Indigenous peoples denounced violence prompted by the extraction of natural resources in the Amazon basin.
Cacique Raoni of Kayapo tribe delivers a speech in Xingu Indigenous Park, Brazil, Jan. 17, 2020. | Photo: Reuters (Photo posted here fromteleSUR).
18 January 2020 (teleSUR)* — After a four-day meeting carried out in Piaracu village, at the Mato Grosso state, in Brazil, over 600 Indigenous leaders Friday issued a manifesto denouncing the “genocide, ethnocide, and ecocide” planned by the far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.
January 2020 (WHO)* – Coronaviruses (CoV) are a large family of viruses that cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV). A novel coronavirus (nCoV) is a new strain that has not been previously identified in humans.
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 17 2020 (IPS)* – The United States and 18 other UN member states have come under fire for denying a woman’s legitimate right to “bodily autonomy”—the right to self-governance over one’s own body without coercion or external pressure.
Credit: UN Women
The Executive Director of Women’s March Global, Uma Mishra-Newbery, told IPS the United Nations has worked towards progress in fighting for women’s rights.
Protesters held signs including “Wake up and Smell the Bushfires” and “It is late but it is not too late”.
16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg speaks at the 2019 United Nations Climate Action Summit at U.N. headquarters in New York City, New York, U.S., September 23, 2019. | Photo: Reuters (Poto fromteleSUR).
17 January 2020 (teleSUR)* — Swedish activist Greta Thunberg marched with 10,000 protesters in the Swiss city of Lausanne Friday warning the world’s top leaders and global elite that they “have not seen anything yet” before the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos next week.
17 January 2020 (UN Environment)* — The cautionary tale of the boiling frog describes how a frog that jumps into boiling water will save itself by jumping straight out, but the frog that sits in the water while it gradually gets hotter and hotter will boil to death. The global warming crisis surrounds us today and we must act now to protect ourselves.
On 15 January 2020, the World Meteorological Organization confirmed that 2019 was the second hottest year on record after 2016, according to the organization’s consolidated analysis of leading international datasets.
The far-right former Capitan accounted for three out of five press attacks in 2019.
President Jair Bolsonaro at Planalto Palace in Brasilia, Brazil Dec. 19, 2019. | Photo: Reuters (Phto pposted here fromteleSUR).
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17 January 2020 (teleSUR)* — Brazil’s National Federation of Journalists (Fenaj) Thursday presented its “Report on Violence Against Journalists and Press Freedom”, highlighting that 208 attacks on media outlets and journalists were reported in 2019, which means an increase of 54 percent over the previous year.
Drug-resistant infections are on the rise as private investment in new antibiotic development declines, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday [17 January 2020]. (*).
CDC/Alissa Eckert, James Archer | A medical illustration depicts the drug-resistant, Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria.
Two new WHOreports reveal that while some 50 new antibiotics and 10 biologics are under development, only 32 of the total target WHO-priority pathogens and the majority have very limited benefits when compared to existing antibiotics.
(UN News) — The world should not accept the “dire and untenable” situation facing children in wartorn Libya the head of the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, said on Friday [17 January 2020].
“Children in Libya, including refugee and migrant children, continue to suffer grievously amidst the violence and chaos unleashed by the country’s longstanding civil war”, Executive Director Henrietta Fore said in a statement.
“There is no budget … if you want to prevent fires you have to start right now, all has to be done in the first half of the year.”
Children of the Kayapo tribe sit on the banks of Xingu River during a four-day pow wow in Piaracu village, in Xingu Indigenous Park, near Sao Jose do Xingu, Mato Grosso state, Brazil, January 15, 2020. | Photo: Reuters (Photo posted here from teleSUR).
16 January 2020 (teleSUR)* — The Amazon rainforest is facing a serious threat because of deforestation and the situation is not likely to get any better in 2020, as experts believe this year will see the acceleration of the environmental crisis.
16 January 2020 (UN Environment)* — 2020 is a crunch year for decision makers tackling the biodiversity and climate change emergencies and for humanity as a whole to start paying attention to the breakdown of our planetary systems. The year will host two major events, known as “conferences of parties,” on biodiversity and climate. The biodiversity conference will agree a new set of goals for nature for the next decade.
Nearly nine years of conflict in Syria have robbed boys and girls of their childhood and subjected them to “unabated violations of their rights”, including being killed, maimed, displaced, forced to fight or subjected to torture, rape and sexual slavery. The findings come in the latest report by the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria, released on Thursday [16 January 2020]. (*).
“I am appalled by the flagrant disregard for the laws of war and the Convention on the Rights of the Child by all parties involved in the conflict”, said Commission chair Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro.
Aid to vulnerable people in Iraq risks being completely blocked within weeks, warned the UN’s humanitarian chief in Iraq, Marta Ruedas, on Tuesday [16 January 2020], as a result of the suspension of government documents allowing humanitarians to carry out critical missions. (*).
OCHA/Themba Linden | Humanitarian partners distribute emergency assistance in Ibrahim Khalil village in Iraq
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In a statement released on Thursday [14 January 2020] by the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), Ms. Ruedas declared that “our operations are at risk. Without predictable, continual access authorization, humanitarian aid is in danger of rotting in warehouses, putting lives in jeopardy and wasting badly-needed donor funds”.
“The riches Bolsonaro speaks of are white man’s riches, to buy cars and planes and ranches. Our riches are in the forest and the rivers here,” Kayapó tribe leader Megaron Txucarramãe said on Tuesday.
Indigenous leader Cacique Raoni of Kayapo tribe, attends a four-day pow wow in Piaracu village, in Xingu Indigenous Park, near Sao Jose do Xingu, Mato Grosso state, Brazil, January 14, 2020. | Photo: Reuters (Photo posted here fromteleSUR).
15 January 2020 (teleSUR)* — A four-day-long tribal meeting among the Brazilian Indigenous leaders has begun in the Amazon to protest far-right President Jair Bolsonaro’s push to open their reservations for commercial mining and agriculture.
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 15 2020 (IPS)* – Pat Buchanan, a senior advisor to three US Presidents and twice candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, once infamously described the United States Congress as “Israeli-occupied territory” -– apparently because of its unrelentingly blind support for the Jewish state.
Never mind post-1967 Gaza, West Bank and the Golan Heights.
A U.S. soldier stands watch at the Kindi IDP Resettlement Center near Baghdad, Iraq, Nov. 16, 2009. Credit: U.S. Navy Photo
Each year, at least 55 million children in Europe suffer some form of physical, sexual, emotional or psychological violence, the UN health agency (WHO) said on Tuesday [14 January 2020]. (*).
UNODC/Alessandro Scotti | Sofia, Bulgaria. NGO Animus Crises Center and Shelter for Victims of Human Trafficking and Domestic Violence.
And despite the magnitude of this figure, “it is well established that incidents of interpersonal violence are widely underreported”, according to the World Health Organization’s European Region office.
The UN human rights office, OHCHR, is “deeply troubled by the staggering number of human rights defenders killed in Colombia” last year, its spokesperson said on Tuesday [14 January 2020]. (*).
UN Colombia | A wide range of human rights activists have been targeted in Colombia, especially those living in rural areas.
“The single most targeted group was human rights defenders advocating on behalf of community-based and specific ethnic groups such as indigenous peoples and Afro-Colombians”, Marta Hurtado told reporters in Geneva, adding that the number of women human rights defenders killed increased “by almost 50 per cent in 2019 compared to 2018”.
15 January 2020 (World Meteorological Organization)* — The year 2019 was the second warmest year on record after 2016, according to the World Meteorological Organization’s consolidated analysis of leading international datasets.
WMO/Jordi Anon | 2019 was the second warmest year on record after 2016, according to the World Meteorological Organization.
Average temperatures for the five-year (2015-2019) and ten-year (2010-2019) periods were the highest on record. Since the 1980s each decade has been warmer than the previous one.
This trend is expected to continue because of record levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Continue reading →
In 1960 Chile was shaken by the largest earthquake ever recorded before. Its magnitude was 9.6 degrees on the Richter logarithmic scale, which has a maximum of 10. Continue reading →
At present, history is taught as though power struggles were its most important aspect. Furthermore, the present teaching of history is indoctrination in nationalism. We need to reform our teaching of history so that the emphasis will be placed on the gradual growth of human culture and knowledge, a growth to which all nations and ethnic groups have contributed.
John Scales Avery
A New Freely Downloadable Book
I would like to announce the publication of a book, which reviews the lives and thoughts of some of the women and men who have contributed importantly to the development of astronomy, from ancient times to the present. The book may be freely downloaded and circulated from the following link:
11 January 2020 (UN News)* — The mining of gold in unregulated and often hand-dug pits in West Africa, can be a deadly occupation, but one which many impoverished people in the region are pushed into by necessity, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
IOM/Alexander Bee | Gold-mining in West Africa is often carried out by hand.
January 2020 (IOM)* — The latest arrival in a small brothel in the gold-mining hub of Yanfolila, southern Mali, Mariam* still recalls the first time she had sex for money. She took a man into her small, concrete room, and did what she had to do. She then cried and went to sleep, too sore to see other customers.
IOM/Anna Pujol-Mazzini, Mali Mariam
“I was scared. Usually, you should be doing this with a man you love, but because of money, I’ve lost my virginity now. I was so scared,” she says.
Bolsonaro has shown little respect for the Indigenous people of Brazil, as he conitnues to promote commercial projects on their lands.
Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro looks on as he leaves the Alvorada Palace in Brasilia, Brazil January 9, 2020. | Photo: Reuters (Photo posted here fromteleSUR).
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12 January 2020 (teleSUR)* — Brazil’s right-wing regime said it was pushing ahead with its plans to mine on tribal lands, despite the objections of the people that live in these targeted areas.
Iran knows it is Trump’s foreign policy punching bag. It has been since Trump came to office. More blows against Iran are yet to come in this election year.
U.S. President Donald Trump looks on during a campaign rally in Battle Creek, Michigan, U.S., December 18, 2019. | Photo: Reuters (Photo posted here fromteleSUR).
11 January 2020 (teleSUR)* — Trump’s assassination of Iran’s general and senior diplomat, Soleimani, was a clear provocation by the U.S., designed to produce a further escalated military response by Iran. That did not happen. Iran did not take the bait. It responded minimally and appears to have done so in a way to avoid US deaths or even major U.S. asset destruction.
Between 2003 and 2020 the only constants have been the following: communal violence, terrorism, poverty, weapons proliferation, crime, political instability, social breakdown, riots, disorder and economic failure.
7 January 2020 (openDemocracy)* — After nearly two decades of war, Iraq has experienced its most peaceful year: 17 years after the invasion, during 2019 over 2,300 civilian deaths were recorded by Iraq Body Count. In its worst year, 2006, Iraq had witnessed the violent deaths of more than 29,500 civilians.
Inaction when it comes to the fight back against damaging climate change is not an option, the President of the UN General Assembly told a major energy conference in Abu Dhabi on Friday [10 January 2020] (*).
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UNDP Tuvalu/Aurélia Rusek | The low-lying island nation, Tuvalu, in the Pacific Ocean is particularly susceptible to higher sea levels caused by climate change.
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Tijani Muhammad-Bande was addressing the International Organization for Renewable Energy High-Level meeting on the particular threat faced by Small Island Developing States, or SIDS, and their partners in development.
BANGKOK, Thailand, Jan 6 2020 (IPS)* – Currently, approximately 300 million tons of oil-based plastic waste are produced every year. A significant amount of plastic waste ends up in the oceans, having a detrimental effect on marine ecosystems and coastal communities. Most of this waste originates from the Asia-Pacific region.
10 January 2020 (UN Environment)* — The huge wildfires in Australia, Amazon, California, the Congo basin and Indonesia have drawn the world’s attention to the risks associated with extended periods of unusually hot and dry weather, which is an effect of climate change.
The global average temperature is now 1.1°C higher than at the beginning of last century. Higher temperatures create, in some parts of the world, drier conditions, increasing the likelihood and intensity of wildfires, and megafires.
As is currently occurring in Australia, the jump in the number of fires in Brazil’s huge tropical forest region last August sparked international alarm.
Smoke billows during a fire in an area of the Amazon rainforest near Humaita, Amazonas State, Brazil, Brazil August 17, 2019. | Photo: Reuters (photo posted here fromteleSUR).
9 January 2020 (teleSUR)* — Brazil’s Amazon region last August registered 30,901 fires, a figure almost three times that for the same month in 2018 and the worst for the month in the last decade, all of this resulting from the drought, the high temperatures and – in large part – deforestation caused by man, a governmental agency reported Wednesday [8 January 2020].
There is a significant body of evidence that human extinction is now imminent; that is, it will occur within the next few years and possibly this year: 2020.
Robert J. Burrowes,
There is also a significant body of evidence that human extinction is now inevitable; that is, it cannot be prevented no matter what we do.
There are at least four distinct paths to imminent (that is, within five years) human extinction: nuclear war (possibly started regionally), biodiversity collapse (already well advanced and teetering on the brink), the deployment of 5G (commenced recently) and the climate catastrophe.
Needless to say, each of these four paths might unfold in a variety of ways. In addition, it should be noted, there are other possible paths to extinction in the near term, particularly when considered in conjunction with the four threats just mentioned.
Cacique Raoni of Kayapo tribe delivers a speech in Xingu Indigenous Park, Brazil, Jan. 17, 2020. | Photo: Reuters (Photo posted here from teleSUR).
