It all starts with a ball. Add an inspiring coach and a safe place to play, and the power of sport takes root. Since 2009, Just Play has helped empower and mobilize children in 11 Pacific Island countries in a positive, practical and fun manner.
By Melissa Palombi*, 03 Nov 2014 — It all starts with a ball. But when you add an inspiring coach and a safe place to play, the power of sport takes root. Children are naturally drawn to sport, recreation and play, which are a vital part of childhood.
Not only are they a vital part of helping children to grow, learn and explore, they are every child’s right. As outlined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary on November 20th, 2014, every child has the right to leisure, recreation and cultural activities.
Bangkok, 3 November 2014 (ILO)* – Napatsara Ploysupaphol, a 13-year-old hip-hop dancer, has seen child labour on the streets of the Thai capital, Bangkok, since she was young. When she started dancing at the age of seven Napatsara would finish her practice in the evening and often see children, smaller than herself, selling flowers or cleaning car mirrors at traffic lights, working until the small hours of the morning to earn a little money.
.
Source: ILO
.
“It was late at night, and they still hadn’t gone home.” said Napatsara. “If I were them, I would feel like I was being tortured.”
.
Napatsara is now a member of an up-and-coming hip-hop dance group, The Zoo Thailand.
.
She heard about a new International Labour Organization (ILO) campaign, “All Together Against Child Labour”, (a part of the global ”Red Card to Child Labour” movement) which specifically tries to engage with the young city-dwellers who also form the core of The Zoo Thailand’s fan base.
.
Napatsara persuaded her fellow dancers to put their talents to good use and get involved.
By Johan Galtung*, 3 November 2014, Kuala Lumpur – Transcend Media Service — “Countercyclicity” means that both move through history in cycles, up and down; with one moving up when the other moves down.
**The Trinity is the belief that God is one God in three persons: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus), and God the Holy Spirit | Author: AnonMoos | Wikimedia Commons
Christianity started with its founder crucified, like the first pope St Peter; Christians were tortured, killed, expelled from Jewish Palestine. But then indeed up, as religio licita in the Roman Empire in 313, defined in Nicaea in 325 by Emperor Constantine.
The Empire split in 395, with a Catholic Church in the West–contracting, monastic after the Western Empire fell in 476–and an Orthodox Church in the East, till Constantinople became Istanbul in 1453–Moscow became “the Third Rome”.
The war in Syria must be “frozen locally” on the ground so that the growing threat posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) may be fully confronted, a United Nations envoy on 3 November 2014 said, suggesting that a peace introduced in increments would also provide all stakeholders with a better understanding of how to bring the three-year conflict to a definitive conclusion.
Hundreds of refugees from Syria cross the border into Jordan, receiving food and water before being transported to processing centres. Photo: UNHCR/J.Kohler
In an interview with UN Radio, the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, described “a feeling of despair and of tiredness” in the Middle Eastern country from which he recently returned, adding that the strongest message he received from people on the ground was an appeal to “stop this carnage” and “give us some light.”*
Geneva, 4 November 2014 (UNHCR)*– The UN refugee agency, with endorsement from high-profile supporters, on 4 November 2014 launched a global campaign aimed at ending the devastating legal limbo of statelessness, which affects millions of people around the world.
“The goal of eradicating statelessness is looking increasingly possible thanks to dramatic recent progress in the number of states acceding to two key UN human rights treaties,” said a UNHCR press release announcing the “I Belong” campaign.
At least 10 million people worldwide are currently stateless and a baby is born stateless every 10 minutes. Not allowed a nationality, they are often denied the rights and services that countries normally offer their citizens.
Copenhagen, 2 November 2014 — Human influence on the climate system is clear and growing, with impacts observed on all continents. If left unchecked, climate change will increase the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems. However, options are available to adapt to climate change and implementing stringent mitigations activities can ensure that the impacts of climate change remain within a manageable range, creating a brighter and more sustainable future.*
If left unchecked, climate change will increase the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems
These are among the key findings of the Synthesis Report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on Sunday [2 November 2014].
The Synthesis Report distils and integrates the findings of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report produced by over 800 scientists and released over the past 13 months – the most comprehensive assessment of climate change ever undertaken.”We have the means to limit climate change,” said R. K. Pachauri, Chair of the IPCC.
“The solutions are many and allow for continued economic and human development. All we need is the will to change, which we trust will be motivated by knowledge and an understanding of the science of climate change.”
The International Energy Agency (IEA) Energy journal looks at new ways to harvest otherwise wasted energy to power the “Internet of Things”.
**A touchscreen film: new energy harvesting can reap the force of pressing to power items that feed into the Internet of Things. Photo by Paul Rako | Source IEA
By IEA* — The Internet of Things is coming. While most often referring to the networking of electronics and appliances, it also applies to other objects around us, such as e-books, lampposts, even trees, that are connected and as a result need a power source.
By Andy Brown*, Ulziit, Mongolia, November 2014 — Horse racing is a hugely popular sport in Mongolia, but also a serious danger to the young riders who often ply their trade with no protection and no insurance. UNICEF is advocating for stronger safety laws to protect child jockeys and preserve family’s livelihoods.
In a get tent in Ulziit, horse racing capital of Mongolia, 15-year-old former child jockey Budgarav rests on his crutches and adjusts the baseball cap on his head. Four years ago, he was thrown from a horse during training and was trampled, breaking both his legs and losing his front teeth. “It was very painful when I fell,” he says.
Biodiversity for food and agriculture is among the earth’s most important resources, says the UN Food and agriculture Organization (FAO)*. It is indispensable: be it the insects that pollinate plants, the microscopic bacteria used for making cheese, the diverse livestock breeds used to make a living in harsh environments, the thousands species of fish, and other aquatic species in our lakes, rivers and oceans, or the thousands of varieties of crops that sustain food security worldwide.
.
Source: FAO
Genetic resources are the raw materials that local communities and researchers rely upon to improve the quality and output of food production.Biodiversity and genetic resources are essential for achieving nutritional diversity in diets – a diverse food basket – which is important for human health and development.
More than 620 million people in the region (two-thirds of the population) live without electricity, and nearly 730 million people rely on dangerous, inefficient forms of cooking.
The use of solid biomass (mainly fuelwood and charcoal) outweighs that of all other fuels combined, and average electricity consumption per capita is not enough to power a single 50-watt light bulb continuously.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 