'Unseen' News and Views
28 July 2021 (Wall Street International)* — Many of us spend a lot of time on social networks, on phones or laptops updating status, posting pictures, liking stuff, and messaging back and forth with friends. It’s where we get updates about our friends (enemies) and family, share our experiences, and procrastinate a lot of time.
.
We crossed the Atlantic, encountered a bunch of savages, defeated them, claimed the continent. We won! This is the history I remember learning, as satisfying and stupid as a John Wayne movie.
The myth is crumbling and cracking, its certainty now as precarious as the statue of a Confederate general. Truth flows in through the holes, e.g.:
By the late 1830s, most of the native residents had been “removed” from a big chunk of the South — a few million acres of land in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina and Florida — so white men could start growing cotton there.
In 1838, a final group of stubborn Cherokees were deported to Oklahoma Territory, as President Martin Van Buren sent 7,000 soldiers to do the job.
28 July 2021 (Wall Street International)* — The “racial reckoning” that is now occurring in the nation, especially as a result of the public murder of George Floyd, has race and racism at the forefront of many of our minds.
Robert J. Burrowes
For many people desperate to see a return to a life that is more familiar, it is still easy to believe that the upheavals we have experienced since March 2020 and the changes that have been wrought in their train are ‘temporary’, even if they are starting to ‘drag on’ somewhat longer than hoped.
However, anyone who is paying attention to what is taking place in the background is well aware that the life we knew before 2020 has already ended and what is being systematically put in its place as the World Economic Forum (WEF) implements its ‘Great Reset’ will bear no comparison to any period prior to last year. See ‘Killing Democracy Once and for All: The Global Elite’s Coup d’état That Is Destroying Life as We Know It’.
27 July 2021 (UNEP)* — Every year, across the world, 1.3 billion tonnes of food is either lost or wasted, says the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) Food Waste Index.
Support mangrove conservation, UNESCO chief says
(UN News)* — The world is waking up to the importance of mangroves, a senior UN official said on Monday [26 July 2021], underscoring the need for everyone to support restoration and protection of these crucial habitats.
Audrey Azoulay, Director General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), made the appeal in her message for the International Day for the Conservation of the Mangrove Ecosystem, observed on 26 July.
International Day for the Conservation of the Mangrove Ecosystem – 26 July
26 July 2021 (UNESCO)* — Mangroves are rare, spectacular and prolific ecosystems on the boundary between land and sea. These extra ordinary ecosystems contribute to the wellbeing, food security, and protection of coastal communities worldwide.
They support a rich biodiversity and provide a valuable nursery habitat for fish and crustaceans.
Mangroves also act as a form of natural coastal defense against storm surges, tsunamis, rising sea levels and erosion. Their soils are highly effective carbon sinks, sequestering vast amounts of carbon.
FAO Director General, QU Dongyu, urges global leaders at Rome gathering to change policies, mind-sets and business models to transform agri-food systems
(UN News)* — More women and children were killed and wounded in Afghanistan in the first half of 2021 than in the first six months of any year since records began in 2009, a United Nations report revealed on Monday [26 July 2021].
Johan Galtung
With the Israeli government in permanent coma, the Palestinian house split against itself, the US and Israel sharing the bad karma of being built on stolen land, pushing the inhabitants into bantustans or worse, the Washington voice has been absent, silent on peacebuilding and supporting the Zionists in detriment of the Palestinians.
But peacebuilding is not sufficient; we need also peacemaking–a political solution–and peacekeeping. And here the EU enters: not only as a mediator, but as model, brilliantly accommodating a Germany that had made itself very difficult to digest by surrounding countries. Yesterday. Like Israel. Today.
Starting with the beginning, the only place to start, with a constructive approach to the future, the thesis is that a sustainable solution to Israel-Palestine has three levels:
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 