MADRID, Jul 29 2022 (IPS)* – Strangely enough, two major scientific findings, both announced in July, did not attribute the current dangerous world’s disasters to the proxy war unfolding in Ukraine.
Due to its structure, methane traps more heat in the atmosphere per molecule than carbon dioxide (CO2) making it 80 times more harmful than CO2 during the 20 years after it is released into the atmosphere.. Credit: Bigstock
One of them, launched by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), focuses on the dangers of what it calls: “secret methane leaks.” Methane is a colourless, odourless gas, responsible for more than 25% of the global warming the Earth is experiencing today.
(UN News)* — The UN Committee against Torture on Friday [29 July 2022] concluded its current session by releasing findings on Botswana, Nicaragua, the State of Palestine and the United Arab Emirates.
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Unsplash/Nathan Wright | People who have endured the ordeal of torture have an enforceable right to fair and adequate compensation.
From 2019 to 2021, Pukaldi Saswanto did not touch land for 30 months whilst working on a fishing vessel. Originally from Bengkulu, a coastal province in Sumatra, Indonesia, Pukaldi had signed up with a recruitment agency to be a fisher based on a friend’s recommendation.
29 July 2022 (UNEP)* — From the United States to Europe and China to Japan, extreme temperatures have soared for weeks, killing hundreds of people, sparking wildfires in Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, and Greece and displacing thousands of residents, as many seek refuge in public cooling centers.
Photo by Reuters
Close to 90 cities have issued heat alerts, including several Japanese cities that broke heat records dating as far back as 1875, according to the Japanese Meteorological Agency.
Meanwhile, in the United States, more than 100 million people are under heat alerts as wildfires rage in California, leading President Joe Biden to consider declaring a climate emergency.
MADRID, Jul 28 2022 (IPS)* – A wide majority, including the United States, has cheered the 22 July Turkey-brooked agreement between Russia and Ukraine to resume cereals and fertilisers exports from both countries.
Credit: Bigstock
Such exports had been stopped since last February due to the ongoing proxy war in Ukraine, on the one hand, and the successive United States-led Western sanctions imposed on Russia.
The Istanbul agreement is set to allow both countries to release their cereals and fertilisers exports, under UN and international supervision.
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Jul 26 2022 (IPS)* – Like so many others, Africans have long been misled. Alleged progress under imperialism has long been used to legitimize exploitation. Meanwhile, Western colonial powers have been replaced by neo-colonial governments and international institutions serving their interests.
‘Shithole’ pots of gold
Anis Chowdhury
US President Donald Trump’s “shitholes”, mainly in Africa, were and often still are ‘pots of gold’ for Western interests. From 1445 to 1870, Africa was the major source of slave labour, especially for Europe’s ‘New World’ in the Americas.
Walter Rodney’s How Europe Underdeveloped Africa noted “colonised Africans, like pre-colonial African chattel slaves, were pushed around into positions which suited European interests and which were damaging to the African continent and its peoples.”
The ‘scramble for Africa’ from the late nineteenth century saw European powers racing to secure raw materials monopolies through direct colonialism. Western powers all greatly benefited from Africa’s plunder and ruin.
14 Jul 2022 – Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, headlines have been dominated by the warnings of risk in global food supply shortages and rising global food prices, all due to the conflict. But, according to many international groups, there is currently no risk of global food supply shortages. So why are so many countries now facing an increased risk of food insecurity, and in worst cases famine?
Cartagena/Geneva, 22 July 2022 (WMO)* – Extreme weather and climate change impacts including mega-drought, extreme rainfall, land and marine heatwaves and glacier melt are affecting the Latin America and the Caribbean region, from the Amazon to the Andes and from Pacific and Atlantic Ocean waters to the snowy depths of Patagonia.
Reduce the use of chemical fertilisers, make the chemical industry pay for pollution instead of criminalising farmers who were trapped by the chemical treadmill through industrial agriculture.
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The nitrogen problem in Agriculture is a problem created by synthetic nitrogen fertilisers made from fossil fuels. Nitrogen fertilisers contribute to atmospheric pollution and climate change in the manufacture and the use of fertilisers.
LONDON, Jul 22 2022 (IPS)* – The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights sits at the top of the UN’s human rights system. It’s a crucial role for the victims of violations and the many civil society activists who look to the UN system to set and apply human rights norms, monitor the human rights performance of states and hold rights violators to account.
And there’s a job vacancy. In June, the current High Commissioner, Michelle Bachelet, announced she wouldn’t be seeking a second term when her current time in office ends in August.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 