Human Wrongs Watch
6 July 2018 — Time is running out for the world’s forests, warns a new report by the United Nations agriculture agency, urging governments to foster an all-inclusive approach to benefit both trees and those who rely on them.

'Unseen' News and Views
6 July 2018 — Time is running out for the world’s forests, warns a new report by the United Nations agriculture agency, urging governments to foster an all-inclusive approach to benefit both trees and those who rely on them.

Vatican City (UN Environment)* – Environmental leaders, activists and advocates gathered here on 5 July 2018 with Pope Francis to kick off a two-day Vatican-organized conference with a sense of urgency and unity. Together they hope to emerge with a momentum for greater action and a shared vision for protecting our planet.

Photo from UN Environment
Inspired by the third anniversary of the Pope’s seminal encyclical on the issue – titled Laudato si’– political and religious leaders, scientists, economists and heads of civil society organizations came together to discuss how to awaken people to the gravity of the situation and inspire a “massive movement” of cooperative action and moral responsibility to our planet.
5 July 2018 — It’s eight o’clock in the morning and fifty-year-old Falmata Mboh Ali paddles her small dugout canoe to the shores of a tributary of Lake Chad in Bol, a small town 100 miles north of the capital of Chad, N’Djamena.

In her nets she has perhaps fifty fish, a good enough catch, given she started fishing just five hours earlier. But, it is not sufficient to feed her eleven children.
“I can sell this fish and use that money to buy grain to feed my family,” she said, “but the grain doesn’t go far. I have been fishing for twenty years and it is becoming more difficult to catch fish.”
Ineffective health care is a global phenomenon which increases the burden of illness and wastes scarce resources, UN experts on 5 July 2018 said.

In a new reporton the subject, the World Health Organization (WHO) and partners cited problems with delivering quality health care across all Member States.
The finding is important because, although nations have committed to providing universal health coverage by 2030, the outcome “would still be poor” without the delivery of effective care, WHO says.

**Photo: The Pentagon, headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, taken from an airplane in January 2008 | David B. Gleason from Chicago, IL | The Pentagon | Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
By Vania Turner in Kalemie, Democratic Republic of the Congo*
Thousands of children are thought to be missing as DR Congo’s displacement crisis deepens.

Faiza, 31, says her children were kidnapped – and probably killed – when their village came under attack. © UNHCR/Colin Delfosse

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**Anti-Brexit street art in London of Boris Johnson embracing Donald Trump.| Matt Brown from London, England | Creative CommonsAttribution 2.0 Generic license.
3 July 2018 (openDemocracy)* — For the last two years, British politics has seemed to have nothing to do with me, as I watch a squabble between two ideological sects, their members spread across the two main parties and incapable of resolving anything.
They never talk about the things I think need talking about, and every pronouncement they make contains more questions than answers – particularly these ones:
2 July, 2018 – TRANSCEND Media Service – Writing this week [last week of June] for the Chicago Tribune, Steve Chapman called a U.S. Government report on the war in Afghanistan “a chronicle of futility.”

Girls and mothers, waiting for their duvets, in Kabul. Photo credit: Dr. Hakim
“The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction” report says the U.S. spent large sums “in search of quick gains” in regional stabilization – but these instead “exacerbated conflicts, enabled corruption and bolstered support for insurgents.”
“In short,” says Chapman, the U.S. government “made things worse rather than better.”
Myanmar should “have some shame” after attempting to convince the world that it is willing to take back hundreds of thousands of refugees who fled an “ethnic cleansing campaign” last year, given that “not a single” one has returned officially, the United Nations human rights chief on 4 July 2018 warned.

UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferre | Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein.