Oxfam

UK-based humanitarian relief agency Oxfam and another 24 nongovernmental organizations sent an open letter to European leaders calling for changes to migration policy, especially with regards to Greece, where the situation for thousands of refugees and migrants is "unsustainable."

The world's 26 richest people own the same wealth as the poorest half of humanity, Oxfam said Monday, urging governments to hike taxes on the wealthy to fight soaring inequality, reports AFP. 

Hours after a 24-year-old man from Cameroon was found dead at Moria camp on the Aegean island of Lesvos, international relief group Oxfam published a scathing report detailing inhumane conditions at the infamous facility and other sites.

AFP - At least 34 people have died in northern Ghana during flooding caused by heavy rains and waters spilling from a dam in neighbouring Burkina Faso, relief agency officials said Thursday.

Bagre Dam is located on the White Volta river that begins in Burkina Faso and which converges with the Black Volta downstream and feeds into Lake Volta in southern Ghana.

The International Labour Organization forecast a worldwide unemployment rate of 5.5% this year, a marginal improvement on the 5.6% recorded in 2017, thanks to broad economic growth. 

But in its flagship World Employment and Social Outlook trends report, the ILO also raised serious red flags about the health of the planet's labour market. 

Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said that dealing with inequalities will have to be a central element of leaders' response to the concerns of populist movements, in a speech as quoted by the Associated Press on Jan. 18.

The European Union is failing to deliver a fair and safe system for receiving people in Greece, according to charity group Oxfam.

The Greek government's limited capacity and the pressure to meet the terms of the EU-Turkey agreement has led to refugees and migrants being kept in poor conditions, stressed the humanitarian organization in a statement on Friday.

Fiji began a massive cleanup on Feb. 22 after one of the most powerful storms recorded in the southern hemisphere tore through the Pacific island nation, killing 21 people, flattening remote villages and cutting off communications.

The Belgrade Centre for Human Rights has accused Bulgarian police of brutality towards migrants in a new report funded by British charity Oxfam.

The report of alleged abuses is based on the testimony of migrants walking through from Bulgaria into Serbia. The migrants claim that they had been subject to beatings and extortion by Bulgarian police.

Wealth accumulated by the richest one percent will exceed that of the other 99 percent in 2016, the Oxfam charity said Jan. 19, ahead of the annual meeting of the world's most powerful at Davos, Switzerland.