'Unseen' News and Views
“Oceans: our allies against climate change. How marine ecosystems help preserve our world.” Credit: FAO
A cigarette vendor in Manila sells a pack of 20 sticks for less than a dollar. Credit: Kara Santos/IPS
A letter signed by nearly 200 public health organizations and labour rights groups worldwide is calling on the Governing Body of the Geneva-based UN agency to expel tobacco companies from its subsidiary membership.
By Bart Minten* | International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
19 October 2017 – Global trade in Voluntary Sustainability Standards (VSS) such as Fair Trade and Organic certified coffee has seen remarkable growth in nearly two decades, but in Ethiopia the benefits for small coffee farmers haven’t been as significant as may be widely perceived.
Bart Minten/IFPRI | Workers sort coffee cherries at a mill in Ethiopia’s Jimma region. Consumers pay higher prices for Fair Trade and Organic certified coffee, but IFPRI research shows that Ethiopian coffee farmers see only a fraction of those premiums.
More must be done to stop babies from dying the day they are born, United Nations agencies said in a new report issued on 19 October , which argued that life-saving know-how and technologies must be made readily available – particularly in Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa – where they are most needed.
A nine-day-old baby boy is cradled by his mother (partially visible) in Bambaya Village in Fiama Chiefdom, Kono District, Sierra Leone. Photo: UNICEF/Phelps
The United Nations migration agency and its partners are supporting Bangladesh in coordinating assistance for the influx of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees, including with clean water and sanitation, shelter, food and psychosocial care for the most vulnerable.
A reception point for Rohingya refugees at Haria Khali Primary School in Sabrang Union of Teknaf Upazila, in Bangladesh. OCHA/Anthony Burke
– A woman shopkeeper is standing on a plastic chair to avoid knee high swirling rainwater mixed with sewage.
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UNESCO Headquarters, Paris, France. Credit: UNESCO
“I work with a women’s cooperative selling products made by Palestinian women in my shop. The sewage water has gone into the electric wires, so I have no electricity. Everything in the shop is destroyed. The metal door [that was] installed to protect the settlers prevents the water from flowing out into the main drain. . . . This means we suffer every time it rains. They [the settlers] want us to move from here. This is why they make our life hard,” she cries.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) announced on 18 October that it is working with partners to help protect the world’s banana crops a new strain of fungus, known as Fusarium wilt TR4, which can last for years in the soil.
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Banana traders awaiting customers at the local market in Tuleba, Tanzania. Photo: FAO
According to FAO, the “insidious” fungus poses major risks to global banana production and could cause vast commercial losses and even greater damage to the livelihoods of the 400 million people who rely on the world’s most traded fruit as a staple food or source of income.
18 October 2017 – Speaking to the press at United Nations Headquarters, in New York, Secretary-General António Guterres announced that he will be travelling to the Central African Republic early next week to draw attention to the fragile situation in the country “that is often far from the media spotlight.”
Humanitarian support reaches the town of Bria, the capital of Haute-Kotto prefecture in the Central African Republic. Photo: OCHA CAR
“Across the country, communal tensions are growing. Violence is spreading. And the humanitarian situation is deteriorating,” the Secretary-General said.
Cattle is by far the most susceptible livestock to Bovine TB (animal tuberculosis). Credit: FAO
The reason, according to WHO, is that most of the drugs currently in the clinical pipeline are modifications of existing classes of antibiotics and are only short-term solutions. See: The World Is Running Out of Much Needed New Antibiotics
17 October 2017 – After weeks of conflict in western Libya, United Nations agencies have been working around the clock to meet the urgent needs of the more than 14,000 refugees and migrants who had been held captive in numerous locations in the coastal city of Sabratha – approximately 80 kilometres west of Tripoli.
UNHCR teams in Libya have been responding to the urgent humanitarian needs in and around Sabratha, a city located some 80 kilometres west of the Libyan capital, Tripoli. Photo: UNHCR
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 