Like many people who have struggled to understand why human beings are driving the sixth mass extinction event in Earth’s history, which now threatens imminent human extinction as well, over many decades I have explored the research and efforts of a great many activists and scholars to secure this understanding.
Robert J. Burrowes,
However, with many competing ideas from the fields of politics, economics, sociology and psychology, among others, this understanding has proved elusive.
Nevertheless, I have reached an understanding that I find compelling: Human beings are driving the sixth mass extinction event in Earth’s history because of the disintegrated nature of the human mind.
While the expression ‘mental disintegration’ has been used in a number of contexts previously, for the purpose of my discussion in this article I am going to redefine it, explain how it originates, describe several ways in which it manifests behaviorally and the profoundly dysfunctional outcomes this generates, and suggest what we can do about it.
At a time when Muslims globally are observing the holy month of Ramadan, more than half the population in Gaza depends on the international community for food aid, the director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said on Monday [13 May 2019], citing a “near ten-fold increase” in need.*
ECHO/Fadwa Baroud | More than half the population of Gaza depends on food aid from the international community. (file 2010)
According to UNRWA, it must secure an additional $60 million by June to continue providing food to more than one million Palestine refugees in Gaza, including some 620,000 “abject poor” who cannot cover their basic food needs and are surviving on $1.6 per day.
.
The funds are also needed to cover the severely challenged 390,000 “absolute poor”, who survive on about $3.5 per day.
13 May 2019 (UNRWA)* — At a time when Muslims around the world are observing the holy month of Ramadan, often characterized by the festive nature of its Iftars, in Gaza, more than half the population depends on food aid from the international community.
Donald Trump is the duly elected President of the USA — elected by the American People according to well-defined electoral procedures. It is currently irrelevant whether those procedures are in any way in question. They have yet to be revised — if that is feasible and desired by the American People.
The Swedish prosecutor’s office said it would shortly request Assange be detained in his absence on probable cause for an allegation of rape and that it would issue a European arrest warrant – the process under which his extradition would be sought.
Swedish Vice Chief Prosecutor Persson announces decision about preliminary investigation against WikiLeaks founder Assange in Stockholm | Photo: Reuters | Poto from teleSUR.
13 May 2019 (teleSUR)* — Sweden’s state prosecutor said on Monday she would reopen an investigation into a rape allegation against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and seek his extradition from Britain.
Prosecutor Eva-Marie Persson told a news conference she would continue and conclude a preliminary investigation that was dropped in 2017 without charges being brought as Assange had taken refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in London.
10 May 2019 (openDemocracy)* — In a land of former vast pastures, where green still stands for northern secession from a shrivelled up south, Italy’s Interior Minister Matteo Salvini – an erstwhile separatist and now a nationalist – is the most effective communicator we’ve seen in a long time.
.
His weapons of mass distraction are deadly. His every tweet – one shot one kill. You’d call him a chameleon if he weren’t actually dangerous.
Speaking to young Māoris and people of the Pacific Islands in New Zealand on Monday [13 May 2019], UN Secretary-General António Guterres expressed his gratitude for the leadership of the youth of the country in fighting climate change.
.
UN Photo/Loey Felipe | The flag of New Zealand (centre) flying at United Nations headquarters in New York.
.
The UN chief also recognized the important role played by Generation Zero, a New Zealand-based youth-led organization dedicated to providing solutions for the country to cut carbon pollution through smarter transport, liveable cities & independence from fossil fuels.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 