20/07/2016
Failure to prepare for and adapt to the ‘new normal’ of increasing climate-linked emergencies such as El Niño could put global development targets at risk and deepen widespread human suffering in areas already hard hit by floods and droughts, top UN officials on 6 July 2016 said in Rome.
Farmers in Ethiopia. The Horn of Africa is one of the areas hardest hit by El Niño. Photo: FAO/Tamiru Legesse
Calling for governments and the international community to ramp up efforts to strengthen resilience and safeguard livelihoods in the wake of El Niño’s devastating effects, the heads of the three Rome-based UN agencies, along with the newly-appointed UN Special Envoy on El Niño and Climate, warned that more than 60 million people worldwide, about 40 million in East and Southern Africa alone, are projected to be food insecure due to the impact of the El Niño climate event.
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20/07/2016
The lives and livelihoods of more than 60 millions people around the world have been turned upside down by the extreme weather events linked to the El Niño phenomenon, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on 19 July 2016 said, calling for a scaled-up, unprecedented response that goes beyond humanitarian action.
Chad: Safety and shelter for Chadians fleeing CAR. Photo: OCHA CERF
“Extreme weather events reverse development gains. People and communities cannot escape poverty or banish hunger if their resources are wiped out by floods, storms or droughts every few years,” the Secretary-General said at a high-level event at the UN Headquarters in New York on Responding to the Impacts of and Mitigating Recurring Climate Risks, organized by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
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18/07/2016
West Hararghe region, Ethiopia, December 2015. Some 10.2 million people are food insecure amidst one of the worst droughts to hit Ethiopia in decades. Photo credit: WFP/Stephanie Savariaud
Now that the 2015-2016 El Niño –one of the strongest on record– has subsided, La Niña – El Niño’s ‘counterpart’– could strike soon, further exacerbating a severe humanitarian crisis that is affecting millions of people in the most vulnerable communities in tens of countries worldwide, especially in Africa and Asia Pacific.
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17/07/2016
By Dr Vandana Shiva*
11 July 2016 – TRANSCEND Media Service – A recent report from the National Academy of Science of The United States, titled Gene Drives on the Horizon : Advancing Science, Navigating Uncertainty, and Aligning Research with Public Values”, warns:
“One possible goal of release of a gene-drive modified organism is to cause the extinction of the target species or a drastic reduction in its abundance.”
Gene Drives have been called “mutagenic chain reactions”, and are to the biological world what chain reactions are to the nuclear world. The Guardian describes Gene Drives as the “gene bomb”.
Kevin Esvelt of MIT exclaims “a release anywhere is likely to be a release everywhere”, and asks “Do you really have the right to run an experiment where if you screw up, it affects the whole world?”
The NAS report cites the case of wiping out amaranth as an example of “potential benefit”. Yet, the “magical technology” of Gene Drives remains a Ghost, or the Department of Defence of the United States Government’s secret “weapon” to continue its War on Amaranthus Culturis.
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17/07/2016
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From violence in refugee camps to the rise of Islamophobia, the gay Syrian community faces a multitude of challenges. Credit: IPS
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17/07/2016
‘Host to hundreds of thousands of refugees who have fled the war in neighboring Syria, Lebanon has witnessed a rise in child labour in recent years, largely in the hazardous agricultural sector.’
Children enjoying a performance at the fair. Agriculture is one of the three most dangerous sectors in terms of occupational safety and health, regardless of the worker’s age. © Tabitha Ross / ILO
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16/07/2016
By Tim Irwin*
Recent violence in South Sudan has displaced some 65,000 people in and around Wau town. Among them are many children who became separated from their parents as their families fled. Reunification is the goal, but first carers must be found for these unaccompanied children.
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| © UNICEF South Sudan/2016/Irwin | Nedal, 15, and her two younger brothers are living with a foster family in a displacement site in Wau, South Sudan. They were separated from their parents when fighting broke out in the city on 24 June. |
| WAU, South Sudan, 6 July 2016 (UNICEF)* – When they heard the gunfire they knew they had to run. One fled alone, another with her brothers and another with his children and grandchildren. |
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16/07/2016
The United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on 15 July 2016 reported that some 263 million children and youth, equivalent to about a quarter of the population of Europe, are out of school from primary to upper secondary levels with sub-Saharan Africa having the highest rates of exclusion.
Syrian refugee children playing in their informal settlement at Al Faida, in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon. Photo: UNICEF/Vanda Kljajo
“Countries have promised to provide every child with a primary and secondary education by 2030. These new findings show the hard work ahead if we are to reach this goal,” said UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova.
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“Our focus must be on inclusion from the earliest age and right through the learning cycle, on policies that address the barriers at every stage, with special attention to girls who still face the greatest disadvantage.”
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16/07/2016
The United Nations human rights chief on 15 July 2016 urged the forces advancing on Aleppo and two other cities in Syria to not harm the hundreds of thousands of civilians surrounded by fighting between the Government forces and the opposition.
Destruction in Salah Ed Din neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria. Photo: OCHA/Josephine Guerrero
“The country is already a gigantic, devastated graveyard,” the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, said in a statement issued by his office.
“The number of war crimes already committed surpasses the worst nightmares. But it is in the power of both attacking and defending forces – and their foreign backers – to minimize further civilian casualties and avoid further crimes and atrocities. They must do so.”
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13/07/2016
By Robert J. Burrowes*
Daylesford, Australia, 13 July 2016 – One of the many interesting details to be learned by understanding human psychology is how a person’s unconscious fear works in a myriad of ways to make them believe that they bear no responsibility for a particular problem.
A scared child shows fear in an uncertain environment | AUTHOR: : D Sharon Pruitt. | Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. | Wikimedia Commons
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HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 