Portoroz, Slovenia, Oct 24 2016 (IPS) – Every two years, governments from across the globe gather to debate the fate of the world’s whales. And every two years, Japan, Norway and Iceland find themselves in the firing line for their refusal to end commercial whaling.
The grave dangers of fishing nets are underestimated. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS
This week at the International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting in Slovenia will be no different. But while the divisive debate on whaling rages, the IWC has the chance to unite behind efforts to tackle the most immediate 21st century threat to whales – bycatch.
It is scarcely believable but accidental entanglement in fishing gear – or bycatch – kills over 300,000 whales, dolphins and porpoises (collectively known as cetaceans) every year.
TRANSCEND Media Service, 24 October 2016 – Johan Vincent Galtung, dr, dr hc mult, a professor of peace studies, was born in Oslo, Norway on the same day that the UN would come to existence 15 years later.
He is a mathematician–his first Ph.D.–, sociologist, political scientist and the founder of the academic disciplines of Peace and Conflict Studies.
He founded the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (1959), the world’s first academic research center focused on peace studies, as well as the influential Journal of Peace Research (1964).
He has helped found dozens of other peace centers around the world since.
He has served as a professor for peace studies at universities all over the world, including Columbia (New York), Oslo, Berlin, Belgrade, Paris, Santiago de Chile, Buenos Aires, Cairo, Sichuan, Ritsumeikan (Japan), Princeton, Hawai’i, Tromsoe, Bern, Alicante (Spain), Islamic University of Malaysia in KualaLumpur, and dozens of others on all continents. He has taught thousands of individuals and motivated them to dedicate their lives to the promotion of peace and the satisfaction of basic human needs.
22 October 2016 (RT)– When you reach the stage of making a distinction between good terrorists and bad terrorists, not only are you defending the indefensible, you are engaged in the ugly business of sowing dragon’s teeth.
Wounded civilians arrive at a hospital in Aleppo during the Syrian civil war. | Author: Voice of America News: Scott Bobb reports from Aleppo, Syria | public domain | Wikimedia Commons: “This file has been identified as being free of known restrictions under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights.”
Jahbat Al-Nusra, which recently changed its name to Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, is a terrorist organization dripping in the blood of men, women, and children – people it has butchered across Syria over the past five years for the crime of praying to a different God than them, or else the same God in a different way.
JOHANNESBURG, Oct 21 2016 (IPS)– When #FeesMustFall began to trend on social media platforms in South Africa in October 2015, government shrugged it off as an example of isolated hotheads, while political pundits predicted the student campaign wouldn’t last.
Hundreds of #FeesMustFall protesters gather outside the Union Buildings, the seat of government in South Africa, to demand free education on Oct. 20, 2016. Credit: Denvor DeWee/IPS
But a year later and the protest movement has gained traction across the country, with all major tertiary institutions partly shut down or barely functioning, and civil society warning that the effect on various sectors of the economy will carry over to 2017.
The demand for water to support agricultural development in conflict-plagued Afghanistan often results in high-stakes water disputes, according to a new United Nations report released on 23 October 2016, which underscores the need for more effective and transparent means of resolving the differences.*
A view of Bamyan National Park in September 2016. Afghanistan is characterized by rugged mountains, with more than half of the land area above 2,000 metres. There are also lakes and rivers, with most new water supply coming from rain and snow melt. UN Photo/UNAMA
“As this report clearly outlines, the stakes involved in water disputes are high,” said the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for the country, Tadamichi Yamamoto, in a news release.
BORNO STATE, Nigeria, 19 October 2016 (UNICEF) – Since 2014, the escalation of the Boko Haram insurgency has caused insecurity and massive displacement in north-east Nigeria and the Lake Chad region. An estimated 2.6 million people are internally displaced – more than half of whom are children.
Photo: UNICEF
UNICEF and partners are working together to address the many aspects of this humanitarian crisis, including alarming rates of malnutrition, a recent polio outbreak, limited school access, deteriorating health and water services, and the psychosocial impacts of living through violence.
BERLIN, 22 October, 2016 – The documentary “Beyond Revenge” that premiered on the 2nd of October in Berlin, and which has already been premiered in several other cities worldwide, is now freely available on youtube, just as the producers, Álvaro Orus and Luz Jahnen said it would be.
It is subtitled in three languages, Spanish, English and German. Soon Italian, Greek, French and Portugese will be added.
The movie is about the mechanism of revenge that is deeply rooted in human beings and which the producers of the film trace back to the prehistoric past of humankind.
Lured by smugglers, over 3,600 refugees and migrants have died or gone missing on the Mediterranean this year. Shipwreck survivors in Egypt recount their ordeal.
ALEXANDRIA, Egypt (UNHCR), 21 October 2016 – The sea tempts them with a dream of a better life in Europe. But the sea kills and these are refugees who barely escaped with their lives when the smugglers’ boats capsized and sank.
21 October 2016 – Wonder Woman, the iconic superhero, has been named an Honorary Ambassador for the Empowerment of Women and Girls by the United Nations and will be tasked with raising awareness about Goal 5 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, which seeks to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls by 2030.*
Female superhero Wonder Woman, named by the UN as Honorary Ambassador for the Empowerment of Women and Girls. Credit: DC Entertainment
“While we have achieved progress towards gender equality in many parts of the world, women and girls continue to suffer discrimination and violence. Gender equality is a fundamental human right and a foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world,” UN Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information Cristina Gallach said at a ceremony this afternoon at UN Headquarters in New York.
18 October 2016 (UNICEF)For once it was a moment not of anxiety and despair but to stop and celebrate. For once we felt the thrill of new life, new hope in the ongoing drama of life and death of children on the move in the Central Mediterranean.
The two Eritrean babies who were born aboard the Luigi Dattilo. ” UNICEF
The Italian Coastguard crew on the Luigi Dattilo vessel – who have saved thousands of refugees and migrants from drownings in the deadly waters of the Central Mediterranean – called us excitedly in the early hours of the morning to share the news: they had helped deliver two Eritrean babies on their boat.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 