Latin America and the Caribbean Bids Good-Bye to Plastic Bags
How to Say NO — 5 Top Reasons Why We Always Say Yes

UNHCR Raises Alarm over Deadly Detention Centre Escape in Libya
Human Wrongs Watch
More than a dozen people have been killed or wounded by traffickers as they attempted to flee a detention centre in Libya last month, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, on 1 June 2018 said, describing it as the “latest horror story” to emerge from the war-torn country.

UN Agencies Join Forces against Environmental Risks that Cause 12.6 Million Deaths a Year
Human Wrongs Watch
Two United Nations agencies are combining their expertise to counter the growing threat of extreme weather, climate change and air pollution, which cause more than 12.6 million deaths a year, it was announced on 31 May 2018.

End the ‘Harmful Narrative’; Migration Is a Net-Gain for Africa — UN Report
Human Wrongs Watch
The large-scale migration of people within Africa tends to boost growth and lifts the continent’s whole economy, a new United Nations report has said, urging the world to dispel misconceptions and “harmful narratives” targeting migration.

Strong as Death
Human Wrongs Watch
By Uri Avnery*
2 June 2018
OH, GAZA. Strong as death is love.
I loved Gaza. That is a play on words. The Biblical Song of Songs says that love is strong as death. Strong in Hebrew is Aza. Aza is also the Hebrew name of Gaza.

Uri Avnery
I have spent many happy hours in Gaza. I had many friends there. From the leftist Dr. Haidar Abd al-Shafi to the Islamist Mahmoud al-Zahar, who is now the foreign minister of Hamas.
I was there when Yasser Arafat, the son of a Gazan family, came home.
They put me in the first row of the reception at the Rafah border, and that evening he received me at the hotel on the Gaza sea shore, seating me next to him on the stage during a press conference.
I met with a friendly attitude everywhere in the Gaza Strip, in the refugee camps and in the streets of Gaza City. Everywhere we talked about peace and about the place of Gaza in the future State of Palestine.
Security Council Fails to Adopt Competing Texts on Protection of Palestinian Civilians in Gaza
Human Wrongs Watch
The United Nations Security Council on 1 June 2018 failed to adopt two competing draft resolutions; one produced by Kuwait, in response to the killing of dozens of Palestinian protestors in Gaza, and the other tabled by the United States, which vetoed the initial resolution saying it was “grossly one-sided” against Israel.

The UN had repeatedly called for calm last month along the border of the Gaza Strip – the Palestinian enclave occupied by Israel – where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians participated in “the Great March of Return” from 30 March to 15 May.
