'Unseen' News and Views
(UN News)* — Although the outlook for global growth has improved, the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as inadequate progress on vaccination in poorer countries, are putting recovery at risk, according to the latest UN economic forecast, published on Tuesday [11 May 2021].
Geneva, 11 May 2021 (WMO)* — The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated impacts of extreme weather and climate change in vulnerable countries but also highlighted the need to build resilience against a multitude of hazards through better early warnings and risk information.
This is one of the key messages of the 2020 Annual Report of the Climate Risk and Early Warning Systems Initiative (CREWS), a unique climate action programme that helps saves lives, livelihoods and assets in the world’s most vulnerable countries.
Latest Escalation Highlights Reality of Apartheid, Persecution for Millions of Palestinians
A Palestinian man evades teargas fired by Israeli security forces in front of the Dome of the Rock Mosque in the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem on May 10, 2021. © 2021 Mahmoud Illean/AP Photo
Forcible takeovers of homes, brutal suppression of demonstrators, places of worship under assault, identity-based communal violence, indiscriminate rocket attacks, children killed in strikes: what to make of the dizzying headlines out of Israel and Palestine in recent days?
– When the UN’s Beirut-based Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), released a landmark 2017 report on “apartheid” in Israel, the United Nations disassociated itself with the study and left it to die— unceremoniously and unsung.
Credit: The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)
According to a March 2017 report in Foreign Policy Journal, both the Israeli and the Trump administrations put “enormous pressure on UN Secretary-General António Guterres to withdraw the report”.
But the head of the ESCWA, Rima Khalaf, refused to withdraw it and resigned from her UN position in protest.
(UN News)* — The UN Secretary-General said he was “gravely concerned” at escalating violence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory on Tuesday [11 May 2021], while the UN rights office, OHCHR, appealed for “a redoubling of efforts to restore calm”, after airstrikes and days of clashes between protesters and Israeli police.
“Ghost fishing” happens when lost or abandoned fishing gear stays in the ocean and traps fish or other marine life. © World Animal Protection
(UN News)* — One hundred days since the Myanmar military seized power, the “brutal” repression of protesters has continued, despite all international efforts to end the violence, the UN rights office (OHCHR) said on Tuesday [11 May 2021].
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“The military authorities are showing no sign of letting up in their brutal crackdown on opponents in a bid to consolidate their hold on power”, spokesperson Rupert Colville told journalists at a media briefing.
10 May 2021 (Wall Street International)* — Usury is certainly nothing new, from the medieval Venice through Shylock and the dramas of Balzac —who spent his life writing books to pay off his debts— it consists mainly in making money out of money, even if you do not have it.
World Environment Day, which falls on 5 June, marks the official launch of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, a global push to revive natural spaces lost to development. In the lead-up to the Decade’s launch, UNEP is looking back on some of our most popular restoration-related stories, including this piece originally published in December 2020.
Reuters / Andrees Latif / 01 Dec 2020
11 May 2021 (UNEP)* — The record-breaking wildfires that engulfed the western United States in 2020 show the danger from global heating and ecosystem decline, but also highlight how forest and landscape restoration can reduce the threat of catastrophic fires.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 