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Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, said Friday the United States has cut troops in Iraq to 2,500, meeting a goal set by the Trump administration late last year.

An estimated 371,504 babies will be born around the world on New Year’s Day, according to UNICEF.

As the calendar turns to 2021, UNICEF is again celebrating the new lives being brought into the world on January 1. Fiji in the Pacific will welcome 2021’s first baby. The United States will welcome its last. Globally, over half of these births are estimated to take place in 10 countries: India (59,995), China (35,615), Nigeria (21,439), Pakistan (14,161), Indonesia (12,336), Ethiopia (12,006), the United States (10,312), Egypt (9,455), Bangladesh (9,236) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (8,640).

In the northwest of the country, the nutrition situation is even more dire. Kebbi State is experiencing a chronic malnutrition rate of 66 per cent, more than 20 per cent higher than Borno State in the northeast. In Sokoto State, also in Nigeria’s northwest, close to 18 per cent of children suffer from wasting and 6.5 per cent suffer from severe wasting.

Bangladesh is going ahead Monday with plans to move a second group of Rohingya refugees to an island in the Bay of Bengal, although rights activists have voiced strong opposition about the transfer.

Seventeen people are missing and presumed dead after a Russian fishing boat sank in the northern Barents Sea Monday morning, authorities said in a statement carried by local media.

Three United Nations peacekeepers from Burundi were killed and two others wounded by what the U.N. termed “unidentified armed combatants” in the Central African Republic on Friday as the country heads toward national elections Sunday.

Approximately 250,000 children have been displaced by the escalating crisis in Mozambique’s northern province of Cabo Delgado and are now at risk of deadly diseases as the rainy season sets in, UNICEF warned on December 22.

In countries around the world, migrant and displaced children have been largely excluded from national response and recovery plans to the COVID-19 pandemic and have experienced a significant reduction in access to essential services and care, UNICEF announced on December 18. These findings are based on data collected through a recent UNICEF survey of 159 countries in which it has an operational presence.

The Trump administration has imposed a ban on imports of cotton products manufactured by a Chinese state-controlled firm because of its reliance on the forced labor of detained ethnic minorities.

A mother awaiting immunization of their children at Nabilatuk H/C IV, Kaabong District. Uganda