Archive for April 12th, 2022

12/04/2022

The Corporate Push for Synthetic Foods: False Solutions That Endanger Our Health and Damage the Planet

Human Wrongs Watch

By Prof. Vandana Shiva | Navdanya International– TRANSCEND Media Service*

Fully artificial food is an increasingly popular trend focused on developing a new line of synthetically produced, ultra-processed food products by using recent advances in synthetic biology, artificial intelligence, and biotechnology.

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These new products seek to imitate and replace animal products, food additives, and expensive, rare, or socially conflictive ingredients (such as palm oil).

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12/04/2022

Tackling the Pandemic of Inequality in Asia and the Pacific

Human Wrongs Watch

BANGKOK, Thailand, Apr 12 2022 (IPS)* – After two years of human devastation, the world is learning to live with COVID-19 while trying to balance the protection of public health and livelihoods.

For countries in Asia and the Pacific, this is challenging not only because national coffers are heavily strained by record public spending to mitigate pandemic suffering, but also due to deeper structural economic issues.

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana

COVID-19 has exposed a pandemic of inequality in a region which has the world’s most dynamic economies but also half of the global poor.

A region where nearly half of the total income goes to just 10 per cent of people while the poorest 10 per cent get just 0.2 per cent.

This failure to grow together meant that the pandemic worsened the circumstances of those left behind.

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12/04/2022

UN Special Rapporteur Concerned about Erosion of Democracy in Brazil

Human Wrongs Watch

(UN News)* — Decrying the erosion of democracy in Brazil, a UN expert has called for authorities to create and maintain a safe environment conducive to the exercise of the rights to peaceful assembly and association. 

Mídia Ninja | Brazilian politician and human rights activist Marielle Franco was assassinated in Rio de Janeiro on 14 May 2018.

“I am concerned that in recent years there have been emerging trends limiting the enjoyment of these rights in all areas,” Clément Nyaletsossi Voule said on Monday [11 April 2022] in São Paulo, speaking at the end of a 12-day visit to South America’s largest country. 

12/04/2022

Protection of Older Persons’ Rights Needed Now ‘More than Ever’

Human Wrongs Watch

(UN News)* — The basic rights of older persons need to be protected today, more than ever before, said the UN human rights chief on Monday [11 April 2022], but existing legal safeguards render them, in effect, “invisible”.

© Unsplash/Raychan | Long-term care systems enable older persons to receive the care and support that allow them to live a life consistent with their basic rights.

Michelle Bachelet was addressing the Working Group on Ageing, at UN Headquarters in New York, the first to do so in person, since it began its “vital role”, in 2011, she said.