Plundering nature is the norm within our legal and economic systems. Our survival depends on charting a new course.
Image: Victor Moriyama/DPA/PA Images (Posted here from openDemocracy)
30 August 2019 (openDemocracy)* — As has now been widely reported, the Amazon rainforest is on fire due to a mixture of fires started for land clearance and the effects of climate change.
27 August 2019 (teleSUR)* — The point is this – if we do not know how to put pressure on the right actors who have been connected to destroying the Amazon, then our efforts will be for naught.
Amazon burning: Brazil reports record forest fires.TV | Photo: GLOBO/Reuters (Posted here fromteleSUREnglish).
Most of the reporting on the fires raging in the Amazon try to identify the guilty parties.
SAO PAULO, Brazil, Aug 29 2019 (IPS)* –– The crisis of regional and multilateral institutions goes hand in hand with the international rise of right-wing populism. In the US, the UK, Russia, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Turkey, the Philippines and Brazil, we are experiencing the rise of right-wing populist politicians who throw headline-grabbing barbs at global compromises and the negotiating processes of supranational institutions such as the UN.
By Oxfam Inernational* — West Africa has had an impressive economic growth in the past two decades. In 2018, the region was home to six of the top 10 fastest growing economies in Africa: Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Benin and Niger.
Northern Ghana has poverty levels two to three times higher than the national average. The region is covered by dry savannah land and lacks key infrastructure such as roads and markets. Photo: Adam Patterson/Oxfam
However, for the majority of countries, the benefits of this unprecedented economic growth went to a tiny few.
Today, inequality has reached extreme levels in the region. The rich have grown richer while the poor have become even poorer.
30 August 2019 (UN Environment)* — During World Water Week, we spoke with changemaker Maricela Granda, a 25-year-old environmental biotechnology engineer from Ecuador who is developing a way to purify water using banana waste.
Photo by Maricela Granda
Granda comes from the Sucumbios province in the northern part of the Ecuadorian Amazon, known for its oil production. Her community is employed mostly by oil companies, as well as in agriculture—and bananas are an important local crop.
31 August 2019 (FAO)* — “My sheep and goats are my only source of income for my family. We consume their milk and meat and sell what’s left in the market to buy essential household and school items,” says Agha Ma, a female pastoralist in Balkh, Afghanistan.
By Carlinda Lopes in Biringi, Democratic Republic of the Congo*
On the run from the civil war, a boy named Gift is determined to continue his education. But his ingenuity, brilliance and determination may not be enough to keep him in school.
.South Sudanese refugees go back to school in Biringi, Democratic Republic of the Congo. (Rayan Hindi, producer, camera-editor / Thomas Freteur, camera)
30 August 2019 (UNHCR)* — Gift, 10, has been top of his class for the past three years. That may not be enough to keep him in school.
30 August 219 (IOM)* — Mamadou, 18, left school and his village in Senegal’s Tambacounda when he was 12. “While I was in school, all I could think about was if I was going to eat when I got back home,” he explained. “Sometimes we would have breakfast and nothing else for the rest of the day. There were too many mouths to feed at home and I needed to do my part.”
Mamadou stays in the transit centre in Agadez, Niger to recover from his ordeal. Photo: IOM
Refugee children in their millions are missing out on an education, the UN said on Friday [30 August 2019], in an appeal to host countries to back more inclusive policies to prevent them from “languishing” in camps for years and losing hope.
29 August 2019 (Wall Street International)* — A series of recent events has unveiled increasingly disturbing signs that far- right internationalism is turning Portugal into a strategic target.
South Sudanese refugees go back to school in Biringi, Democratic Republic of the Congo. (Rayan Hindi, producer, camera-editor / Thomas Freteur, camera) 
