'Unseen' News and Views
(UN News)* — Despite decades of progress in closing the gender equality gap, close to nine out of 10 men and women around the world, hold some sort of bias against women, according to new findings published on Thursday [5 March 2020] from the UN Development Programmme (UNDP).
Photo by REUTERS/Sergio Moraes (Photo posted here from UN Environment’s stoy).
– As the outbreak of the novel coronavirus COVID-19 threatens a global pandemic, major stock markets around the world have suffered their worst performance since the 2008 financial crush.
Growth disruption
The OECD has warned that the coronavirus outbreak could halve global economic growth this year to 1.5%, the slowest rate since 2009. It has cut its 2020 growth forecast for China to a 30-year low of 4.9%, down from 5.7% in November.
The IMF downgraded its growth forecast for China to 5.6% in 2020, its lowest since 1990. Economists, polled by Reuters during 7-13 February, expected China’s economic growth to slump to 4.5% in the first quarter of 2020, down from 6% in the previous quarter, the slowest since the financial crisis.
Meanwhile, China’s manufacturing sector tumbled in February, as many factories remained closed after the annual lunar new year break. The Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI), a widely used measure of factory activity, plunged to a record low in February, reflecting the sharp contraction.
FAO report highlights risks posed by locusts in Africa amid stronger output trends in the Near East and Asia.
Farmers in Tanzania.
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ROME, 5 March 2020 (FAO)* – The effects of inadequate rainfall on agricultural production added two countries – Namibia and Tanzania – to FAO’s list of countries in need of external assistance for food, adding to strains triggered by desert locusts even as global cereal production appears strong, according to FAO’s quarterly Crop Prospects and Food Situation report, released today [5 March 2020].
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However, on the main Vancouver Island, 91% of the ancient forest has been felled. Naomi herself recounts her holiday in the area in 2017 when fires were raging and smoke blotted out the blue sky that she and her family had been so looking forward to, illustrating only too graphically the picture she paints in this book.
5 March 2020 (UN Women)* — From the Liberian women’s sex strike paving the way for peace to the Icelandic “Women’s Day Off” demading economic equality to the global impact of the #MeToo movement, history has taught us that change can happen through collective activism.
Change, however, isn’t just about big headline moments, legal victories and international agreements: the way we talk, think, and act every day can create a ripple effect that benefits everyone.
As we usher in the new decade and take stock of global progress on women’s rights, join us, as Generation Equality, in getting to gender equality through these simple everyday actions.
(UN News)* — Twenty-five years after the historic Beijing women’s conference in China – a milestone in advancing equal rights – violence against women and girls is not only common, but widely accepted, a new UN report revealed on Wednesday [4 March 2020].
While there have been remarkable gains for girls in education, little headway has been made to help shape a more equal, less violent environment for them, warned the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), together with UN Women and the non-governmental organization Plan International in their report, A New Era for Girls: Taking stock on 25 years of progress.
– This International Women’s Day, 25 years after we first heard it declared that “women’s rights are human rights” at the historic Beijing 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women, we need to take the space and time to reflect on just how far we’ve come – and just how much more work there is to do.
3 March 2020 (UN Environment)* — A series of recent storms in the United Kingdom has led to severe flooding, with equivalent of one month of rain in 48 hours in some locations according to reports. Most of England received above average rainfall during October 2019, saturating water catchments.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 