Archive for July, 2018

06/07/2018

‘Time Is Running Out for the World’s Forests’

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.

UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe | A resident of the National Tapajos Forest in Brazil collects wild foliage for preparing a meal.

Halting deforestation, managing forests sustainably, restoring degraded forests and adding to worldwide tree cover all require actions to avoid potentially damaging consequences for the planet and its people, according to the State of the World’s Forests 2018, referred to as SOFO 2018.

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06/07/2018

Pope Francis, Environmental Leaders Forge Vision for Global Action

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.

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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.

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06/07/2018

Fisherwomen of Lake Chad Show Optimism in Face of Multiple Challenges

Human Wrongs Watch

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.

UN News/Dan Dickinson | Fisherwomen like Falmata Mboh Ali (right) hard at work on Lake Chad, which has shrunk to a tenth of its original size over the past decades leaving dwindling stocks of fish.

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.”

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06/07/2018

Dangers of Poor Quality Health Care Revealed ‘in All Countries’ – WHO Report

Human Wrongs Watch

Ineffective health care is a global phenomenon which increases the burden of illness and wastes scarce resources, UN experts on 5 July 2018 said.

UNICEF |A health volunteer fills a syringe with a dose of tetanus vaccine in the village of Buaw in Koch county, South Sudan, 7 May 2017.

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.

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05/07/2018

The Pentagon’s New Mission Statement: Neo-Colonialism and Hegemony Unmasked

Human Wrongs Watch

By John Wight*

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**PhotoThe 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.

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05/07/2018

Mothers of Congo’s Lost Children Break Silence

Human Wrongs Watch

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.

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

Displaced by fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Tanganyika province, Augustine is now living at a site for internally displaced people in the provincial capital, Kalemie. She’s one of many anxious and grieving parents here.

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05/07/2018

Amid ‘Epidemic’ Violence against Women in South Sudan, One-Stop Care Centre Helps to Ensure Survivors Receive the Full Range of Care Available

One-stop care centre helps women amid South Sudan’s epidemic of violence
(Right to left) UNFPA Executive Director Dr. Natalia Kanem and United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed meet with one-stop centre staff. © UNFPA South Sudan/Arlene Alano

Tragically, stories like theirs are all too common in South Sudan.

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05/07/2018

6 Brexit Myths – and Why both Hard Brexiteers and Ultra Remainers Are Being Un-British

Human Wrongs Watch

By Nick Inman*

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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:

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05/07/2018

On Purpose, in Kabul

Human Wrongs Watch

By Kathy Kelly*

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.”

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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.”

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05/07/2018

UN Human Rights Chief Urges Security Council to Refer Myanmar to the International Criminal Court ‘Immediately’ for Probe into Rohingya Crisis

Human Wrongs Watch

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.

Addressing the Human Rights Council after giving an update on the refugee crisis that has seen more than 700,000 Rohingya people flee to Bangladesh to escape a security clampdown in Myanmar, Zeid urged the UN Security Council to refer the Member State to the International Criminal Court (ICC) immediately.

“We are not fools,” he said.

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