Forced displacement this year is likely exceed all previous records, for the first time topping 60 million, meaning that one out of every 122 persons on Earth has been forced to flee their home, the United Nations refugee agency on 18 December 2015 warned.
A boy clutches and looks through a chain-link fence, on a rainy day near the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia town of Gevgelija, on the border with Greece. September 2015 Photo: UNICEF/UNI196199/Georgiev
“Never has there been a greater need for tolerance, compassion and solidarity with people who have lost everything,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres said of the agency’s new report, based on projections from the first half of 2015.
Gravely concerning at continued reports that human rights defenders in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly in Hebron, are being subjected to physical attacks and death threats, United Nations independent experts on 18 December 2015 denounced such harassment as “unacceptable” and called for it to end immediately.
UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders Michel Forst. Photo: MINUSTAH
According to a press release from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), human rights defenders have been subjected to physical attacks, harassment, arrest and detention, and death threats, in an apparent bid by Israeli authorities and settler elements to stop their peaceful and important work.
“Amidst a charged and violent atmosphere over past months in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Palestinian and international defenders are providing a ‘protective presence’ for Palestinians at risk of violence, and documenting human rights violations,” said UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Michel Forst.
TEXCOCO, Mexico, 18 December 2015 (IPS) – Every day in the wee hours of the morning Verónica Reyes’ extended family grinds corn to make the dough they use in the tacos they sell from their food truck in Mexico City.
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The corn is cooked with limewater to eliminate aflatoxins that cause liver and cervical cancer. Here a worker at the Grulin company is stirring the corn before it is washed, drained and ground, in San Luís Huexotla, Mexico. Credit: Emilio Godoy/IPS
Sons, daughters-in-law and nephews and nieces divide the work in the family business that makes and sells cecina (dried, salted meat) tacos, longaniza (a kind of Spanish sausage), quesadillas and tlacoyos (thick stuffed oval-shaped corn dough tortillas).
15 December, 2015- The rise of soya in the Brazilian economy and how it threatened to become the next big Amazon destroyer.
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The story of the Amazon soya moratorium is one of potential disaster that turned into hope. The solution continues to evolve across Brazil’s jungle of politics, business and society.
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Brazil – a land of contrasts, dramatic human history, and incredible natural resources.
Within its boundaries lies 60% of the Amazon rainforest, already under threat from illegal logging and cattle farming. This is the story of the rise of soya in the Brazilian economy and how it threatened to become the next big Amazon destroyer.
BELTERRA, Brazil, December 2015 (IPS) – In the northern Brazilian state of Pará, the construction of a port terminal for shipping soy out of the Amazon region has displaced thousands of small farmers from their land, which is now dedicated to monoculture.
Members of the São Raimundo do Fe em Deus cooperative in the rural municipality of Belterra in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest peel manioc, to make flour. The associations of small farmers help them defend themselves from the negative effects of the expansion of soy in this region on the banks of the Tapajós River. Credit: Fabiana Frayssinet/IPS
The BR-163 highway, along the 100-km route from Santarém, the capital of the municipality of that name, to Belterra runs through an endless stretch of plowed fields, with only a few isolated pockets of the lush rainforest that used to cover this entire area.
18 December, 2015 (Greenpeace)– The footage is shaky, but what’s happening is clear: a group of women – one with a child on her back – is fighting to put out advancing flames on the forest floor.
Video provided by the Missionary Council for Indigenous Peoples (CIMI) of Maranhão. | Source: Greenpeace
This is the life of many Indigenous Peoples who live in Maranhão state Indigenous Lands in Brazil.
Indigenous Lands are theoretically protected areas of Amazon rainforest, but local reports indicate that many Indigenous Lands are surrounded by forest fires like the one in the video.
In the village of Awá in the Caru Indigenous Land, for example, forest fires are burning within 30 minutes of houses.
And according to Indigenous leaders in the region, the fire is a criminal act, perpetrated by illegal loggers and land grabbers.
