'Unseen' News and Views
A great migration of humanity into cities is under way, and with millions drawn to urban areas for the promise of a better life, the main United Nations forum on population on 9 April 2018 opened its annual session examining ways to protect people on the move and help create cities that can embrace the massive number of new arrivals.
The recent escalating violence across Syria, including allegations of chemical weapons use in a Damascus suburb, could have consequences so devastating they are “difficult to even imagine,” a United Nations envoy on 9 April 2018 warned, calling for unity among global powers to prevent a chain of events that could draw in actors far beyond the region.
“Regardless of their ethnicity, religion and citizenship status, we need to […] ensure that no vulnerable conflict-affected people are deprived of safe and sustained access to humanitarian protection and assistance, Ursula Mueller, the UN Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, on 8 April 2018 said at the end of a six-day visit to Myanmar.
**Photo: Taliban police patrolling the streets of Herat in a pickup truck | Author: bluuurgh | public domain | Wikimedia Commons.
The decision to circulate it openly now, when ISIS has lost control of almost all its geographical caliphate yet survives and even thrives elsewhere, is an intriguing development.
It may well prove useful not just to its intended readership, but to others wanting to know how ISIS intends to pursue its strategic aims (see “Islamic State instructs on insurgency”, Jane’s Intelligence Review, April 2018).
Not many people will be aware that aside from the fact that peace-prize-laureate Barack Obama was bombing at least seven predominantly Muslim countries in the Middle East at any given time during his presidency, he was also secretly drone-bombing the Philippines, as well.
Following a period of relative calm in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on 8 April 2018 expressed deep concern over renewed violence in Douma, particularly the alarming allegations that chemical weapons may have been used against civilians.
A statement from UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said the Secretary-General called on all parties to cease fighting and restore the calm that had been in place and adhere fully to Security Council resolution 2401, adopted in February and which called for a ceasefire across Syria.
Jennifer Morgan and Bunny McDiarmid, Greenpeace International Executive Directors © Bas Beentjes / Greenpeace
We know that it is in these moments that society can be changed in many ways, and at a speed that no one thought possible. In these moments a new and better normal can arise in our societies.
Frankfurt/Nairobi, 5 April 2018 — Solar energy dominated global investment in new power generation like never before in 2017.
Source of photo: UNEP
The world installed a record 98 gigawatts of new solar capacity, far more than the net additions of any other technology – renewable, fossil fuel or nuclear.
Solar power also attracted far more investment, at $160.8 billion, up 18 per cent, than any other technology. It made up 57 per cent of last year’s total for all renewables (excluding large hydro) of $279.8 billion, and it towered above new investment in coal and gas generation capacity, at an estimated $103 billion.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 