'Unseen' News and Views – By Baher Kamal & The Like
TRIPOLI, 18 February 2016 (IRIN) – on the fifth anniversary of Libya’s uprising against Muammar Gaddafi, there isn’t much to celebrate for the residents of Bin Jawad. Once at the heart of the 2011 rebellion, they have either fled for their lives or find themselves under the brutal rule of so-called Islamic State.
As the European Union summit starts in Brussels, a United Nations expert on the human rights of migrants on 18 February 2016 warned that it has become impossible in Europe to have a meaningful discussion about migrant’s rights, diversity, and integration.
On 26 August 2015, a distressed child rests over the shoulder of the man carrying him, in the town of Gevgelija, on the border with Greece and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Photo: UNICEF/Tomislav Georgiev
“Europe has always been a strong advocate of human rights in Europe and elsewhere,” said François Crépeau, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, in a statement.
“In its struggle to maintain control of its borders however, it is being tested on its adherence to human rights. Through slowly stripping away the rights of asylum-seekers and migrants, Europe is creating a scary new ‘normal,’” he added.
**Children in Aleppo | Great Mosque of Aleppo | Author: yeowatzup from Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany | Source: Umayyad Mosque, Aleppo, Syria | Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. | Wikimedia Commons
Research assistant Blance Soussous showing packed parboiled rice. Credit: Busani Bufana/IPS
Due to fast urbanizing Africa, consumption of rice is growing by six per cent annually. “Rice is important for Africa food security and the reasons are clear,” AfricaRice Center, Deputy Director General, Marco Wopereis, told IPS.
The 193-member United Nations General Assembly on 18 February 2016 honored the memory of former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who passed away on Tuesday [15 February] at the age of 93, recalling his legacy in helping the world body find its footing in a new global landscape during the tumultuous early 1990s.
Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali is shown addressing a press conference at United Nations Headquarters on 1 February 1994. UN Photo/Milton Grant
Adressing the Assembly’s special tribute at UN Headquarters in New York, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Boutros-Ghali had both the fortune and the misfortune to serve as the first post-Cold-War UN chief.
“While the United Nations was never as paralyzed during the Cold War as many have portrayed, the new dynamic gave the Organization new leeway to act. This brought promise and peril – and Boutros-Ghali experienced both,” Ban said.
