'Unseen' News and Views
(UN News)* — The COVID-19 pandemic is having a devastating impact on the world’s indigenous peoples that stretches well beyond the immediate threat to their health, the new UN independent expert on the rights of indigenous peoples said on Monday [18 May 2020].
”Now we hear that Corona virus is in town; that we cannot go there anymore. We fear to go to town. And if the disease cannot be treated traditionally, it will be a threat to our life,” Oloshuro Saruni, a member of the Akie community in Tanzania, said.
The United Nations has designated the 16th of May as a day devoted to Living Together in Peace. It therefore seems appropriate to discuss the need for reforming our educational systems so that they will prepare young people for international cooperation and harmony rather than for participation in aggressive wars.
School systems have traditionally aimed at producing nationalism in their students. Within the Roman Empire, students were taught the motto “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori” (It is sweet and noble to die for one’s country).
A refugee woman pours soap into moulds at a soap factory in Hamdallaye, Niger. The soap is distributed for free to fellow refugees and the local community. © UNHCR/Jean-Sebastien Josset
It started as a mini-cooperative to give a small income for hundreds of refugees evacuated from Libya.
Small Island Developing States: Building resilience for sustainable trade, tourism, transport infrastructure and development
18 May 2020 (UN Environment)* — Small Island Developing States (SIDS), such as the Caribbean Island of Grenada, face a double exposure to external economic and environmental shocks.
This has been made painfully clear by the economic shock caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic that has, among other things, crippled the tourism industry upon which many SIDS depends. Tourism accounts for almost 30% of SIDS’ gross domestic product.
Iraqi refugee medic Lubab al-Quraishi pictured in New Jersey where she has been given a temporary license to pratice medicine. © UNHCR
NEW YORK, 18 May 2020 (UNHCR)* – When Lubab al-Quraishi heard that officials in New Jersey would allow internationally trained medical workers to help the city fight COVID-19, she quickly filled out an online application. Six years after arriving in the United States as a refugee from Iraq, she hoped finally to practice medicine again.
The Asia Pacific region predominates in the numbers of victims of modern slavery. The region had 55 percent of the victims of forced marriage worldwide.This is the second of a 2-part series on trafficking and modern slavery in the Asia Pacific region.
A trafficked survivor reunites with family in Vietnam. Courtesy: Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation
– A single mother, Mai (name changed) had the responsibility of providing for her young son and grandparents, who had brought her up in a poor rural province in southern Vietnam’s Mekong Delta.
There is an undeniable link between the brain, the gut and the immune system
It is well known that eating fruits, vegetables and whole grains are important for good health because they contain dietary fiber and other healthy substances1.
The dietary fiber can be fermented by healthy bacteria in our gut to produce short chain fatty acids (acetic, propionic and butyric acids) that help the neuroendocrine immune system and help make vaccines more successful2.
At the same time, eating sugar, high fructose corn syrup, meat, saturated or trans fats and drinking sweetened beverages is unhealthy, partly because it helps to produce an unhealthy gut microbiome.
In the midst of a massive global pandemic that has killed tens of thousands of people and wrecked economies all over the world leaving millions jobless, some terrorists and mercenaries allegedly backed by certain governments had on 3rd May 2020 attempted to invade the independent, sovereign state of Venezuela.
Dr. Chandra Muzaffar
Organised and trained in neighbouring Colombia, they had landed on the coast of Macuto close to the Venezuelan capital of Caracas.
The invasion was foiled by the Venezuelan military and police with the support of the people. Several of the invaders were killed and a couple captured.
The captured, both Americans, confessed on Venezuelan TV, that their aim was not only the overthrow of the legally constituted government but also the assassination of the president, Nicholas Maduro.
Though the invasion has been thwarted, the captured Americans made it clear that the ouster of the Maduro government was an on-going operation.
Statue of Buddha in Wat Phra Si Rattana Mahathat, Phitsanulok, Thailand |
15 May 2020 — Millions of Buddhists seeking protection and healing from the novel coronavirus are turning to traditional religious rituals.
Since the emergence of COVID-19, the Dalai Lama, other senior monks and Buddhist organizations in Asia and worldwide have emphasized that this pandemic calls for meditation, compassion, generosity and gratitude.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 