'Unseen' News and Views
View of a wind farm in the interior of Bahia, a state in Brazil’s Northeast region where wind power already provides most of the local electricity and was critical in some years between 2012 and 2018 when severe drought reduced the generation capacity of hydroelectric plants. CREDIT: FP/Public Photos
I spoke with Indian scholar, food sovereignty advocate and environmental activist #VandanaShiva. She speaks about #BillGates‘ book and the colonisation of land and food production. However, she provides us with hopeful and powerful words of advice that might help us challenge these Tech Giants and monopolies.
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)* — Few people want to buy products that involve the exploitation or enslavement of the workers who make them – but that’s exactly what most of us do on a daily basis.
Estimates reveal that there are 40.3 million people in slavery worldwide as part of a US$32 billion business. Credit: UN images.
Estimates reveal that there are 40.3 million people in slavery worldwide as part of a US$32 billion business.
The discovery of yet more graves of Indigenous children taken by the government for forcible assimilation has – at last – shocked the world | ESPAÑOL
Installation in Vancouver honouring the 215 Indigenous children whose unmarked graves were discovered in May | JSMimages / Alamy Stock Photo. All rights reserved
6 July 2021 (UNEP)* — Unprecedented biodiversity loss, pollution, climate change and the rise of zoonotic diseases have showcased the symbiotic relationship between humans and nature.
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Unsplash / Markus Spiske / 05 Jul 2021
The human right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment, as well as other human rights, can only be realized where biodiversity thrives and ecosystems are healthy.
(UNEP)* — Deepika Hemrom’s parents pay her school fees with plastic. Not Master Card or Visa but actual plastic waste.
They are participating in a ground-breaking scheme in Assam, India, that allows low-income families to use single-use plastic in lieu of money to pay for private schooling.
Deepika’s parents are manual labourers and this unique payment method means the 13-year-old, who dreams of becoming a doctor, can access a quality education, which would otherwise be out of her family’s financial reach.
3 July 2021 (United Nations)* — This July 3rd, the International Day of Cooperatives (#CoopsDay) will be celebrated as “Rebuild better together”.
Festivals, Museums and Awards
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Richard Falk
In stirring opening remarks at the international 2021 mega-conference, Palestine Writes, Susan Abulhawa asserts that “… this festival is meant to expand Palestine’s cultural imprint in the world.”
Such an imprint is being achieved by Palestinian cultural creativity, inscribing the Palestinian struggle and the distinctive spirit of the Palestinian people at the center of the moral and political imagination of persons of conscience around the world.
By so doing, Israel’s concerted attempt to remove the Palestinian struggle from the global agenda is being thwarted, discredited, and increasingly likely, reversed.
Twenty Rights Groups Call for Justice and Accountability
Human Rights Watch on 2 July 2021 joined Afghan and international human rights organizations calling for a United Nations-mandated fact-finding mission to investigate escalating attacks on civilians in Afghanistan to promote justice and accountability.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 