12 August 2020 (UN Environment)* — At the turn of the 20th century, there were 10 million elephants in Africa. But decades of poaching and habitat loss have taken a heavy toll on these smart, highly social creatures. Today just 415,000 remain.
Photo by Shutterstock
August 12 is World Elephant Day, celebrated to honour the iconic animals, to spread awareness about the critical threats elephants are facing, and to support solutions that will help ensure their survival.
To mark World Elephant Day today [12 August 2020], the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Wild for Life campaign has rolled out an immersive online experience that allows you to walk with these gentle giants.
In a major essay to mark the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, John Pilger describes reporting from five ‘ground zeros’ for nuclear weapons – from Hiroshima to Bikini, Nevada to Polynesia and Australia. He warns that unless we take action now, China is next.
When I first went to Hiroshima in 1967, the shadow on the steps was still there. It was an almost perfect impression of a human being at ease: legs splayed, back bent, one hand by her side as she sat waiting for a bank to open.
JOHANNESBURG, Aug 11 2020 (IPS)* – As the world marks International Youth Day on August 12, it is difficult to ignore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on young people – particularly on efforts towards youth economic inclusion in Africa. Meaningful and swift action is needed from African states to ensure the damage is not long-lasting.
Youth at the Grand Médine town hall in Dakar, Senegal. Senegal has a large youth population, half of which is under the age of 18. By 2025, 376,000 youth are expected to enter the job market that offers only 30,000 jobs. And this number will rise to 411,000 in 2030, according to the Wilson Centre. Credit: Samuelle Paul Banga/IPS
(UN News)* — Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, more than 70 per cent of students have been shut out of schools, universities and training centres, according to a new report issued on Tuesday [11 August 2020] by the UN’s labour agency.
IOM/Benjamin Suomela | One in six youth have had to stop working since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an ILO report released 11 August 2020.
“The pandemic is inflicting multiple shocks on young people”, said, ILO Director-General Guy Ryder. “It is not only destroying their jobs and employment prospects, but also disrupting their education and training and having a serious impact on their mental well-being.”
This is the conclusion of a first-of-its-kind study to analyse the health and environmental outcomes of national dietary guidelines in 85 countries around the world.
August 2020 (Wall Street International)* — Researchers have revealed that approximately 90 percent of an iceberg is below the surface of the water. Thus, to really understand this phenomenon, you must dive beneath it to capture observations and take measurements. The same is true with countries. What you see on the surface may not be all you need to sufficiently understand them. This article plunges into issues that may not be obvious to the casual observer when pondering the question “What’s going on far away in the USA?”.
The composition of the U.S. population is currently estimated at 40% for non-white residents. The forecast is for the non-white population to outnumber the white population by 2045.
11 August 2020 (ILO)* — The universal ratification of the ILO Convention on the Worst forms of Child Labour is a milestone, says the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, Tomoya Obokata. However countries need to intensify efforts to eradicate child labour in all its forms.
Geneva/ Paris, 10 August 2020 (IOM)*– The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) this week are releasing employer guidance for measures to protect migrants during COVID-19.
Burmese migrants work on fishing boats and in coastal communities in Phang Nga, southern Thailand. Photo: Thierry Falise/IOM
10 August 2020 (UN News)* — Amidst reports that many migrant workers in the Middle East are being made destitute, due to an economic crisis exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the UN is calling on governments and employers to respect their rights, and show solidarity with their plight.
ILO/Hisham Ashraf | A woman views an exhibition of portraits of domestic workers on their day off on International Domestic Workers Day in Qatar.
Thrown into the streets, locked in rooms, and forced to work without pay, recent media reporting has revealed the abuse and poor treatment that some migrant domestic workers in the Middle East have suffered, since the onset of the pandemic.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) has confirmed that many of these workers, particularly those who have no employment contract, and live outside the household, have been severely impacted by the pandemic.
(Greenpeace International)* — The promise of work on foreign shores usually ignites hopes, dreams, and ambitions. For hundreds of thousands of migrant fishers, mainly from Southeast Asia, who are deployed overseas onto massive fishing vessels each year to help pick and pack tonnes of seafood for global consumption, this job represents a pathway to a better life: the chance to earn more money than they could in their home country, and the opportunity to provide for their family. But once on-board and far away from land, working long hours and exposed to the harsh elements, their hopes and dreams become as distant as the out-of-sight shore.
8 August 2020 (FAO)* — “Wherever you look, there is water. You see people wading through knee-deep floods in search of shelter, carrying small livestock in their arms to find some place for them to feed – but often there is none,” says Robert Simpson, head of FAO’s office in Bangladesh.
He is describing the floods that have recently ravaged a third of the country – the worst in ten years. Such events can leave farming families’ lives and livelihoods in tatters, with hard-to-replace assets washed away or destroyed and their animals hungry and sick.
But even when flooding takes place at this magnitude, it is possible to help people prepare and withstand the water’s onslaught.
10 August 2020 (Wall Street International)* .. The Russian poet Boris Pasternak once said: “We have learned that we are guests of existence, travelers between two stations. We must discover security within ourselves.”
The search for security remains the overarching aim for many societies worldwide in today’s volatile era. Who wants to live in an Orwellian society guided by insecurity and social disorder or in a world order as described in Thomas Hobbes’ book Leviathan?
STOCKHOLM / ROME, Aug 10 2020 (IPS)* – COVID-19 has become a scourge affecting all levels of human society – morals, behaviour, human interaction, economy and politics. The pandemic has wrecked havoc on our way of being and its impact will remain huge and all-encompassing.
It is not only affecting our globally shared existence, it is also changing what has been called ”the little life”, i.e. our own way of thinking and being, our personal life situation and the one of those close to us; people we love and depend upon – our friends and family.
10 August 2020 (UN News)* — Nuclear weapons are still one of the most serious threats to mankind, and the dangers are growing. Young people can play an important role in ensuring that they are eliminated once and for all, says the UN’s top disarmament official, ahead of International Youth Day on 12 August.
Hiroshima City | The UN Under-Secretary-General of Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu (centre) meets young people in Japan at an event focused on the 75th anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and the establishment of the UN.
PHOTO:UN Women/Amanda Voisard | Young people led millions around the world in marches demanding action on climate change days before the UN Climate Action Summit (23 September 2019). UN Women/Amanda Voisard
International Youth Day gives an opportunity to celebrate and mainstream young peoples’ voices, actions and initiatives, as well as their meaningful, universal and equitable engagement. The commemoration will take the form of a podcast-style discussion that is hosted by youth for youth, together with independently organized commemorations around the world that recognize the importance of youth participation in political, economic and social life and processes.
(UN News)* — A group of UN independent human rights experts have called on countries to lift – or at the very least, ease – sanctions to allow affected nations and communities access to vital supplies to fight against the global coronavirus pandemic.
People in countries under sanctions cannot protect themselves against the disease or get life-saving treatment if they fall ill because humanitarian exemptions to the sanctions are not working, the experts said in a news release on Friday [7 August 2020].
Siblings Nyamach and Nyakoang are among more than 42,000 South Sudanese refugee children in Ethiopia who are either unaccompanied or separated from their parents or guardians. | Español | Français | عربي
7 August 2020 (FAO)* — Huamani Cardenas lives in Lima, but is originally from Conayca, a rural town of roughly 1 300 people in the central highlands of Peru. When he received a delivery of fresh food from his hometown, he was thrilled. “I sincerely thank the authorities of Conayca for thinking of us,” he wrote in a social media group for young Conaycans living in Lima.
The Milne Ice Shelf lost about 80 square kilometers in July, an area larger than Manhattan island space, which is about 60 square kilometers. In 2020, polar ice reduction peaked for the last 40 years.
Glaciers on Canada’s Ellesmere Island. April, 2014. | Photo: Twitter/ @arctic_today
(teleSUR)* — The last intact ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic collapsed and lost a large part of his area due to extremely high temperatures, according to the Canadian Ice Service (CIS), as reported on Friday [7 August 2020].
UN Women statement on the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples – 9 August 2020
PWC Executive Director Maanda Ngoitiko during a tour in 2019, to assess how the trained women and girls were promoting use of biogas in Ngorongoro. Photo: UN Women/ Tsitsi Matope
By UN Women* – Being born an indigenous girl can be a life sentence of poverty, exclusion and discrimination, largely rooted in the historical marginalization of indigenous communities and aggravated by overlapping circumstances such as race, ethnicity, disability and location.
A participant at the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples, held at the UN Headquarters in 2014. UN Photo/Yubi Hoffmann
(United Nations)* — There are an estimated 476 million indigenous peoples in the world living across 90 countries. They make up less than 5 per cent of the world’s population, but account for 15 per cent of the poorest. They speak an overwhelming majority of the world’s estimated 7,000 languages and represent 5,000 different cultures.
Indigenous peoples are inheritors and practitioners of unique cultures and ways of relating to people and the environment. They have retained social, cultural, economic and political characteristics that are distinct from those of the dominant societies in which they live.
The Bogotá Ministry of Health have sent a Muisca nurse to Suba, in the north of Bogotá, Colombia, to check on the local Muisca indigenous population. Worldwide, over 50% of indigenous adults over age 35 have type 2 diabetes. At the same time, tuberculosis continues to disproportionately affect indigenous peoples due to poverty. These and other deseases make them even more vulnerable in times of COVID-19. Photo: PAHO/Karen González Abril.
(UN)* — While the exact origins of COVID-19 have not yet been confirmed, the link between environmental damage and pandemics is well known to leading research organizations. But there is yet another group of experts, who have been worrying about the threat of a pandemic even before COVID-19: indigenous peoples.
7 August 2020 (UN News)* — The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the need to ensure the world’s indigenous people have control over their own communities, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has affirmed.
UNDP/Ya’axche | In Belize, indigenous communities are considered key allies for conservation and sustainable development efforts.
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Michelle Bachelet described the pandemic as “a critical threat” to indigenous communities everywhere, at a time when many are also struggling against man-made environmental damage and economic depredation.
6 August 2020 (UN Environment)* — Cities are home to 55 per cent of the world’s population, all jammed together cheek-by-jowl. Little wonder, then, that cities are being hit hardest by COVID-19: an estimated 90 per cent of all reported cases have occurred in urban areas.
But the same concentration of people also makes cities the places where the battle for a green recovery from COVID-19 – which is essential to reduce future pandemic risks and fight climate change – can be won.
(Wall Street International)* — Throughout my career I have always thought that offensive security is awesome. That’s why I personally liked the term hacker, gray hat, black hat, etc. a lot because it highlights a lot of aspects in one single term. This is not necessarily an opinion everybody shares.
Being prepared and ready to engage in offensive security with the highest possible gurus, expertise, passion and dedication are the main things to achieve success in it, along with a breaker mentality to dig out the most hidden detail in a system.
The last empire to crash was the Soviet empire 30 years ago. At the time it was led by Mikhail Gorbachev, a man of peace and harmony, its population was not seriously divided or heavily armed, and the army stayed in their barracks.
As a result, there was very little physical violence when the empire collapsed, although in the ensuing years there was great economic suffering because of the devaluation of the ruble (by a factor of almost 10,000) and in subsequent years, there were armed conflicts with the Ukraine and Georgia.
In the end, the oligarchs (Russian mafia, etc.) and the secret police (Putin had been head of the KGB) consolidated their power.
4 August 2020 (UN News)* — All 187 countries that are members of the UN International Labour Organization (ILO) have now ratified a convention to protect children from the worst forms of child labour, including slavery, prostitution and trafficking.
FAO/Franco Mattioli | In Nepal, a young girl transports agricultural goods along a 65 km mountain path. When children engage in work that is not appropriate for their age, this is child labour.
Formally known as Convention No. 182, the treaty, adopted two decades ago, achieved universal ratification on Tuesday [4 August 2020], making it the most rapidly ratified Convention in the UN agency’s 101-year history.
1 August 2020 (UN News)* — World Breastfeeding Week got underway on Saturday, with the UN urging communities everywhere to “support breastfeeding for a healthier planet”. Health agency (WHO) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) issued a joint call for governments to protect and promote women’s access to skilled breastfeeding counselling – a critical component of breastfeeding support.
UNICEF/Jan Zammit | A mother and her new born baby at the National Health Center for Mother and Child, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. (4 September 2015)
The UN has long advocated the benefits of breastfeeding, which delivers health, nutritional and emotional benefits to both children and mothers. It also helps foster a sustainable food system.
31 July 2020 (UNHCR)* – With COVID-19 increasing needs and vulnerabilities of refugees and internally displaced and stateless people, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is concerned that the impacts of the pandemic are also heightening their risks to trafficking and exploitation. |Español| Français|عربي
1 August 2020 (UN News)* — Expressing “appreciation for WHO and partners’ COVID-19 pandemic response efforts”, the emergency committee convened by the UN health agency’s chief, made it clear that there is not yet an end in sight to the public health crisis that has so far infected more than 17 million and killed over 650,000 people.
UN Women/Pathumporn Thongking | A healthcare worker checks the temperature of a patient at a hospital in Nonthaburi Province, Thailand.
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The committee convened by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization, under the International Health Regulations (2005) (IHR), held its fourth meeting on 31 July.
Justice Department Should Heed Bipartisan Calls for Action
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30 July 2020 (Human Rights Watch)* — People of Asian descent in the United States have faced two pandemics in 2020: Covid-19 and its resulting racism and xenophobia.
The reporting center, STOP AAPI HATE, received more than 2,373 self-reported incidents of racism, hate speech, discrimination, and physical attacks against Asians and Asian Americans from March to July 2020.
(Greenpeace International)* — Since its beginning in the 1960s, the North Sea oil industry has earned billions of Euros profit and helped fill the coffers of a number of European governments. At the same time these oil and gas operations have contributed to the climate crisis, marine pollution, and endangered marine life.
31 July 2020 (Wall Street International)* — The US Postal Service is in trouble: according to an article by Prof. Philip F. Rubio, entitled “Save the Postal Service”, published in Atlantic Monthly on April 24, 2020, “The USPS has said that it needs $89 billion in assistance, including $25 billion in grants.”
Republicans realize that they will lose if the 2020 election is fair | Image from Wall Street International.
Republicans realize that they will lose if the 2020 election is fair
Donald Trump’s disastrous handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, combined with the pandemic’s terrible economic effects, have made Republicans unpopular; and this is reflected in recent polls. It seems extremely likely that if large numbers of voters participate in the November election, the Democrats will win.
Trump’s eagerness to ‘bring our boys home’ is leaving the Afghan government with little power to resist the Taliban afterwards.
Goodbye Afghanistan | US Air Force photo by Clay Lancaster. Public domain.
31 July 2020(openDemocracy)* — One of Donald Trump’s main election pledges back in 2016 was to ‘bring our boys home’. Alongside this came criticism of Germany and other NATO states for not paying their way on military spending. He has followed up on both themes this week, by starting to reduce the US presence in Germany, albeit shifting some to Poland and leaving all the mechanisms of a rapid return in place, so that the extent of the ‘back home’ is far from what it appears.
BEIRUT, Jul 31 2020 (IPS)* – The Covid-19 pandemic seems to have spared children from the direct health effects of the virus but the crisis has affected their social and economic rights directly and indirectly beyond what we could have foreseen. And there’s no doubt that children who come from more vulnerable backgrounds will feel the long-term impact of the pandemic and the measures taken to prevent its spread the hardest.
Batara slum in a Dhaka suburb. Credit: Naimul Haq/IPS
Social and economic rights are crucial to ensure the fulfilment of basic rights like sustenance, housing, food, education, health, employment and freedom from discrimination.
31 July 2020 – In Latin America, where much of the region has dealt with years of sluggish growth, the economic crisis brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic is pushing millions more into poverty, says Alicia Bárcena, the head of the UN regional body for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). (*).
PAHO/Karen González Abril | The Bogotá Ministry of Health have sent a Muisca nurse to Suba, in the north of Bogotá, Colombia, to check on the local indigenous population..
In an extensive interview with the UN communications chief, Melissa Fleming, Ms. Bárcena expressed concern at the disproportionate impact that the pandemic is having on indigenous people in the region, in terms of both the health risks they face; shared her fear that the wisdom and knowledge held by these communities is disappearing; and her dismay at rising inequality and poverty, following a period in which progress has been made on both fronts.
(UN News)* — Although older people are among those at highest risk of COVID-19, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has reminded younger generations that they are “not invincible” when it comes to the disease.
UN News/Daniel Dickinson | A park in Brooklyn, New York, has marked out circles in order to enforce social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Evidence suggests that the spike in cases in some countries is partly due to younger people “letting down their guard during the northern hemisphere summer”, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on 30 July 2020.
(UN News)* — The World Food Programme (WFP) is urgently seeking more international support to prevent millions of Zimbabweans plunging deeper into hunger. The COVID-19 pandemic has aggravated an already severe hunger crisis in Zimbabwe, UN humanitarians warned on 30 July 2020.
WFP/Claire Nevill | In Harare, Zimbabwe, a single mother of three relies on food assistance from the World Food Programme (WFP) during the COVID-19 pandemic.
(UN News)* — The UN commemorated World Day against Human Trafficking on 30 July 2020 spotlighting the essential – but often overlooked – role of first responders who identify the millions of victims worldwide, helping them secure justice, and rebuild their lives.
“These are the people who work in different sectors – identifying, supporting, counselling and seeking justice for victims of trafficking, and challenging the impunity of the traffickers,” UN Secretary-General António Guterressaid in his message on the Day, which is observed annually each 30 July.
It’s hard to know exactly where the Trump Administration found the inspiration for its newest set of draconian asylum rules. Might it have been a National Geographic special where a giant anaconda encircles its prey, squeezes it to death, and then swallows it whole? Or perhaps a late-night, B-grade horror film in which some evil mastermind drowns his victims by slowly filling a sealed room with water?
Less than a quarter of this year’s $40 billion humanitarian aid appeal has been received to support 250 million vulnerable people, against the backdrop of an estimated $11 trillion coronavirus stimulus for wealthy nations.
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Families wait by the side of the road after fleeing attacks in Burkina Faso. The number of displaced people increased to over half a million last year, and the country is on the brink of a hunger crisis. Photo: Tom Peyre-Costa/NRC.
ROME, Jul 29 2020 (IPS)* – Recent world reports confirm that the goals set by the international community to end poverty and hunger, and create a more balanced, sustainable and fair world by 2030, are currently in danger. If effective and rapid global action is not taken, the goals will not be met and the results in just 10 years may be very negative for all of us. | En español
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A group of women of Central Africa receives training in production diversification and improvement to expand the food security of their communities. Credit: FAO
Samrawit* gazes into the distance as a light breeze ruffles the shawl around her face. She hugs herself tightly as a gust of wind blows in from Lake Mirayi in eastern Rwanda. | Español | Français
29 July 2020 (UNHCR)* — The 20-year-old Eritrean refugee’s current surroundings are peaceful and relaxed – a far cry from the horrors she endured while in captivity in the hands of smugglers in Libya, where she was tortured, beaten and raped for almost two years.
30 July 2020 (UN News)* — The fight against plastic pollution is being hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, as the use of disposable masks, gloves and other protective equipment soars, but UN agencies and partners insist that, if effective measures are put into place, the amount of plastics discarded every year can be significantly cut, or even eliminated.
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Unsplash/Brian Yurasits | A face mask found during a beach cleanup in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, USA.
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1) Pollution driven by huge increase in mask sales
The promotion of mask wearing as a way to slow the spread of COVID-19 has led to an extraordinary increase in the production of disposable masks: the UN trade body, UNCTAD, estimates that global sales will total some $166 billion this year, up from around $800 million in 2019.
29 July 2020 (UN News)* — Lead poisoning is affecting children on a “massive and previously unknown scale”, according to a ground-breaking new study launched by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and international non-profit organization focused on pollution issues, Pure Earth.
World Bank/Curt Carnemark | Environmental pollution and degradation can be linked to a growing list of health conditions such as skin cancer, lung cancer, asthma, lead poisoning, mercury poisoning, malaria, Ebola and Zika.
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The report, the first of its kind, says that around 1 in 3 children – up to 800 million globally – have blood lead levels at, or above, 5 micrograms per decilitre (µg/dL), the amount at which action is required. Nearly half of these children live in South Asia.
29 July 2020 (UN Environment)* — Early one Saturday morning in June, locals in the village of Semji in Bhutan reported the death of one of their cows grazing on the edge of the village. Claw marks on the cow´s neck and large paw prints in the mud pointed to a tiger as the culprit.
Wikimedia Commons/Steve Wilson
Semji, like several other villages in central Bhutan’s Trongsa District, has a tiger problem. Since 2016, tigers have killed more than 600 cattle, including 137 this year.
29 July 2020 (United Nations)* — Our world faces many challenges, crises and forces of division — such as poverty, violence, and human rights abuses — among many others — that undermine peace, security, development and social harmony among the world’s peoples.
To confront those crises and challenges, their root causes must be addressed by promoting and defending a shared spirit of human solidarity that takes many forms — the simplest of which is friendship.
NEW YORK, Jul 28 2020 (IPS)* – COVID19 is devastating on older persons. The numbers are staggering, more than 80 percent of the fatalities due to coronavirus in the US and East Asia occurred among adults aged 65 and over. In Europe and Australia, the figures are even higher, 94 and 97 per cent of the deaths were persons aged 60 and over.
To ask whether the United States, the world’s dominant military power, is ‘a failing state’ should cause worldwide anxiety. Such a state, analogous to a wounded animal, is a global menace of unprecedented proportions in the nuclear age.
Richard Falk
Its political leadership is exhibiting a reckless tendency of combining incompetence with extremism. It is also crucial to ascertain at what point a failing state should be written off as ‘a failed state’ for which there is no longer a clear path to redemption.
The November elections will send a strong signal as to whether the United States is failing or has failed.
Even raising these issues suggests how far the United States has fallen during the Trump years, despite already being in sharp decline internationally ever since the Vietnam War, and continuing, despite a few redemptive moves (now renounced), during the Obama presidency. Continue reading →
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