'Unseen' News and Views
IPS– The Republic of China (Taiwan) was ingloriously expelled from the United Nations– and ousted from its highly-prized permanent seat in the UN Security Council (UNSC)– about 48 years ago.
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But according to the UN charter, it still remains one of the five permanent members of the most powerful body in the Organisation—perhaps much to the delight of the Taiwanese.
Artificial Super Intelligence | Photo from Wall Street International.
The International Plant Protection Convention adopts standards on fumigation and six pests, including Xylella fastidiosa and the oriental fruit fly.
A technician checks olives for pests’ infestations in Italy where Xylella fastidiosa has led to the decline of 180,000 hectares of olive groves.| Photo from FAO.
ROME, 3 April 2019 (FAO)* – The body charged with keeping plant pests and diseases at bay and trade in plants safe has adopted new international measures to prevent pests from crossing borders and spreading.
Ukraine is one of the most mine-affected countries in the world, limiting freedom of movement and posing a serious threat to civilians crossing the contact line. | Español | Français
Tetiana Nikiforova, 37, works as a deminer with the HALO Trust in Ukraine. © UNHCR/Marta Iwanek
3 April 2019 (UNHCR)* — Sheltering in the basement of his family home in eastern Ukraine, Volodymyr Zayika, 71, was in the dark. Shelling had severed the electricity supply. Venturing out to check on some electrical wires, he felt his foot snag on a wire.
“There was a flash,” he recalls. “Something hissed on my right. Then there was a blast.”
The path towards achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development must be “clear of landmines, explosive remnants of war and improvised explosive devices (IEDs)”, the United Nations Secretary-General said on Thursday [4 April 2019], International Mine Awareness Day.
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A major new UN-led report, involving more than 60 international organizations, warns that a comprehensive overhaul of the world’s financial system is necessary, if governments are to honour commitments to tackle critical issues, such as combatting climate change and eradicating poverty by 2030.
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More than 19 million children in Bangladesh are at risk from devastating floods, cyclones and other environmental disasters linked to climate change, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned on Friday [5 April 2019] in a new report.
Average life-expectancy globally has increased by five-and-a-half years since the turn of the century, and women outlive men “everywhere”, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday [4 April 2019].
“Whether it’s homicide, road accidents, suicide, cardiovascular disease – time and time again, men are doing worse than women”, said Dr. Richard Cibulskis, main author of WHO’s World Health Statistics Overview 2019.
Apart from the average increase from 66.5 years, to 72 years overall, its findings also show that “healthy” life expectancy – the number of years individuals live in full health – increased from 58.5 years in 2000, to 63.3 years in 2016.
In 1951 the Treaty of Paris was signed to form the political and economic integration of 6 European countries: West Germany, Italy, France and the Benelux. The treaty advocated stability in the continent giving birth to the European Coal and Steel Community.
Cristina Cabrejas-Artola
At the time coal and steel were the main energy sources in Europe, but Britain refrained from signing the treaty.
Winston Churchill, the UK’s Prime Minister who had led Europe to victory defeating Nazi Germany in 1945, had already envisioned an alternative to coal. In fact, Churchill had settled to transform the UK’s energy from coal to oil.
It was essential, therefore, to colonise the Middle East, a region that had recently been discovered to be rich in oil.
Britain’s political, financial and sovereign interests lied in Africa, Asia and now the Middle East. Britain’s defence security, however, continued to be in the heart of Europe against the threat of the political ideology of Communism.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 