Dossier: The Stateless Rohingya—Practical Consequences of Expulsion

The international community has been called upon to ramp up efforts to end statelessness and provided with a guiding framework of 10 Actions. This dossier presents the practical consequences of expulsion, both direct and indirect outcomes of collective violence, directed towards the Rohingyas. Touching upon the nexus between children's rights, human trafficking, and practical challenges associated on-the-ground, the dossier also discusses the imperative need for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) states—collectively as a region—to take steps in fulfilling Action 7 of the Global Action Plan through the birth registration of Rohingya children as part of their existing efforts in order to enhance the protection of refugee children.

The Movember Global Action Plan 1 (GAP1) - Unique Prostate Cancer Tissue Microarray Resource

Background: The need to better understand the molecular underpinnings of the heterogeneous outcomes of patients with prostate cancer is a pressing global problem and a key research priority for Movember. To address this, the Movember Global Action Plan 1 Unique tissue microarray (GAP1-UTMA) project constructed a set of unique and richly annotated TMAs from prostate cancer samples obtained from multiple institutions across several global locations. Methods: Three separate TMA sets were built that differ by purpose and disease state. Results: The intended use of TMA1 is to validate biomarkers that help determine which clinically localized prostate cancers with associated lymph node metastasis have a high risk of progression to lethal castration resistant metastatic disease, and to compare molecular properties of high risk index lesions within the prostate to regional lymph node metastases resected at the time of prostatectomy. TMA2 was designed to address questions regarding risk of castration resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) and response to suppression of the androgen receptor/androgen axis, and characterization of the castration-resistant phenotype. TMA3s intended use is to assess and better understand the heterogeneity of molecular markers across different anatomic sites in lethal prostate cancer metastases. Conclusion: The GAP1-UTMA project has succeeded in combining a large set of rare tissue specimens from 501 prostate cancer patients with rich clinical annotation. Impact: This resource is now available to the prostate cancer community as a tool for biomarker validation to address important unanswered clinical questions around disease progression and response to treatment.

Childhood Statelessness: Critiquing International Norms and Enforcement Strategies

Over the past decade, there has been renewed interest in and commitment to resolving the endemic problem of statelessness, most clearly exemplified by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ Global Action Plan to End Statelessness 2014-24, which sets out to end statelessness by 2024. Despite the plethora of recent attention to questions of citizenship, its converse, the problem of statelessness and its effect on children, has not been adequately investigated. This paper attempts to delineate the causes of childhood statelessness in particular and to analyze the international legal framework for reducing and preventing it. It examines how statelessness is created, how it persists and why it brings with it the deprivations it does. It then subjects the customary and modern international legal norms governing childhood statelessness and enforcement strategies at Global level to close scrutiny and identifies the clearly discernible drawbacks and road blocks. It concludes with suggestions, inter alia, to make the jus soli citizenship a mandatory default clause in the citizenship laws of every country, to further prioritize birth registration and data collection and to strengthen the UPR process and reporting procedure.

Poliovirus-nonsusceptible Vero cell line for the World Health Organization global action plan

Polio or poliomyelitis is a disabling and life-threatening disease caused by poliovirus (PV). As a consequence of global polio vaccination efforts, wild PV serotypes 2 and 3 have been eradicated around the world, and wild PV serotype 1-transmitted cases have been largely eliminated except for limited regions. However, vaccine-derived PV, pathogenically reverted live PV vaccine strains, has become a serious issue. For the global eradication of polio, the World Health Organization is conducting the third edition of the Global Action Plan, which is requesting stringent control of potentially PV-infected materials. To facilitate the mission, we generated a PV-nonsusceptible Vero cell subline, which may serve as an ideal replacement of standard Vero cells to isolate emerging/re-emerging viruses without the risk of generating PV-infected materials.

COVID-19 pandemic-induced physical inactivity: the necessity of updating the Global Action Plan on Physical Activity 2018-2030

To prevent and reduce inactivity, the World Health Organization (WHO) designed a global plan called Global Action Plan on Physical Activity 2018–2030 (GAPPA) in 2017. In this plan and according to the state of physical activity in 2016, actions and goals were set. However, the world is facing a COVID-19 pandemic, which has affected various aspects of lifestyle, including physical activity. Some studies have shown that physical activity reduced during the pandemic. For this reason, the WHO should review the GAPPA and update goals and actions according to the state of physical activity in 2020.