26 March 2018 – TRANSCEND Media Service — “Positive Peace” as defined by Prof. Johan Galtung in over 50 years of uninterrupted research, refers to a very specific fait social that requires equally specific political measures. This presentation is an effort to make the concepts and specificities underpinning the notion of Positive Peace more widely understood.
To directly discuss issues pertaining to Positive Peace and other themes raised in this video with Hanno Heynitz and his colleagues, visit: https://www.galtung-institut.de/en/ne…
Three years after a Saudi-led coalition intervened in the Yemen war, and hours after reports that Houthi rebels fired missiles at cities in Saudi Arabia, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Monday [26 March 2018] said military escalation is not the solution and urged restraint on all sides.
OCHA/Philippe Kropf | The Yemeni city of Sa’ada has been heavily hit by airstrikes since conflict in the country. Here, aid officials stand amid the rubble of a market in the old city of Sa’ada.
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The UN has also dispatched an envoy to meet with warring parties in its quest to facilitate a negotiated political settlement to the crisis, which has left an estimated 22.2 million people in dire need of humanitarian assistance.
26 March 2018 — One month after a powerful earthquake hit Papua New Guinea, the United Nations warns that “children’s lives are in danger” as access to the affected remote and isolated villages across vast and rugged terrain remains a huge challenge.
UNICEF/Nybo | Relief workers unload food aid flown in by helicopter for people affected by the 7.5 magnitude earthquake which struck Papua New Guinea in February 2018.
According to the Government, an estimated 270,000 people are still in need of urgent assistance, including 125,000 children, in the wake of a 7.5 magnitude earthquake on 26 February that killed at least 100 people and injured many more in landslides and collapsing houses across four remote provinces of the Pacific island nation.
26 March 2018 – TRANSCEND Media Service — The escalation of tensions between the United States, Britain and France, on the one hand, and Russia, on the other, should not surprise anyone.
Dr. Chandra Muzaffar
In the last few years, the US leadership and mainstream British media have presented Russia as a major threat to global peace and the international order.
Russian president Vladimir Putin in particular has been demonised as a ‘war-monger,’ an ‘aggressor,’ an ‘unscrupulous politician’ hell-bent on restoring Russia’s past glory’ at whatever cost.
This projection of Russia as a threat to world peace has intensified in recent days partly because of Putin’s unveiling of Russia’s cutting edge military technologies on 1st March 2018.
They include advanced generation missiles with unlimited range and capability that can evade US or NATO anti-missile defences.
22 March 2018 Recent incidents in Brazil and Australia have once again put the spotlight on the safety of mining operations, and specifically their dams.
In February, Brazil’s environment authorities in the eastern Para State asked operators of the Alunorte alumina refinery to reduce operations by 50 per cent due to concerns over potential water contamination.
Honouring those who suffered the brutalities of the Transatlantic slave trade, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said the International Day set aside to remember this “epically shameful” chapter of human history is an opportunity raise awareness about the dangers of racism and prejudice today.
UN Photo/Devra Berkowitz | Details from the permanent memorial in acknowledgement of the tragedy and in consideration of the legacy of slavery and the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
The United Nations’ largest annual gathering on gender equality and women’s rights wrapped up on 23 March 2018 in New York with the strong commitment by its Member States to achieving gender equality and the empowerment of rural women and girls.
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UN Women/Ryan Brown | Participants at the 62nd session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women rejoice as the Commission adopts Agreed Conclusions to ensure the rights and development of rural women and girls.
Coming on the heels of unprecedented global activism and public outcry to end gender injustice and discrimination worldwide, the 62nd session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) reached a robust agreement highlighting the urgency of empowering and supporting those who need it most and have, for too long, been left behind.
124 million people in 51 countries experienced high levels of food insecurity, warns new report
Rome, 22 March 2018 (FAO)*– A new report out today sounds the alarm regarding surging levels of acute hunger. Some 124 million people in 51 countries were affected by acute food insecurity during 2017 — 11 million more people than the year before — according to the latest edition of the Global Report on Food Crises.
Villagers in Maungdaw Township, Rakhine State, Myanmar, where conflict has contributed to rising levels of food insecurity. | Photo from FAO
The report defines acute food insecurity as hunger so severe that it poses an immediate threat to lives or livelihoods.
24 March 2018 (Wall Street International)*— The Quibble Convention had been going on for over thirty years now, always with the same strict rules. The place was still the secondary room of the Royal Academy, which could sit only 25 people. It was in the form of a trial, with the Exponent and three Opponents. The Exponent would make his statement, no longer than one sentence, and the debate would begin.
This time the exponent was Sir William Orchid, and people knew already what his statement would be. He stood up with the ring of the bell, looked at the small crowd and said:
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 