'Unseen' News and Views
An in-depth dialogue between the founder of TRANSCEND International and rector of TRANSCEND Peace University and the founder-editor of the pioneering Peace Journalism website, TRANSCEND Media Service-TMS
Image by Andrew Neel/Unsplah
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Antonio: I have a question dear Johan. I see the world going to hell literally and figuratively.
Thousands of acres of crops have been destroyed in Syria’s Idlib and north Hama provinces amid ongoing deadly violence, the World Food Programme (WFP) said on Tuesday [4 June 2019], in a call to the warring parties to stop using food security to hold people “hostage”.
In a briefing to journalists in Geneva, WFP Spokesperson Hervé Verhoosel expressed alarm at the humanitarian crisis in the north-western opposition-held enclave, where a Government-led military operation escalated in late April.
5 June 2019 — The delicate balance between indigenous farming practices and conservation in Morocco is under threat, but according to the UN, local communities in the Western High Atlas Mountains are finding ways to preserve traditions and still make a living from the land.
The UN’s financial crisis has been years in the making and is undermining the organization’s mandates and reform efforts, Secretary-General António Guterres told the Fifth Committee, the body responsible for the United Nations budget, on Tuesday.[5 June 2019].
Kabul, 5 June 2019 (IOM)* – One in three Afghans has migrated or been displaced in the past six years, according to a new Displacement Tracking Matrix report published by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Afghanistan.
Newly displaced families from Badghis arrive on the outskirts of Herat city. Photo: IOM
The Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) is a system that captures information on the movements and evolving needs of displaced populations, whether on site or en route. In the most recent round of data collection completed in December 2018, IOM covered 11,443 communities in 390 districts of all 34 provinces of Afghanistan.
— Fossil fuels—oil, gas, coal and their derivatives—pollute the atmosphere and emit the greenhouse gases that are ramping up global heating to dangerous levels. But did you know that governments around the world are subsidizing this pollution?
Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 4 June 2019 (World Environment Day)* – Air pollution is directly responsible for up to one in five premature deaths in 19 Western Balkan cities, suggest preliminary results from a report led by UN Environment.
Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina | Photo by Natalya Letunova/Unspalsh
4 June 2019 (UN Environment)* — Deep inside the layers of ice sitting atop the Andes Mountains in Peru is evidence of the earliest human-caused air pollution. Within the core of the 1,200-year-old Quelccaya Ice Cap, scientists have found traces of lead and mercury, the chemicals used after the Spanish occupation, in the silver mines of Potosi, Bolivia.
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Photo by Willian Justen de Vasconcellos/Unsplash
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The U.S. federal debt has more than doubled since the 2008 financial crisis, shooting up from $9.4 trillion in mid-2008 to over $22 trillion in April 2019. The debt is never paid off. The government just keeps paying the interest on it, and interest rates are rising.
Ellen Brown
In 2018, the Fed announced plans to raise rates by 2020 to “normal” levels — a fed funds target of 3.375 percent — and to sell about $1.5 trillion in federal securities at the rate of $50 billion monthly, further growing the mountain of federal debt on the market.
When the Fed holds government securities, it returns the interest to the government after deducting its costs; but the private buyers of these securities will be pocketing the interest, adding to the taxpayers’ bill.
In fact it is the interest, not the debt itself, that is the problem with a burgeoning federal debt.
3 June 2019 (UN Environment)* — Transportation produces 25 per cent of emissions in Latin America and the Caribbean. With the air of most of the region’s capital cities becoming literally unbreathable, biking has captured the imagination of thousands of Latin Americans.Four of the main capitals have taken steps to promote sustainable mobility options to beat air pollution and are encouraging pedaling as a concrete measure to clean the air.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 