31/07/2017
By Johan Galtung*
Jondal, Norway, 31 July 2017 – TRANSCEND Media Service – Norway is divided very clearly into three parts: the North and the two parts of the South, the West and the East separated by chains of mountains, plateaus (vidder) and emptiness (there is no town between Notodden in the East and Odda in the West).
Johan Galtung
And by language, by unmistakable dialects.
In the East “standard Norwegian”, “bokmål” evolving from Danish after 400 years Copenhagen rule, deeply contested in the 19th century.
In the West Old Norse had left more of an impact and the net outcome was called New Norwegian, “nynorsk“, also partly in the North.
But the basic difference is sing-song in West and North, and flatness in East (“flatnorsk“, neither “jeg” for I, nor “eg“, “je“).
Plus, more important in this connection: geographic orientation.
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31/07/2017
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 31 2017 (IPS) – The United States is lagging far behind its Western allies – and perhaps most of the key developing countries – in refusing to act decisively to end a longstanding health and environmental hazard: the use of mercury in dentistry.
Example of mercury use in the healthcare sector. From left to right: Mercury Sphygmomanometer, Dental Amalgam and a Fever Thermometer. Credit: UNDP
The 28-member European Union (EU), with an estimated population of over 510 million people, recently announced its decision to ban amalgam use in children under age 15, pregnant women, and breastfeeding mothers. The ban comes into effect July 2018.
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31/07/2017
Park rangers across the world face increasing challenges and risks due to a surge in poaching and illicit trafficking in wildlife, the head of the United Nations entity on protection of endangered species on 31 July 2017 said, honouring the work of park rangers in protecting wild animals, plants and culture.
Members of the Black Mamba Anti-Poaching Unit, a South African and majority-women ranger group. Photo: Black Mamba Anti-Poaching Unit
“Honest and hardworking park rangers devote their lives to protecting our natural resources and cultural heritage and, in some areas, these brave men and women regularly encounter well-resourced groups of poachers, equipped with high caliber weapons, who do not hesitate to use violence or threats of violence against them,” said John Scanlon, Secretary-General of the Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
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30/07/2017
BP and Total are trying to get permission to drill for oil near the Amazon Reef, but this group of experts called for the companies’ plans to be put on hold, saying that “The priority should be to protect the reef and surrounding waters in order to conduct further research.”
This letter adds more pressure on BP and Total to cancel their plans to drill. So far, over a million people have signed the petition against oil drilling near the Amazon Reef, and more than 29,000 people have written to BP’s CEO in protest.
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30/07/2017
By Moin Qazi*
24 July 2017 – TRANSCEND Media Service
“You live in such a time that if any of you abandon even a tenth of what you are enjoined, you will be ruined. But a time will come when, if a person fulfills only a tenth of what is enjoined, they will be saved.” — Prophet Muhammad (Tirmidhi, Book 34: Fitan (Sedition), Section 79, No. 2267)
**Panoramic view of Masjeed Al Nabawee at sunset | Author: Ahmed Medineli | public domain. ” Wikipedia Commons
In the above hadith or prophetic saying, the Prophet was referring to times like ours when we live in great strife and are facing tough challenges to balance religion with modern imperatives.
This Prophetic advice emanates from the holy Quran: “And God has not laid upon you any hardship in matters of religion” (Q22:78).
The Qur’an further says: “God intends for you ease and does not intend for you hardship.” (Q2:185) The Qur’an reinforces this message again: “God does not burden a soul beyond its capacity” (Q 2:286).
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30/07/2017
By Uri Avery*
29/07/2017
MY LATE friend, Nathan Yellin-Mor, the political leader of the LEHI underground, once told me that a certain politician is “not a great thinker and not a small fool.”
Uri Avnery
I remember that sentence every time I think about Gilad Erdan, our Minister of Public Security. His part in the events of the last few weeks, in which the entire Middle East almost exploded, confirmed this judgment.
On the other hand, Binyamin Netanyahu reminds me of the saying: “A clever person is one who knows how to extricate himself from a trap which a wise person would not have gotten into in the first place.”
About Netanyahu I would have said: “A very clever but not a very wise person.”
THERE ARE two ways to look at historic disasters. The one sees them as plots of evil persons, the other as acts of folly.
It is easy to understand the first school. After all, it cannot be possible that our very lives depend on a bunch of fools, who have no idea about anything.
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30/07/2017
30 July 2017 – Criminal groups feed off the instability created by conflicts, and as links between wars, trafficking and migrant smuggling become more widely known, the United Nations is calling on the international community to act now to help and protect trafficking victims and to end this crime forever.
Young women in Colombia forced into sexual exploitation. Photo: UNICEF/Donna DeCesare
“Conflict is a breeding ground for criminal activity,” said Yury Fedotov, Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). “People forced from their homes are falling prey to human traffickers as they try desperately to escape the violence.”
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30/07/2017
By John Scales Avery
John Scales Avery, author of this book: We Need Their Voices Today! has generously granted Human Wrongs Watch permission to publish it in a series of chapters. This is Chapter 13: Count Leo Tolstoy. The others will follow successively.
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Figure 13.1: Portrait of Count Leo Tolstoy made in 1887 by Ilia Repin. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
Leo Tolstoy was born in 1828. While he was still a child, his parents died, and he became Count Tolstoy, with responsibility for the family estate at Yasnaya Polyana.
As a young man, he was attracted to the gay and worldly social life of Moscow, but his diary during this period shows remorse over his pursuit of sensual pleasures.
Disgusted with himself, he entered the army, and during idle periods he began his career as a writer.
While still a soldier, he published a beautiful nostalgic work entitled “Childhood” as well as a number of skillful stories describing army life.
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29/07/2017
27 July 2017 – The United Nations deputy chief today wrapped up her visit to two African countries – Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo – where she stressed the importance of women’s participation in peace, security and development processes.
Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed (left) and UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka lead high-level mission to Mugunga Camp for internally displaced people, in Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Photo: UN News/Lulu Gao
The final day’s itinerary for Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed included a visit to the Mugunga camp for internally displaced persons, on the outskirts of Goma, which is the capital of North Kivu Province in restive eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
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29/07/2017
Manila, 28 July 2017 (IOM)* – Two hundred anti-trafficking advocates from different agencies of government, non-government organisations, private businesses, academic institutions, and faith-based groups, some from the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) gathered Thursday (27 July) in Manila, to discuss the fight against human trafficking in the Philippines and Southeast Asia.
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Korean officials welcome Myanmar refugees at Incheon airport, 25 July 2017. Photo: UN Migration Agency (IOM) 2017
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HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 