The UN's World Food Programme says Pyongyang's strict Covid rules could halt its aid. Also: Facebook reverses its ban on news in Australia, and how wasps helped date cave paintings of kangaroos.

English

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Global News Podcast

UN could suspend aid for N Korea's 'hungry millions'

In the Vanuatu, young women are taking their long boards to the water, refusing to accept the idea that surfing is only for men. 
”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.

UN News

ISLAND VOICES: Vanuatu’s new wave of female surfers

A US intelligence report has found that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved the murder of exiled journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. The report said this conclusion was based on the crown prince's absolute control over the security apparatus, and his willingness to use violence to silence critics. Also, Myanmar's ambassador to the UN has condemned the military coup in his country and has sided strongly with mass protests, and we hear why fish in Kenya are dying in large numbers.

Jamal Khashoggi: US says Saudi prince approved Khashoggi killing

<ul><li>
	UN climate report a ‘red alert’ for the planet: Guterres 
	</li>
<li>
	People falling even further behind in <a href="https://www.un.org/coronavirus" target="_blank">COVID-19</a> crisis, says UN rights chief  
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	Condemnation over new attack on Nigerian school, hundreds of girls missing 
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</ul>

News in Brief 26 February 2021

Attacks on schools in northeast Nigeria and elsewhere are “a way of life” and their impact is “devastating” on children’s mental health. 
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 <a href="https://www.unicef.org/" target="_blank">UNICEF</a>. 
UN News’s Daniel Johnson spoke to the agency’s representative in Nigeria, Peter Hawkins.

Attacks on Nigeria’s schools are a way of life, but kids are returning to class: UNICEF

Unidentified gunmen abducted the girls in early morning from a school in Zamfara state.  This is latest in a series of attacks targeting schools in northern Nigeria in recent years.  Also, court rules that British-born IS recruit Shamima Begum cannot return to UK from Syria, and BBC investigation finds portions of Brazil's Amazon rainforest being sold illegally on internet.

Nigeria: More than 300 schoolgirls kidnapped

In this week’s show we’re covering: Belarus, Eritrea and the US at the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/Pages/Home.aspx" target="_blank">Human Rights Council</a>, during the first week of its month-long new session in Geneva.  
And after gunmen abducted around 40 students and teachers from a boarding school in rural Nigeria, an interview with UN Children’s Fund (<a href="https://www.unicef.org/" target="_blank">UNICEF</a>) 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.

Podcast - UN Catch-Up Dateline Geneva – Belarus, Eritrea and the U.S. at the Human Rights Council, Nigeria school attacks

Broni Zajbert was six years old when Nazis forced his family into the Łódź Ghetto where he, his brother and parents witnessed the hunger, sickness and death that preyed upon Jews in their living quarters.
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. 
He speaks to Natalie Hutchison for this edition of In Their Words: Surviving the Holocaust. Finding Hope.

Podcast: A child surviving the Łódź Ghetto

Greece and Austria are urging other EU states to adopt coronavirus  vaccination "passports". Also: jailed Putin critic Alexei Navalny "moved out of Moscow remand centre", and the black browed babbler bird is not extinct after all.

EU leaders vow to speed up vaccine production

In this week’s episode of 16 Minutes — where we talk about tech trends in the news, what’s hype/ what’s real, and where we are on the long arc of innovation — the topic is NFTs ("non-fungible tokens"); specifically, the news that Christie’s has become the first major auction house to offer a purely digital artwork tied to an NFT or “non-fungible token."

We’ll go more into NFTs (as well as whether this is really a big deal or not) in this episode, but here’s the news context:

The work of art being auctioned is a digital collage by the digital artist Beeple; it’s called Everydays: The First 5,000 Days.
The Christie’s auction begins today and runs through March 11.

It's news because Christie's, a 250-year-old auction house, is an established presence in the traditional art marketplace, and it’s the first time NFTs (which have been much-buzzed-about in the crypto world for several months) are being formally embraced by the traditional art world.

For quick context, NFTs are digital tokens on the Ethereum blockchain, which allow art and other digital assets and collectibles to be verified as unique, hence the term non-fungible (as compared to other, more fungible tokens). They reflect the properties of crypto and blockchains more broadly, such as the ability to track provenance and attribute funds to creators via smart contracts. (For more discussion of NFTs and related themes, check out our previous podcasts Crypto for Creators: From Art Galleries to 'Tokenized' Collectibles and The New Fan Club: Creators, Fans, and the Power of Markets (&amp; Crypto).

Zoran Basich of a16z talked to NFT expert Kayvon Tehranian, CEO and founder of Foundation Labs, a marketplace for digital art and collectibles, to help us dig into the Christie's news and broader trend — all in less than 16 Minutes!

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16 Minutes News by a16z

When Christie&apos;s Meets Crypto — The NFT Moment

<ul><li>ECOWAS and UN strongly condemn electoral violence in Niger</li>
<li><a href="https://www.unicef.org/">UNICEF</a> signs <a href="https://www.un.org/coronavirus" target="_blank">COVID-19</a> vaccine agreement with AstraZeneca</li>
<li>South Sudan: <a href="https://www.who.int/">WHO</a> supports polio vaccination campaign targeting 2.8 million children</li>
</ul>

News in Brief 25 February 2021

PM Nikol Pashinyan leads crowds of supporters after the army says he must resign. Also: how elephants in zoos are helping their relatives in the wild, and the pandemic's impact on the German language.