MADRID, Apr 21 2022 (IPS)* – In what looks pretty much like an ‘operation clean sweep’ aiming at getting rid of more and more migrants, refugees and asylum seekers by shipping them far away, the process of ‘externalisation’ of millions of victims of wars, poverty, climate crisis and political persecution, is now growing fast.
“At a time when the people of the UK have opened their hearts and homes to Ukrainians, the government is choosing to act with cruelty and rip up their obligations to others fleeing war and persecution” says HRW report. Credit: UNOHCR
In fact, in a short period of time, reports by major human rights organisations have revealed how the US and Europe, in addition to Australia, are increasingly sending migrants, refugees and asylum seekers to other countries, regardless of their human rights records.
Cairo, Egypt, Apr 21 2022 (IPS)* – Last June, Mit Al Korama’s youth gathered in front of one of their homes on a summer evening to tell stories of citizens from the village and neighboring villages who had successfully crossed the Mediterranean to Europe.
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Mit Al Korama’s youth (left) spent five months at the warehouse waiting for the trip to Italy (Ahmed Emad is in the middle and Ibrahim Abdullah is on the left). The group (right) during their kidnapping ordeal by Libyan militias. The group were waiting for the ransom to be paid. Credit: Supplied
Some, they heard, returned with a large sum of money and built European-style homes for their families. Others chose to stay in the European Union and encouraged their brothers to do so.
22 April 2022 (UN News)* — International Mother Earth Day is a chance to reflect on how humanity has been treating our planet, and let’s face it: we’ve been poor custodians.
And while a steady stream of reports has painted a legitimately worrying picture of the current state of the planet, don’t lose hope: there are more innovative ideas for serious climate action than ever and more and more people around the world are working together on solutions to help repair the damage that’s been done to our fragile home.
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But before we get to the exciting stuff, there’s no denying the gravity of the problem.
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The Earth is facing a ‘triple planetary crisis’: climate disruption, nature and biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste.
BENTIU, South Sudan, 20 April 2022 (UNFPA)* – “I used to collect firewood, make charcoal, and sell fresh milk to help meet our family’s needs,” Nyachar Gatneay Rial, 38, told UNFPA. “Now I have to sell tea in the local market to earn some money.”
Ms. Rial’s family are among some 220,000 people whose homes and livelihoods were demolished by floods in South Sudan’s Unity State in July 2020, and who have spent years on the move in search of refuge in camps for internally displaced populations.
RIO DE JANEIRO, Apr 20 2022 (IPS)* – The Theater of the Oppressed helped her become aware of the triple discrimination suffered by black women in Brazil and the means to confront it, such as the Rio de Janeiro Domestic Workers Union, which she has chaired since 2018. | En español
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A group of domestic workers gather at their union headquarters in Rio de Janeiro for a class on the law that sets out the rights and obligations of domestic work in Brazil. Learning about the law helps these women defend their rights and combat the vulnerability many of them of them face in the solitude of their employers’ homes. CREDIT: Courtesy of STDRJ
North Americans have been shocked by the death and destruction of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, filling our screens with bombed buildings and dead bodies lying in the street. But the United States and its allies have waged war in country after country for decades, carving swathes of destruction through cities, towns and villages on a far greater scale than has so far disfigured Ukraine.
House bombed by coalition forces in East Mosul, Northern Iraq, 15 March, 2017. Credit: Amnesty International
As we recently reported, the U.S. and its allies have dropped over 337,000 bombs and missiles, or 46 per day, on nine countries since 2001 alone. Senior U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency officers told Newsweek that the first 24 days of Russia’s bombing of Ukraine was less destructive than the first day of U.S. bombing in Iraq in 2003.
MADRID, Apr 20 2022 (IPS)* – The gloomy picture is drawn from indisputable scientific conclusions and should be already known by everybody, in particular by decision-makers, whether they are politicians… or rather not.
The planet is losing 4.7 million hectares of forests every year – an area larger than Denmark, according to a new UN report. Credit: UNDP
Oceans filling with plastic and turning more acidic. Extreme heat, wildfires and floods, as well as a record-breaking Atlantic hurricane season, have affected millions of people. Even these days, we are still facing COVID-19, a worldwide health pandemic linked to the health of our ecosystem.
French Muslims say picking between the sitting president and Marine Le Pen is ‘like choosing between plague and cholera’
Celebrations of Eid al-Fitr in Paris, June 2017 | Facebook.com/@Islamforallhumanity
15 April 2022 (openDemocracy)* — Two years ago, Chehneze and her family packed up their home in Rueil-Malmaison, a western suburb of Paris, and moved to Birmingham.
“I felt like I needed a break from France,” the primary school teacher tells openDemocracy.
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 18 2022 (IPS)* – As the world is rocked by a confluence of crises, the global economic outlook for 2022 is becoming ever more uncertain and fragile. Prospects for sustainable development for all and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 are bleak, particularly for developing countries.
A rainy day in the camps under COVID-19 lock-down, Maina IDP camp, Kachin, Myanmar. Credit: UNICEF/UNI358777/Oo.
While some, mostly developed countries, had access to cheap financing to cushion the socio-economic impacts of the pandemic and invest in recovery, many others did not.
14 April 2022 (UN News)* — The world’s best-known coral reefs could be extinct by the end of the century unless we do more to make them resilient to our warming oceans.
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Ocean Image Bank/Brook Peterson | Coral reefs harbour the highest biodiversity of any ecosystem globally.
That’s the stark message from UNESCO, which is behind an emergency bid to protect these natural marine wonders, 29 of which are on the agency’s protected World Heritage list.
Our oceans are getting warmer because of increasing global carbon dioxide emissions.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 