'Unseen' News and Views – By Baher Kamal & The Like
– Large transnational corporations (TNCs) are widely believed to be paying little tax. The ease with which they avoid tax and the declining corporate tax rates over the decades have deprived developing countries of much needed revenues besides undermining public faith in the tax system.
Anis Chowdhury
The rise of digital giants, such as Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple, is an additional concern for all countries.
By OXFAM* — The expansion of large scale mining activities and agribusiness in Latin America has greatly increased territorial disputes and resulted in an alarming rise in violence suffered by individuals who defend water, land, forests and the rights of women, afro-descendants, indigenous and farming communities.
Threats, bullying, judicial harassment, illegal surveillance, forced disappearances, blackmail, sexual assault and murder are common practice.
48h after the Brazilian government issued burning ban almost 4,000 new fires have been recorded.
In August the Amazon was hit by burning so intense and so vast, it could be observed from space. | Photo: Reuters (Photo posted here from teleSUR).
3 September 2019 (teleSUR)* — Around 2,000 new fires have been recorded in the Amazon despite the Brazilian government’s 60-day burning ban issued on Aug. 29.
The Brazilian National Space Research Institute (INPE) released satellite data showing that two days after the government decided to issue its ban on burning lands, almost 4,000 new fires started, with more than half of them taking place in the Amazon.
“Today we have only one enemy: Brazil’s government, Brazil’s president,” Mudjire Kayapo, an indigenous leader said.
Aerial view of a burned tract of Amazon jungle cleared by loggers near Porto Velho, Brazil, August 29, 2019. | Photo: Reuters (Photo posted here from teleSUR).
3 September 2019 (teleSUR)* — Brazil’s Attorney General’s Office urged the Army to begin an “urgent operation” on Monday [2 September 2019] to prevent illegal loggers from invading and attacking the Alto Rio Guama Reserve, which is located in the state of Para and belongs to the Tembe people.
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Somalia’s 2019 cereal harvest is the poorest the country has seen since 2011, when famine strained already scarce resources, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), announced on Tuesday [3 September 2019], blaming unreliable weather patterns and “climatic shocks”.
Nigeria is a pressure cooker of internal conflicts and generalized violence that must be addressed urgently, an independent United Nations expert said on Tuesday [3 September 2019], following a fact-finding visit to the country.
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Allegations of torture and ill-treatment leading to the death of ethnic Rakhine men and boys being held in incommunicado detention by Myanmar’s military, has prompted three independent UN rights experts to call for an end to the practice and for “credible, independent” investigations.
By offering basic literacy and numeracy courses, the Borderless Centre in Beirut is part of a nationwide drive to get refugee children out of work and into school. | عربي
Syrian refugee Fahed pictured in Beirut, Lebanon.© UNHCR/Diego Ibarra Sánchez
2 September 2019 (UNHCR)* — In a small classroom overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, young Syrian refugees learn mathematics on portable computers – their first steps towards formal education. A few months ago, most of them were trying to make a living on the streets of the Lebanese capital, Beirut.
Thousands of Belgian students marching through Brussels to get leaders to act on climate change. © Greenpeace / Eric De Mildt
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 