21 June 2018 (UNHCR)* — UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is shocked and saddened by reports that some 220 people drowned off Libya in recent days while attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe.
According to survivors, a wooden boat carrying an unknown number of refugees and migrants capsized off the coast of Libya on Tuesday (19 June). Out of the estimated 100 passengers, only five survived.
June 24, 2018 (EURACTIV.com)* — Sixteen EU heads of state and government held an emergency summit in Brussels on Sunday (24 June) to discuss migration – a crisis with a destructive potential for the EU. No results were announced but sources said the discussions had largely revolved around a proposal by Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.
Emmanuel Macron and Guiseppe Conte on 24 June 2018. [Commission]
Leaders were invited by Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to a hastily organised mini-summit, in an effort to prepare a key EU-28 summit on 28-29 June in a way that would allow German Chancellor Angela Merkel, under pressure at home, to keep her post.
21 June 2018 (UN Women)* — Dilera Mavlonova is only 16 years old, but she knows the importance of women’s leadership in water management. After learning advocacy skills through a UN Women programme, she and her peers raised awareness about women’s unequal burden to provide water for their homes in the village of Chek-Abad near the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border, where there is an unfolding water crisis.
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Dilera Mavlonova. Photo: UN Women/Dildora Khamidova
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As a result, 124 women have joined local councils for water management, including in their executive bodies and committees that resolve conflicts over water. Before, there were only 13 women in these councils, and rarely in any decision-making roles.
22 June 2018, Embu, KENYA (FAO)*–– ‘With a good harvest, we have enough maize for ourselves, and then some to sell. But right now we have to buy the maize to feed the family,’ says Agnes Waithira Muli, a smallholder farmer in Embu county in central Kenya.
Fall Armyworm has spread rapidly across Africa since 2016, causing immense damage particularly to maize crops. In Kenya, FAO training in mechanical control is helping family farmers protect their crops.
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She and her husband lost most of their last crop due to Fall Armyworm (FAW), a potentially devastating insect pest that has spread across much of Africa.
22 June 2018 (Pressenza)* — Eleven years after joining the European Union, Romania is trying to clean itself up, but poverty and corruption are still in control. Only Bulgaria, among EU member states, is below Romania on the poverty scale.
(Picture: Daniel Mundin)
Right in the centre of Bucharest, outcasts live underground in the former heating tunnels of the Romanian capital.
Daniel and Matthias wanted to know what kind of conditions people in the European Union still have to live in. And they wanted to help, provide them with the essentials, show that there is solidarity, even if misery is not always knocking on our door, as it did, when the waves of refugees arrived in Germany.
They gather every Monday. Hundreds of low-wage workers, faith leaders, civil rights organizers, trade union members and liberal activists from all over the US have been taking to the streets each week since May 13th 2018 to protest inequality, racism, ecological devastation, militarism and all kinds of discrimination.
“AS LONG as in the heart, within, a Jewish soul is yearning…” thus starts the official translation of Israel’s national anthem.
Uri Avnery
Actually, the Hebrew original says “the soul of a Jew”, but the translator probably got it right. It’s the Jewish Soul that was meant.
But is there a Jewish Soul? Is it different from the souls of other people? And if so, what is the difference?
FRANKLY, I don’t know what a soul is. But let’s assume that there is such a thing as a collective psychology, the general spirit of all the men and women who make up this collective – each of whom has a psychology of his/her own. What is it that differentiates it from that of other peoples?
Looking at the present day Israeli people, a stranger may well be perplexed.
First of all, more than a fifth of Israelis are not Jewish at all, but belong to the Palestinian people, who presumably have a different “soul”. When people speak about Israelis, they generally really mean “Jewish Israelis”.
The Stories Have Been Used by IOM to Raise Awareness, Counter Risks in Bangladesh
IOM has created a series of cartoon books using real life stories of Rohingya refugees to help raise awareness of the risks of trafficking.
Cox’s Bazar, 22 June 2018 (IOM)* – IOM, the UN Migration Agency, has launched a series of new comic books, which tell the true-life stories of Rohingya refugees who have fallen victim to human trafficking, to raise awareness among those vulnerable to the crime in South Bangladesh.
New report paints a worrying picture, provides recommendations on what can be done.
Water pollution from agriculture affects billions of people and generates annual costs exceeding billions of dollars. Photo from FAO.
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ROME, 20 June 2018 (FAO)* –– Water pollution from unsustainable agricultural practices poses a serious risk to human health and the planet’s ecosystems, a problem often underestimated by policymakers and farmers alike, cautions a new report.
While workplace violence can differ depending on a country’s development level, the most common forms occur everywhere. In the poorest countries, unacceptable practices are often exacerbated by poverty. ILO looked at the situation in Madagascar.
ANTANANARIVO, 19 June 2018 (ILO)* – In the 1944 Philadelphia Declaration , the ILO proclaimed that “all human beings, irrespective of race, creed or sex, have the right to pursue both their material well-being and their spiritual development in conditions of freedom and dignity, of economic security and equal opportunity”.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 