Rome, 7 May 2015 – The ‘West’ is a concept that flourished during the Cold War. Then it was West against East in the form of the Soviet empire. The East was evil against which all democratic countries – read West – were called on to fight.
Roberto Savio
I recall meeting Elliot Abrams, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State during the Ronald Reagan administration, in 1982.
He told me that at the point in history, the real West was the United States, with Europe a wavering ally, not really ready to go up to the point of entering into war with the Soviet Union.
When I tried to explain to him that the East-West denomination dated back to Roman times, long before the United States even existed, he brushed this aside, saying that the contemporary concept was that of those standing against the Soviet Empire, and the United States was the only power willing to do so.
The Reagan presidency changed the course of history, because he was against multilateralism, the United Nations and anything that could oblige the United States to accept what was not primarily in the interests of Washington.
The fact that United States had a manifest destiny and was therefore a spokesperson for humankind and the idea that God was American were the bases of his rhetoric.
A new United Nations-backed report on the link between forests and food production and nutrition says that woodlands could be the key to ending hunger and will be intimately linked to the global fight against climate change.
Upland women weed their rice fields, an integrated method of agro-forestry in Mokpon Village, Laos. UN Photo/Lamphay Inthakoun
Launched on 6 May 2015 at UN Headquarters in New York, where the 11th session of the UN Forum on Forests, the Forests, Trees and Landscapes for Food Security and Nutrition report outlines the potential of forests to improve food security and nutrition, and to ensure the livelihoods of the world’s most vulnerable people.
The United Nations refugee agency on 6 May 2015 expressed its deep concern over the discovery of dozens of bodies in smugglers’ camps in Thailand, appealing for a regional effort to end human trafficking and protect those who escape difficult conditions from “the hands of ruthless smugglers.”
Locals in Myanmar’s Rakhine state say this waterway near the town of Sittwe is used by people smugglers to load passengers before heading out into the Bay of Bengal. Photo: UNHCR/V.Tan
“It’s distressing to hear that people who escaped difficult conditions back home have had to put their lives in the hands of ruthless smugglers, only to be killed before they could reach safety,” said James Lynch, Regional Representative and Regional Coordinator for South-East Asia for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).*
By the end of 2014, a record-breaking 38 million people had been forced to flee their homes within their own country because of conflict or violence, prompting the United Nations refugee agency to appeal on 6 May 2015 for “an all-out effort to bring about peace in war-ravaged countries.”
Iraqis displaced from Ramadi District in Anbar Governorate. Photo: UN Iraq
The report, compiled by the NRC’s the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), revealed that 38 million people have been internally displaced by conflict or violence, the equivalent of the total populations of London, New York and Beijing combined, representing a 4.7 million increase compared to 2013.
If you are interested in learning more about the meaning of, and the relationships among, direct, structural and cultural violence and how one peace studies scholar suggests we use the integrative power of nonviolence to address violence constructively, then I suggest you read the new book by historian, playwright and novelist Professor Timothy Braatz called ‘Peace Lessons’.
**The St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre of French Protestants, 1572 | Artist: François Dubois (1529–1584) Link back to Creator infobox template wikidata:Q369663| Wikimedia Commons
This book is impressive because it explains important aspects of peace and conflict theory, particularly that developed by Professor Johan Galtung.
It then applies key peace studies concepts to select historical events that are normally perceived as violent – John Brown’s struggle to end slavery in the United States, the battle at Little Bighorn in 1876, ‘World Slaughter II’, as Braatz calls it – as well as some key nonviolent resistance movements of the twentieth century: the toppling of various dictators and the US Civil Rights movement.
5 May 2015 (RT)*– Journalists from Germany’s biggest television networks were reportedly detained, questioned and not allowed to leave Qatar for days while working on a story about FIFA President Sepp Blatter and Doha’s vexed nomination for the 2022 football World Cup.
**Photo: Advertising board for Qatar’s bid | Author: daly3d and | Wikimedia Commons
Reporter from ARD German TV Florian Bauer tweeted that all of his, as well as colleagues’, materials for ARD and WDR networks have been erased and equipment destroyed.
He and his colleagues were interrogated by the police as well as secret service, Bauer claimed, and were forced to stay in the country for days.
Bauer, a long-time critic of the longtime FIFA president, has been working on a documentary titled ‘The Selling of Football: Sepp Blatter and the Power of FIFA,’ which was scheduled to air on Monday in Germany.
JERUSALEM, 4 May 2015 (IRIN)* – For the last few days, Ethiopian-Jews in Israel and their supporters have been protesting against police brutality and racism. The protests were sparked by a video of Israeli police officers assaulting a uniformed Ethiopian-Israeli soldier.
.
**Photo: Andreas Hackl/IRIN | Women of Ethiopian origin at a human rights demo in Tel Aviv, January 2012
A Tel Aviv rally turned violent on Sunday night, with police firing stun grenades and water cannons. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to meet with Ethiopian community leaders Monday, and another rally is expected outside his Jerusalem residence.
But who are the Ethiopian Israelis and why are they so angry?
4 May 2015 (Pressenza)* — Mr. Duncan Nyawo is a teacher by profession who is troubled by a few things deep in his soul, and this caused him to walk from Nelspruit to Pretoria which is about 321 km just to deliver a message of peace and hope to the Presidency at Union Buildings in South Africa.
Duncan Nyawo – in green (Image by Duncan Nyawo) | Source: Pressenza
His memorandum covered particular issues; stop attacking white farmers; stop threatening the white people of South Africa by saying they must pack their bags and go!; stop defacing statues – to mention but a few.
When interviewed Mr. Nyawo said: South Africa needs whites, Chinese, coloureds, blacks whatever. Therefore, let us live together as we need one another.
Terrorism continues to represent one of the greatest global challenges to international stability and security, and given the international nature of modern terrorism, no country is immune. To counter this threat, there are many important steps that States need to take, with establishing a strong legal system against terrorism key among them, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said on 4 May 2015.*
UNODC
In light of this, two new UNODC-developed handbooks – one on human rights and another on air and sea terrorism prevention – aim to assist States in strengthening their efforts against terrorist activities.
The guides are part of UNODC’s ongoing Counter-Terrorism Legal Training Curriculum, a knowledge-sharing platform designed to build capacity among national criminal justice officials to enhance their legal efforts against terrorism.
The Curriculum integrates training materials on related topics, such as money laundering and organized crime, addressing this scourge in a holistic manner.
This helps the target audience – including law enforcement officials such as police, prosecutors and judges; policymakers; and officials from departments such as Foreign Affairs, Justice and Interior – to better draft relevant laws and apply international treaties.
Geneva – The head of the United Nations body tasked with setting the global environmental agenda on 4 May 2015 stressed the need to limit the use of dangerous chemicals and to find a solution to the masses of electronic waste building up around the world, as a Conference of Parties to three major Conventions on the subject began in Geneva on 4 May 2015.
E-waste. Credit: ITU | Source: UN
Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), told journalists that the “tsunami of e-waste rolling out over the world” not only accounted for a large portion of the world’s non-recyclable “waste mountain” but also needed dealing with because many elements found in electronic equipment are potentially hazardous to people and the environment.*
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 