Rome(FAO)* – The number of people facing acute food insecurity and requiring urgent life-saving food assistance and livelihood support continues to grow at an alarming rate.
This makes it more urgent than ever to tackle the root causes of food crises rather than just responding after they occur.
The UN will be commemorating World Press Freedom Day on May 3. The following article is part of a series of IPS features and opinion pieces focused on media freedom globally.
Credit: United Nations
LONDON, Apr 28 2022 (IPS)* – Women journalists around the world are experiencing an exponential increase in misogynistic online abuse, which poses a grave risk to women’s media participation in the digital age.
This is a grievous form of censorship that seeks to silence women, stifle free expression, and close down critical journalism by undermining their ability to engage freely in public debate, report on issues, and address discrimination.
(Stockholm) Total global military expenditure increased by 0.7 per cent in real terms in 2021, to reach $2113 billion. The five largest spenders in 2021 were the United States, China, India, the United Kingdom and Russia, together accounting for 62 per cent of expenditure, according to new data on global military spending published on 25 April 2022 by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
(UN News)* — Journalists and media workers are facing “increasing politicization” of their work and threats to their freedom to simply do their jobs, that are “growing by the day”, said the UN chief, marking World Press Freedom Day on Tuesday [3 May 2022].
Unsplash/Jovaughn Stephens | A video journalist covers a news event.
The day shines a spotlight on the essential work they do, bringing those in power to account, with transparency, “often at great person risk”, said Secretary-General António Guterres, in a video message.
(UN News)* — More than 3,000 people died or went missing while attempting to cross the Mediterranean and the Atlantic last year, hoping to reach Europe, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said on Friday [29 April 2022], appealing for $163.5 million to assist and protect thousands of refugees and asylum seekers.
Of the 2021 total, 1,924 people were reported to have died or gone missing on the Central and Western Mediterranean routes, while an additional 1,153 perished or went missing on the Northwest African maritime route to the Canary Islands, according to UNHCR’s newly published report: Protection, saving lives, & solutions for refugees in dangerous Journeys.
MADRID, Apr 29 2022 (IPS)* – Every now and then, experts remind that the Indigenous Peoples are the best (and last?) custodians of the essential web of life: biodiversity.
Brazilian Indigenous people during one of their regular protests in Rio de Janeiro demanding the demarcation of their lands and to be taken into account in environmental and climate measures. Credit: Mario Osava / IPS
There are more than 370 million self-identified peoples in some 70 countries around the world. In Latin America alone there are over 400 groups, each with a distinct language and culture, though the biggest concentration is in Asia and the Pacific– with an estimated 70 per cent.
And their traditional lands guard over 80% of the planet’s biodiversity.
MADRID, Apr 27 2022 (IPS)* – In case you were not aware, please know that humanity used to cultivate more than 6.000 plant species for food, but now instead fewer than 200 of these species make major contributions to food production. Out of these, only 9% account for 66% of total crop production.
If forest loss continues at the current rate, it will be impossible to keep warming below two degrees Celsius as pledged in the Paris Agreement. Credit: José Garth Medina/IPS
Also that 33% of the world’s fish stocks are overfished.
And that 26% of the nearly 8.000 local breeds of livestock that are still in existence are now at risk of extinction.
(UN News)* — Eleven mainly European countries have now reported salmonella food poisoning, linked to popular “Kinder” chocolate products produced in Belgium, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday [27 April 2022].
Unsplash/Tetiana Bykovets | An outbreak of salmonella has been linked to chocolate produced in Belgium.
.The World Health Organization said on Wednesday that there have been more than 150 suspected cases of salmonellosis – from Belgium to the US – after United Kingdom regulators flagged a cluster of Salmonella (S.) Typhimurium cases a month ago, leading to a global recall..Children under 10 have been most affected – comprising some 89 per cent of cases – and available data indicates that nine patients were hospitalised. There have been no fatalities.“The risk of spread in the WHO European region and globally is assessed as moderate until information is available on the full recall of the products,” the UN agency said in a statement.
Refugees and asylum seekers are often used as a political football. I want Westerners to hear their voices directly.
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The UK has announced proposals to resettle asylum seekers in Rwanda | Daniel Chesterton/ PHC Images/ Alamy
21 April 2022 (openDemocracy)* — There are reports of mass graves. There is clear evidence of crimes against humanity. Yet since 2017, more than 90,000 men, women and children have been forced back to Libya – a country run by militias, without a functioning government.
Geneva, 26 April 2022 (UNEP)* – 50 billion tons: enough to build a wall 27 metres wide and 27 metres high around planet Earth. This is the volume of sand and gravel used each year, making it the second most used resource worldwide after water.
Given our dependency on it, sand must be recognised as a strategic resource and its extraction and use needs to be rethought, finds a new report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 