'Unseen' News and Views – By Baher Kamal & The Like
Cuban doctors held over five thousand consultations in Italy and discharged 210 Covid-19 patients after the severe outbreak in March.
Homage to Cuban doctors in Plaza Duomo, Crema, Italy. May 23rd, 2020. | Photo: Twitter/@BrunoRguezP
The ongoing pandemic amplifies the health risks of hot weather for many people, including those also at risk of COVID-19. Countries and communities therefore need to prepare now for a hot summer.
IPS– As a spiraling financial crisis threatens to undermine the UN’s day-to-day operations worldwide, a proposal being kicked around, outside the empty corridors of the UN, has triggered the question: will senior officials, including the Secretary-General, the Deputy Secretary-General (DSG), Under-Secretaries-Generals (USGs), including 60 heads of UN agencies, Funds and Programs, and Assistant Secretaries-Generals (ASGs), volunteer to take salary cuts— even as a symbolic gesture?
Insolvent Wall Street banks have been quietly bailed out again. Banks made risk-free by the government should be public utilities.
Ellen Brown
When the Dodd Frank Act was passed in 2010, President Obama triumphantly declared, “No more bailouts!” But what the Act actually said was that the next time the banks failed, they would be subject to “bail ins” – the funds of their creditors, including their large depositors, would be tapped to cover their bad loans.
Then bail-ins were tried in Europe. The results were disastrous.
Many economists in the US and Europe argued that the next time the banks failed, they should be nationalized – taken over by the government as public utilities. But that opportunity was lost when, in September 2019 and again in March 2020, Wall Street banks were quietly bailed out from a liquidity crisis in the repo market that could otherwise have bankrupted them. Continue reading
About 85 other migrants were arrested earlier by the Libyan coastguard, bringing to more than 1,000 the number of people who have attempted the crossing this month.
The IOM’s estimated death toll among migrants who have tried to cross the Mediterranean Sea since 2014 surpassed 20,000. | Photo: AFP
– While it attempts to cushion the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, the Latin American and Caribbean region also faces concerns about the future of the energy transition and state-owned oil companies.
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ILO Photo/John Isaac | Michael Pili Pang (right) runs a hula dance school in Honolulu, Hawaii
He spoke to UN News as part of a photography project by the International Labour Organization ahead of the UN-backed International Arts Education Week which begins on 25 May.
(WHO)* — COVID 19 is disrupting life-saving immunization services around the world, putting millions of children – in rich and poor countries alike – at risk of diseases like diphtheria, measles and polio.
WHO/S. Volkov
This stark warning comes from the World Health Organization, UNICEF and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance ahead of the Global Vaccine Summit on 4 June, at which world leaders will come together to help maintain immunization programmes and mitigate the impact of the pandemic in lower-income countries.
24 May 2020 (Wall Street International)* — One of the most questioning and innovative results of the Illuminism – eighteenth century – was to place man (the individual) as the center of the world. This antithesis to the absolute – God – represented by its supposed signifiers – the Church, the royalty – opened new perspectives for the human, being later developed in a movement, an ideology, a social and legal legacy: the French Revolution. From then on, the motto “freedom, equality, fraternity” became the fundamental summary that guides the trajectory of the Western man.
Charles Gabriel Lemonnier, Salon de Madame Geoffrin | Image from Wall Street International. Man is then equal to his fellow man, nothing differentiates them: neither appearance nor origin or social position, and this equality reflects itself in the laws and possibilities of life.
Thirty-four children were part of the group returning from Burkina Faso this May 1.
Photo: IOM/Monica Chiriac
Boubacar, 65, and his two sons, consider themselves to be excellent farmers, but Niger’s adverse weather and persistent droughts make it difficult to have a stable income from the land. In the off season, Nigeriens like Boubacar look for alternatives to make ends meet, and many choose to work in the goldmines in neighboring Burkina Faso.
“In my village, we don’t really know any profession other than agriculture,” says Boubacar.
About 1,300 people in the Choco have been forced to move due to clashes among armed groups.
Displaced indigenous community Embera Dobida in Catru, Alto Baudo, Choco. May 20, 2020. | Photo: Twitter/@RichiNasa
22 May 2020 (teleSUR)* — Colombia’s social organizations Thursday denounced a massive displacement in El Choco department, amidst a possible COVID outbreak.
“We warn of the forced displacement of 1,300 people in Catru, Choco, due to clashes between illegal armed groups. We demand that attacks against Indigenous communities cease and we urge the authorities to protect the population of the territory,” Colombia’s Peace Process Support Mission to of the Organization of American States (MAPP/OEA) tweeted.
We are being utterly transformed. And the world is being utterly transformed around us.
Robert J. Burrowes,
Ostensibly, this is to tackle a simple virus. In reality, it is to achieve an elite design at staggering cost to humanity and to life generally.
If you have not been carefully following what is taking place, let me highlight some recent developments and what we can do about them.
On 26 March 2020, the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) granted Microsoft a world patent. Titled ‘1. WO2020060606 – Cryptocurrency System Using Body Activity Data’, this patent gives Microsoft (that is, Bill Gates) extraordinary power over our lives.
As Professor Vandana Shiva evocatively explains in her latest article, ‘My Earth Journey in defence of Biodiversity, Life and Freedom over 5 decades’, this development is ‘robbing us of our deep humanity’:
The outlook predicts a 60% chance of an above-normal season, a 30% chance of a near-normal season, and only a 10% chance of a below-normal season. The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 through November 30.
Waorani leaders before Thursday’s press conference, Shell, Pastaza, Ecuadorian Amazon. | Photo: Mitch Anderson / Amazon Frontlines
22 May 2020 (teleSUR)* — The Waorani indigenous community in Ecuador’s Amazon filed legal action against the state for failing to act and establish a concerted emergency response to fight the spread of the coronavirus within Indigenous communities, representatives of the first nation informed Thursday [21 May 2020] at a press conference.
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A total of 8.5 million people were forced to flee within their own country by conflict and violence during 2019, according to a new report from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).
– It is easy to generalize about migration. Populist politicians often portray migrants as strangers and ”our” homeland as a stable entity, rooted in an old agricultural society. When they do so they tend to forget that most of us are in fact migrants who have left that traditional farming community far behind and if it was not we who did so, it was our ancestors.
Another form of generalization is to mirror the general in the personal, something that is done in novels and films. I believe that virtually every country on earth can present moving descriptions of people leaving the countryside for the city.
Reading a novel or watching movie describing this process may help us to realize that behind every migrant, international as well as internal, there is a unique human destiny.
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In Zimbabwe, introducing lost varieties of different crops and creating diversity has ensured more varied and nutritious diets. ©CTDT/ Tinashe Sithole
22 May 2020, Rome/Nairobi (FAO and UNEP)* – Urgent action is needed to safeguard the biodiversity of the world’s forests amid alarming rates of deforestation and degradation, according to the latest edition of The State of the World’s Forests released today [22 May 2020].
Fishing in a forest lake at Gede Pangrango in Indonesia.
Published on the International Day for Biological Diversity (22 May), the report shows that the conservation of the world’s biodiversity is utterly dependent on the way in which we interact with and use the world’s forests.
(UN News)* — Migrant children forcibly returned from the United States to Mexico and Central America are facing danger and discrimination aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
COVID-19 has hit the Brazilian Amazon particularly hard, exposing highly vulnerable native people from Venezuela to the potentially deadly disease. | Español | Français | عربي
Venezuelan indigenous Warao refugees and migrants are relocated to a safe space in Manaus, Brazil, amid the COVID-19 pandemic.© UNHCR/Felipe Irnaldo
Orlando Martínez had barely heard of COVID-19 when 26 members of his Warao ethnic group came down with tell-tale symptoms of the illness.
20 May 2020 (UNHCR)* — “At first they got a fever and couldn’t eat. Then, they got headaches and chest pains. Then, they started coughing and couldn’t walk,” recalled Orlando, a 43-year-old Warao community leader who fled hunger, violence and insecurity in Venezuela in 2017, along with some 18 other families from the indigenous group.
“They were very, very sick,” he said.
Geneva, 21 May 2020 (IOM)* – The International Organization for Migration (IOM), and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), are calling on Malta and other European States to speed efforts to bring some 160 rescued migrants and refugees, who remain at sea on board two Captain Morgan vessels, on to dry land and to safety.
A separate group of 21 people, mostly families, women and children, were already evacuated and disembarked in Malta several days ago. It is important to disembark the remaining people as soon as possible, as they have been on board the vessel for some two weeks – the standard quarantine period for COVID-19 – without any clarity on disembarkation. It is unacceptable to leave people at sea longer than necessary, especially under difficult and unsuitable conditions.
A message for International Day for Biological Diversity, 22 May 2020
We are Earth.
We are Biodiversity.
We are Jiva.
We are Conscious.
We are Alive.
We are Free.
We are members of one interconnected Earth Family : of sovereign, autonomous, self organised, interdependent, intelligent beings.
We are Biodiversity : interconnected to other beings through food and water, through breath and air, through life, and intelligence.
21 May 2020 (UN Environment)* — Biodiversity, or biological diversity, is the multitude of living things that make up life on Earth. It encompasses the 8 million or so species on the planet—from plants and animals to fungi and bacteria—and the ecosystems that house them such as oceans, forests, mountain environments and coral reefs.
Photo by Amaryllis_BNoel
But, nature is in crisis. We are losing species at a rate 1,000 times greater than at any other time in recorded human history and one million species face extinction.
21 May 2020 (United Nations)* – Cultural events cancelled, cultural institutions closed, community cultural practices suspended, empty UNESCO World Heritage sites, heightened risk of looting of cultural sites and poaching at natural sites, artists unable to make ends meet and the cultural tourism sector greatly affected… The impact of COVID-19 on the cultural sector is being felt around the world.
20 May 2020 (teleSUR)* — Venezuela’s Representative to the United Nations Samuel Moncada Tuesday [19 May 2020] announced that his country will sue the Bank of England for stealing 31 tons of gold that this financial institution had in its custody. This lawsuit will be brought before a British court.
Gold Bar Badge from Bank of England | Photo: Flickr
(UN News)* — Negotiations remain the only way to overcome the ongoing political deadlock in Venezuela, especially given the potentially far-reaching impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, a senior UN official told the Security Council on Wednesday [20 May 2020].
“Venezuela is mired in a deepening protracted crisis that only Venezuelans can resolve,” said Rosemary A. DiCarlo, Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs.
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Venezuelan indigenous Warao refugees and migrants are relocated to a safe space in Manaus, Brazil, amid the COVID-19 pandemic. © UNHCR/Felipe Irnaldo
19 May 2020 (UNHCR)* — As the Coronavirus pandemic spreads through Latin America, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is warning that many displaced indigenous communities are now dangerously exposed and at risk.
– Since 2012, Teresa Castellanos has fought the construction of a gas-fired power plant in Huexca, in the central Mexican state of Morelos, adjacent to the country’s capital. | En español
Demonstrators demand clarification of the murder of land rights activist Samir Flores and the shutdown of a thermoelectric plant in the state of Morelos, in central Mexico, in a February 2019 protest on Mexico City’s emblematic Paseo Reforma. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS
Amphan (pronounced Um-Pun) impacted densely populated areas, including the Indian city of Kolkata (Calcutta) at a time when restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic is complicating disaster management – and making it more necessary than ever before.
The first ever International Tea Day, backed by the United Nations, takes place on 21 May. We take a look at the challenges facing the global tea industry, and how it can build back better after COVID-19 to support smallholder farmers and sustainability.
Photo by Max Zieren/UNEP, 2018
2020 (UN Environment)* — Tea, one of the oldest estate cash crops, can play a significant role in rural development, poverty reduction and food security.
A roadside seller serves up tea in India. ©shutterstock.com/Abir Bhattacharya
The cyclone is one of the strongest storms of the year, with winds of up to 185 km/hr
View from the space of the powerful Cyclone Amphan at dusk. India, May, 2020. | Photo: Twitter/ @HuracanesCarib
How did Rwanda manage to restore more than 800,000 hectares — almost half of its original pledge — in less than a decade?
Emmanuel Nsabimana, a casual labourer at the National Tree Seed Centre, in Huye, in Rwanda’s Southern Province, has worked planting trees for over 40 years. He believes there has been considerable improvements in the seed quality from the centre since the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) became one of the contributors to its restoration. Credit: Emmanuel Hitimana/IPS
Amphan (pronounced Um-Pun) is on track for densely populated areas at a time when restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic is complicating disaster management – and making it more necessary than ever before.
20 May 2020 (UN Environment)* — There’s nothing new in nature. Viruses have been around for as long as plants and animals, if not longer. Most viruses are benign to humans and other animals and in fact are essential for life. Some—as humans are finding out with COVID-19—have negative consequences.
Chronic bee paralysis is a well-defined viral disease of honey bees across the world. Until recently, according to a study in Nature Communications, it caused rare, but severe, symptoms, including colony loss.
20 May 2020 (United Nations)* — Bees and other pollinators, such as butterflies, bats and hummingbirds, are increasingly under threat from human activities.
Pollination is, however, a fundamental process for the survival of our ecosystems.
Nearly 90% of the world’s wild flowering plant species depend, entirely, or at least in part, on animal pollination, along with more than 75% of the world’s food crops and 35% of global agricultural land.
Not only do pollinators contribute directly to food security, but they are key to conserving biodiversity.
(UN News)* — The civil war in Libya is in danger of intensifying as foreign intervention grows and the spectre of the COVID-19 pandemic adds to a deepening sense of insecurity, the head of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) told the Security Council on Tuesday [19 May 2020].
Stephanie Williams, who is also Acting Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Libya, said on Tuesday that while the rest of the world adjusts to life with the novel coronavirus, Libyans have dealt with almost constant bombardment and frequent water and electricity outages during the holy month Ramadan.
The Trump administration has quietly ramped up a vicious bombing—and covert raiding—campaign in Somalia amid a global coronavirus pandemic. Neither the White House nor the Pentagon has provided any explanation for the deadly escalation of a war that Congress hasn’t declared and the media rarely reports. At stake are many thousands of lives.
US military base in Somalia. Reuters
The public statistics show a considerable increase in airstrikes from Obama’s presidency. From 2009 to 2016, the U.S. military’s Africa Command (AFRICOM) announced 36 airstrikes in Somalia. Continue reading
Of all the issues exposed by this pandemic, perhaps the most poignant is the fact that having neglected the elements that surround us for much of the last century, we have inadvertently made our world a less healthy place to live.
Evidence indicates that our lifestyles and behaviours have affected our living environment; and consequently, undermined our health.
More and more people struggle to have access to or enough food in fragile countries.
In Syria, FAO continues supporting farmers to build vegetable nurseries.
ROME, 18 May 2020 (FAO)* – The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is seeking $350 million to scale up hunger-fighting and livelihoods-boosting activities in food crisis contexts where COVID-19’s impact could be devastating.
Built in the 1920s, the airport of gigantic proportions was renovated in the 1930s by the Nazi regime. Decommissioned in 2008, it served as a shelter for asylum seekers between 2015 and 2019, and has since been transformed into a public park.
