'Unseen' News and Views
These forest fires were a legacy of decades of destruction by palm oil and paper companies. Despite ‘no deforestation’ promises held by companies, forests are still being trashed.
Here are 10 shocking facts showing the scale of Indonesia’s forest destruction, and why it needs to stop now.
A new report issued on 23 November 2015 by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) shows that over the last twenty years, 90 per cent of major disasters have been caused by 6,457 recorded floods, storms, heat waves, droughts and other weather-related events.
Recurring drought and rapid urbanization have brought about humanitarian challenges in Kenya | Source: UN
The report, entitled The Human Cost of Weather Related Disasters finds that the five countries hit by the highest number of disasters are the United States, China, India, Philippines, and Indonesia.
Atlanta, Georgia, USA, 23 November 2015- TRANSCEND Media Service – The atrocity in Paris seems to trigger the word “terrorism” with a higher frequency than ever, in the media, from the politicians.
Johan Galtung
Doing so, they sign their intellectual capitulation: trust me, I am not going to try to understand anything.
Watching politicians on 56 US TV channels in Georgia there was not a single word analyzing why?; like underlying conflicts and traumas.
Nor conciliation and solution.
Only a description of what?, the horrible violence. And what to do: more violence, war.
With a question mark though: Will it work?
The whole Western world was living up to the old French saying Cet animal est très méchant, quand on le bat, il se defend. (That animal is very vicious, when you beat it, it defends itself).
Posted by Antonio C. S. Rosa, Editor – TRANSCEND Media Service – 23 November 2015*
15 November 2015
The Barcelona Declaration – Refugees: Meeting the Challenge to Our Humanity
We, the Nobel Peace Laureates and Peace Organisations, in the presence of youth from all over the world, gathered together in Barcelona from 12 – 15 November 2015, have considered issues affecting world peace – with special emphasis on the current refugee and migration crisis.
We are profoundly shocked and outraged by the barbaric killing of more than 150 innocent people in Paris on the evening of 13 November. We express our deepest sympathy and solidarity with the families of the victims and with the people of France.
This outrageous attack stresses the urgent need to address the root causes of the current refugee crisis and insecurity in the world. This situation should not be abused to demonise refugees and the Muslim community.
**Entrance to the Bourj el-Barajneh refugee camp in southern Beirut. | Author: Al Jazeera English | Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. | Wikimedia Commons
As of right now all the world can think about and talk about is the Paris attack and how best to exact revenge upon “those nefarious elements” which seek to destroy Western civilization.
But is there such a thing, if by civilization, Westerners really mean ethnic superiority cloaked in sectarian supremacism?
Beirut, 21 November 2015 (UNHCR) – Syrian father Mohamad believes his life can be summarized by a worn out piece of paper. Carefully folded and tucked under a floor mattress, it details a growing list of debts.
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© UNHCR | Syrian refugee Fouad carries food with his children after an outing to a store.
Four years in Lebanon as a refugee have sucked his resources dry, and thrown him on the mercy of a good number of neighbours, relatives and friends.
“I wake up thinking about it. I go to bed thinking about it,” the father-of-four said with his eyes fixed on the floor. “What can I say, we have lost everything, and now we are being forced to give up our dignity.”
23 November 2015
This book was published in 1984 in English, French, German, Italian and Japanese. Far from being our of date, it is even more urgently relevant today than when it was published. It is a dialogue between two great men, Aurelio Peccei and Daisaku Ikeda. Their greatness is both moral and intellectual.
**Aurelio Peccei (1976) | Author: Koen Suyk / Anefo | Nationaal Archief | Wikimedia Commons
Aurelio Peccei (1908-1984) was the principal founder of the Club of Rome, an organization whose 1972 report, “Limits to Growth” first called to the world’s attention the impossibility of constantly-increasing economic growth on a finite planet.
The second author, Daisaku Ikeda (1928- ), is the founding President of Soka Gakkai International (SGI), a 12-million-strong lay Buddhist organization with members in 192 countries or regions.
***Daisaku Ikeda at Soka University, Tokyo, May 2010 | Author: Rukomii. | Wikipedia Commons
The Japanese words “Soka Gakkai” mean “Value-Creating Education”, and the members of SGI are strongly committed to working for peace, international understanding, and the complete abolition of nuclear weapons.
**Flowers and candles. People standing in a line to write condolences in front of French embassy in Moscow | 15 November 2015 | Author: Stolbovsky | Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license | Wikimedia Commons
Ever since Russia opened its bombing campaign against Islamic State forces in Syria all hell has broken loose on the planet.
On Oct. 31, a Russian Airbus was brought down by an explosive device over the Sinai Peninsula, killing 224.
On Nov. 12, a bomb exploded in Beirut, Lebanon killing dozens.
On Friday the 13th Paris was hit by a string of terrorist attacks against public venues that left 129 dead and 352 wounded.
21 November 2015
Watching the terrible events unfolding during and after the Paris terrorist attacks, I have a helpless sense of deja vu. It reminds me of the movie, Groundhog Day, only much more deadly and depressing. It feels like we have been here so many times before: the same anguished images, the same suffering, the same questions and sense of disbelief.
Most depressingly, listening to the rhetoric coming from Western leaders, I can’t see any way we can avoid experiencing the same day again – whether in a few months or years time.
As I explained in my book Writing the War on Terrorism (2005, Manchester University Press) about the language of counterterrorism, when the 11 September 2001 attacks occurred, President Bush said that they were “an act of war”.
This was a key rhetorical move and it led the US to launch the global war on terrorism which has caused so much suffering, violence and counter-violence.
Illegal logging in the Brazilian Amazon is vast in scale and scope – impacting both rainforest communities and crucial habitat.
These systems would help them to monitor illegal logging on their lands, as indigenous tribes all too often fall victim to uncontrolled and illegal logging practices.
That same month, a major police crackdown on one of the largest illegal timber trade networks ever made headlines around the world.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 