Archive for April 1st, 2018

01/04/2018

30 Per Cent of All Land Is Degraded – World Desertification Day to Focus on Consumers Making Smart Investments in Land

Human Wrongs Watch

By UNCCD*

Thirty per cent of all land is degraded, and has lost its true value. Land grabbing and a headlong rush for productive land signals a growing recognition that access to productive land will be crucial for future economic growth, peace and stability.

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Desertification Day to focus on consumers making smart investments in the land | Photo from UNCCD

The World Day to Combat Desertification (WDCD) to be marked worldwide on 17 June 2018 will focus on how consumers can regenerate economies, create jobs and revitalize livelihoods and communities by influencing the market to invest in sustainable land management through what we buy.

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01/04/2018

How Italy’s Seizure of an NGO Ship Exposes Europe’s Dangerous Policy

By Matteo de Bellis*

Watching 93 emaciated refugees and migrants disembark from a Spanish NGO ship in the Italian port of Pozzallo earlier this month, the town’s mayor said they reminded him of “a scene from the concentration camps.”

 Photo from Proactive Open Arms

 They had boarded a boat bound for Europe, only to find themselves stranded at sea. One of them, a 21-year-old man called Segen, died a day later. However, his fellow travellers are receiving much-needed assistance, thanks to the brave actions of their rescuers aboard an NGO ship, the Proactive Open Arms.
01/04/2018

Cambridge Analytica Is What Happens When You Privatise Military Propaganda

Human Wrongs Watch

By Adam Ramsay*

US tanks arriving in Baghdad in 2003, by Technical Sergeant John L. Houghton, Jr., United States Air Force, public domain.

“The Gulf War Did Not Take Place”. This audacious claim was made by the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard in March 1991, only two months after NATO forces had rained explosives on Iraq, shedding the blood of more than a hundred thousand people.

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01/04/2018

Their Dreams Fly High

Human Wrongs Watch.

@2018 UNRWA PHOTO@2018 UNRWA PHOTO

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13 March 2018  (UNRWA–The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees)* 

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Today in 700 UNRWA schools across the Middle East, thousands of students flew and carried kites to send a message of hope, demanding that all the schools run by the Agency remain open, in spite of the financial crisis confronting UNRWA.

More than 500,000 students took part in kite flying events in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank, where the Agency provides a daily education to 525,000 children.

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01/04/2018

Worsening Worldwide Land Degradation Now ‘Critical’, Undermining Well-Being of 3.2 Billion People

Human Wrongs Watch

ldr_photo_credit_tim_robert-shutterstock-news

Main cause of species loss & driver of the migration of millions of people by 2050 In landmark 3-year assessment report, 100+ experts outline costs, dangers & options | Source: IPBES

26 March 2018 (IPBES)* — Worsening land degradation caused by human activities is undermining the well-being of two fifths of humanity, driving species extinctions and intensifying climate change.

It is also a major contributor to mass human migration and increased conflict, according to the world’s first comprehensive evidence-based assessment of land degradation and restoration.

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01/04/2018

The Tale of a Disappearing Lake

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The Kuri, a unique cattle breed found in the Lake Chad Basin, is threatened with extinction due to retreating waters of the lake and the resulting reduction of its native habitat. (Source: UNOCHA)

Lake Chad, once one of Africa’s largest lakes, is in distress.

The lake is shared by Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria; its basin – which extends as far Algeria, Libya, and Sudan – offers a lifeline to nearly 40 million people.

Over the last 60 years, the lake’s size has decreased by 90 per cent as a result of over use of the water, extended drought and the impacts of climate change.

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01/04/2018

Mexico’s Guatemalan Refugees: Where Are They Now?

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Emilia and her husband, Nicolás Gómez Domingo, working in their greenhouse. ©Alex Webb/Magnum Photos for FAO

Perched on gently rolling hills, San Lorenzo village in southern Mexico has been home to some 50 refugee families who fled Guatemala’s civil war.

The Mexican Commission for Aid to Refugees (COMAR) estimates that over 45,000 people fled to Mexico in the ‘80s, mainly from villages and cantons of Guatemala’s Huehuetenango and Quetzaltenango regions.

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