash, steam, and gas Friday morning./aa

Washington, DC: Experts from Amnesty International USA and Genocide Watch, leading global human rights watchdogs, have said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Islamophobic policies and tolerance of open incitement by Hindu extremists for the genocide of Muslims are pushing India towards mass violence against and massacres of Muslims.

Because of Modi’s failure to condemn and act against anti-Muslim bigotry, hate speeches by leading religious and political figures had proliferated in recent weeks specifically aimed at inciting such mass violence against Muslims, the experts said at a Congressional Briefing organized in Washington, DC on January 12, Wednesday.

A gathering of saffron-robed Hindu monks held last month at the north Indian Hardiwar city “was exactly aimed at inciting the genocide of Muslims,” said Dr Gregory Stanton, President of Genocide Watch. “As the leader of India he must denounce this genocidal speech. Yet, Narendra Modi has not spoken against it.”

“That the participants [at the gathering] would openly urge Hindus to emulate the violence against Rohingya Muslims and boast about it in the days afterward in the media is illustrative of the atmosphere of bigotry that pervades these groups,” added Govind Acharya, India/Kashmir Specialist with Amnesty International USA. “The calls to large-scale massacres of Muslims [aim] to institute Hindu supremacy over India.”

The fact that Keshav Prasad Maurya, a leader of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the deputy chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, had this week defended the “open incitement and hate from the dharma sansad in an interview to the BBC speaks to the current atmosphere” of peak hatred and bigotry against India’s Muslims, Acharya said.

At the Haridwar event, a top religious leader of the Hindu Mahasabha openly called for raising an “army” of Hindus to “kill two million Muslims.” At another event held in New Delhi, hundreds of participants took a public oath to kill in order to protect Hinduism. Elsewhere, schoolchildren were recorded taking similar oaths to “kill and die” to create a Hindu nation. Politicians have defended the right to incite violence against Muslims.

Cautioning that “genocide is not an event” but “a process,” Dr Stanton noted that Prime Minister Modi had a long history of presiding over mass violence against Muslims, beginning with the Gujarat pogroms of 2002 and continuing into the present day.

“Under the BJP’s policies, Modi has used anti-Muslim, Islamophobic rhetoric to build his political base,” he said. Stressing that the U.N. Genocide Convention covered genocides specifically “aimed at the destruction, in whole or in part, of a national, ethnic, religious, or racial group,” he said that was “exactly what the Myanmar government did against the Rohingya” and “we’re now facing [in India] a very similar kind of plot… and the victims are the 200 million Muslims who live in India.”

Genocide Watch had warned of impending genocide in India since 2002 when anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat occurred. “There is a lot of evidence that [Modi as Gujarat chief minister then] actually encouraged those massacres.”

Upon becoming India’s prime minister, Modi had “used anti-Muslim Islamophobic” policies such as the revocation of Kashmir’s autonomous status and the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act that excludes Muslims, “to build his political base,” Dr Stanton said.

“The idea of India as a Hindu Nation, which is the Hindutva movement, is contrary to the history of India and the Indian constitution. The Indian constitution is specifically set up to make India a secular country to allow for equality between all religions. It was not aimed at making a Hindu Nation.” With Modi as prime minister, an “extremist has taken over the government,” Dr Stanton added.

The ten processes of genocide begin with classification by “trying to exclude people from citizenship.” Dehumanisation involves calling people terrorists, separatists and criminals. This language is used by the Indian Government against Muslims. Polarisation leads to hatred for all Muslims hatred, and preparation for genocide is what “we are seeing right now.”

Added Govind Acharya of Amnesty: “This bigoted law specifically discriminates against Muslims seeking citizenship. When you combine it with the CAA, the NRC is weaponized against Muslims in India. Because of the bigotry of these laws, India stands to create the biggest statelessness crisis in the world which will create unimaginable suffering. And of course, the vast majority of those affected would be Muslims.”

“Once an organization has the support of the state machinery, or if the state machinery is willing to look away, it does not remain a fringe organization,” said Anas Tanwir, a lawyer for the Indian Supreme Court and founder of the Indian Civil Liberties Union.

“The speeches made in Haridwar are an explicit call for genocide against Muslims by religious leaders who are close to the ruling party, the government,” said Sunita Viswanath, Executive Director of Hindus for Human Rights.

“According to research from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, India is at high risk – number two in the world – for a genocide… We call on all of you to recognize that the hatred being expressed in India is at a very serious level. We can’t let the Biden Administration repeat the mistakes of the past.”

Also speaking at the briefing was Amina Kausar, an IT entrepreneur who was one of the many victims of Bulli Bai, an app that was designed by Hindu extremists to “auction” and harass vocal Muslim women.

“The sheer humiliation of being put up for ‘sale,’ and called a ‘Bulli Bai,’ a vulgar slang phrase implying a woman is a prostitute, is hard to describe in words,” she said. “Being objectified, being reduced to a virus, normalizing the abuse, is one of the decisive stages of genocide… These online abusers are not fringe elements. Many of them are backed by none other than the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi. I urge the US government to take note of the systemic violence that Indian Muslim women are subjected to.”

The briefing was co-sponsored by a group of 17 human rights and interfaith organizations, including the Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC), Amnesty International USA, Hindus for Human Rights, Genocide Watch, 21 Wilberforce, International Christian Concern, Jubilee Campaign, Dalit Solidarity Forum, New York State Council of Churches, Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations of North America, India Civil Watch International, Students Against Hindutva Ideology, Center for Pluralism, American Muslim Institution, International Society for Peace and Justice, Association of Indian Muslims of America, and the Humanism Project.

India has entered into a very critical phase of communal strife after the Hindu zealots led by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) inspired Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders openly called for genocide of the Muslims and persecution of other minorities through tacit extreme ploys.

Indian and foreign media reports are rife with repeated incidents of lynching of Muslims and Dalits, destruction of churches, trolling of scholars, detention of activists, the harassment of movie stars, persecution of the minorities, the erosion of fundamental rights, distortion of history, the usurpation of social media by hate speech and fake news and propaganda and encouragement of vigilantism.

The same alarming situation also found words in a Congressional briefing of President of Genocide Watch Dr Gregroy Stanton a few days back, who had warned that something similar to the inhumane Rwandan genocide could happen in India if stern action was not taken by the government of India.

During a briefing in Washington DC, he also referred to the event of "Dharam Sansad" organised in Haridwar, where members of Hindu right-wing members made genocide calls against Muslims.

Dr Stanton bitterly criticised Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his indifferent attitude. “As the leader of India, he has an obligation to denounce this genocidal speech. Yet, Narendra Modi has not spoken against it,” foreign media quoted the president of watchdog as saying.

According to experts, the reason extremist groups in India are on the rise, is clear; they have impunity and support from the Modi-led government.

Contrary to it, “India prohibits hate speech under several sections of its penal code, including a section which criminalises “deliberate and malicious acts” intended to insult religious beliefs,” they added.

Human Rights Watch in its latest World Report 2022 unveiled on Jan 13, said that Indian authorities had intensified their crackdown on activists, journalists, and other critics of the government using politically motivated prosecutions in 2021.

The clampdown on dissent was facilitated by the draconian counterterrorism law, tax raids, foreign funding regulations, and charges of financial irregularities.

The report highlighted that attacks against religious minorities were carried out with impunity under the BJP-led Hindu nationalist government. BJP supporters engaged in mob attacks or threatened violence, while several states adopted laws and policies to target minority communities, particularly Christians, Muslims, Dalits, and Adivasis.

“The Indian authorities have given up any appearance of tolerating dissent and are using the machinery of the state to silence critics,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

“At the same time, the BJP government has created an atmosphere in which minorities feel unsafe, at risk of assault by ruling party supporters.”

As per media reports including CNN, Amnesty International USA, Genocide Watch, and 17 other human rights organisations in the US had also raised similar concerns about the plight of Muslims in India during the Congressional briefing.

Those experts spoke about how India was likely to witness mass violence and massacres of Muslims if the situation worsened.

The Human Rights Watch report said that many of the alleged murders went unpunished in part due to delayed police investigations and “rhetoric” from ruling party politicians, which certainly had incited mob violence.

At an event organised by Yati Narasinghanand, the priest of Dasna temple in Ghaziabad, targeted Muslims and urged Hindus to take up weapons against them. “Swords look good on stage only. This battle will be won by those with better weapons,” Indian media quoted him as saying.

Later, another event in continuation of Hardiwar was organised and hosted by the Delhi section of the Hindu Yuva Vahini, at the Banarasidas Chandiwala Auditorium.

The Hindu Yuva Vahini described itself as a “fierce cultural and social organisation dedicated to Hindutva and nationalism.”

Yogi Adityanath, chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and BJP leader, is its chief patron and founder.

The organisation had a record of anti-Muslim and anti-Christian violence in Uttar Pradesh.

According to CNN, Al-jazeera and Indian media reports, during the three-day events, the Hindu right-wing members including Sadhvi Annapurna Maa, Dharamdas Maharaj, Anand Swaroop Maharaj, Swami Sagar Sindhuraj, Swami Prabodanand Giri, Swami Premanand Maharaj, BJP member, Ashwini Upadhyay, and the party’s Mahila Morcha member, Udita Tyagi, called for a Hindu Raj and passionately advocated for violence against Muslims.

In 2018, India’s current Home Minister Amit Shah was quoted by the Indian media as saying that Muslim immigrants and asylum seekers from Bangladesh were “termites” and promised to rid the nation of them.

In 2015, Sadhvi Deva Thakur, then a senior member of the Hindu Mahasabha group, caused widespread controversy when she told reporters Muslims and Christians should undergo forced sterilisation to control their population growth.

Similarly, various Hindu right-wing members including the BJP and journalists also called for genocide against Muslims and asked Hindus to buy weapons to unleash a Muslim genocide.

One of the members, Sadhvi Annapurna Maa was seen bragging “Nothing is possible without weapons and we have to carry a knife or sword to kill them if you want to eliminate the population kill Muslims. If 100 of us are ready to kill two million Muslims, then we will win and make India a Hindu Rashtra. Be ready to kill and go to jail”.

International political observers said that the Indian government was allowing hate speech and calls for violence, and its silence over the rising spectre was underscored by the meekness of the political opposition.

The silence of Modi and his inability to condemn the open calls for mass genocide made during the right-wing Hindu gatherings could be interpreted by his most-extreme supporters as a tacit signal of protection, they added.

US intelligence report in 2019 had warned that parliamentary elections in India increase the possibility of communal violence if Modi’s BJP “stresses Hindu nationalist themes.”

It added that state leaders “might view a Hindu-nationalist campaign as a signal to incite low-level violence to animate their supporters.”

Michael Kugelman, from the Wilson Centre, had hit out at the Indian government for its silence.

“Not a peep, much less a condemnation, from the gov’t. Sad truth is that this deafening silence isn’t the least bit surprising”.

According to Human Rights activist and lawyer Vrinda Grover, any group inciting violence was barred under Indian law.

“Police, states and the government are responsible to ensure (inciting violence) doesn’t happen”. “But the state, through its inaction, is actually permitting these groups to function, while endangering Muslims who are the targets.”

On Gregory Stanton remarks, Foreign Office Spokesperson Asim Iftikhar Ahmad said that his warning is based on data assessed on a scientific model of 10 stages of Genocide.

According to this model, he said, India has crossed all 10 stages, raising serious alarm for the safety of more than 200 million Muslims in India.

It may be recalled that Pakistan has been warning of grave consequences for minorities, especially Muslims, due to the extremist "Hindutva" ideology being propagated by the RSS-BJP regime with impunity in India.

All sides in the deepening conflict in northern Ethiopia are committing severe human rights violations and should pull back from their year-old war, the UN said.

An estimated 5,000 to 7,000 people are detained, including nine UN staff, under a state of emergency and its “excessively broad provision” declared by the government last month, the UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, Nada Al-Nashif, said.

“Many are detained incommunicado or in unknown locations. This is tantamount to enforced disappearance, and a matter of very grave concern,” she told a special session of the UN Human Rights Council.

Ethiopia’s Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Zenebe Kebede, did not comment directly on the accusations of detentions, but said that there was a failure to condemn what he said was a series of abuses by rebellious forces from the northern Tigray region.

“Ethiopia is being targeted and singled out at the Human Rights Council for defending a democratically elected government, the peace and the future of its people,” he said.

Thousands of civilians have died and millions have fled in the conflict between the federal government and rebellious forces including fighters loyal to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, which dominated Ethiopia’s ruling coalition for nearly 30 years.

Al-Nashif said people had been detained in Oromiya and Benishangul-Gumuz regions this month.

“I also deplore increasing hate speech and incitement to violence by federal and regional authorities, as well as other public figures, particularly targeted against Tigrayans and members of the Oromo community,” she added.

The forum will consider a draft resolution brought by the EU that condemns violations by all sides. If adopted, it would set up an international commission of rights experts on Ethiopia to investigate and report back after a year.

The US called for the resolution’s adoption and for the Ethiopian government to “release all civilians and allow international monitors timely access to detainees.”

Ethiopia’s Zenebe rejected the resolution and said the government would not work with any such commission.

He added that the state-appointed Ethiopian Human Rights Commission had already worked with the UN rights office to investigate accusations of abuses, and was ready to do so again.

That joint investigation published last month found that all sides in Tigray’s conflict had committed violations that may amount to war crimes.

Diplomats expected the vote on the resolution to be close at the 47-member-state forum.

The African Group of countries said that “any politicization of the investigation process must be avoided” and that the EU had “totally ignored its positions and advice on this delicate situation.”

The proposed investigative mechanism was “counterproductive and likely to exacerbate tensions,” it said, calling for the resolution to be rejected.

In Addis Ababa, Ethiopian government spokesman Legesse Tulu did not respond to requests for comment./AN

A leaked memo reveals how the Myanmar military is trying to hide from international scrutiny of its crimes against the Rohingya and other people.

A memo from a senior official in the Myanmar military, issued on Jan 6, 2022, and made public last week, orders all military personnel not to answer letters related to arrest warrants or summons from the International Criminal Court (ICC) or the Argentinian judiciary.

It looks like the Myanmar military is trying to cover the tracks of its genocidal crimes, a sign that the efforts to hold the junta to account for its atrocities are working.

It shows that the international community must redouble all efforts to bring Min Aung Hlaing and his cronies to justice.

The ICC, in November 2019, opened a case against Myanmar over crimes against humanity in its treatment of the Rohingya.

In December last year, the Argentinian judiciary accepted a petition by the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK (Brouk) to open a case against senior military officials over genocide and crimes against humanity in Rakhine State since 2016.

The memo makes specific references to both processes and to Brouk as an organisation, signed by Captain Aung Ko Zaw.

The memo also bans military personnel from accepting letters from "plaintiffs", a reference to the many victims involved in the judicial processes.

Brouk's case in Argentina, for example, includes as witnesses six women who survived sexual violence during the military operation in Rakhine State in 2017.

Last month, independent media outlet, Myanmar Now, revealed that the junta had issued a separate order to its staff to not receive any notification issued by international courts seeking to prosecute junta leaders.

That order was signed by Tun Tun Oo, a former general appointed by the regime to serve as Myanmar's chief justice.

The military has terrorised people for decades with impunity. The only way to break this cycle of abuse is to ensure that those responsible are held to account.

The United Nations Security Council must support a full referral of the situation in Myanmar to the ICC, while other countries should look to open universal jurisdiction cases like the one in Argentina./ nst