MADRID, Nov 8 2021 (IPS)* – While negotiators from all over the world have been discussing, since 31 October 2021 in Glasgow, every single word, coma and dot in order to reach a final text that is expected to apparently keep everyone happy but really not everybody satisfied, 50% of world’s population will live in coastal areas, exposed to floods, storms and tsunamis by the year 2030.
The pulverised beach in Kalmunai, located in eastern Sri Lanka, was stripped of most of its standing structures by the ferocity of the waves. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 8 2021 (IPS)* – The United Nations has come under heavy fire for continuing a 20-month-long ban on non-governmental organizations (NGOs)– even though the Secretariat is expected to return to near-normal by November 15 after a pandemic lockdown going back to March 2020.
The high-level segment of the UN General Assembly in late September 2021 was attended by more than 100 world leaders and over a thousand delegates from 193 countries —despite the UN’s pandemic lockdown. But NGOs were banned from the Secretariat building—a 20-month- old ban which still continues. Credit: UN Photo / Mark Garten
Louis Charbonneau, UN Director of Human Rights Watch, told IPS: “The Secretary-General has repeatedly spoken of the vital importance of civil society to the proper functioning of the UN. Now he needs to prove he means it by re-admitting accredited NGOs – the only category of UN passholders still barred from entering UN headquarters.”
(UN News)* — Although governments are prioritizing public health measures to protect their people from climate impacts, many lack the funds to take effective action, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a report issued on Monday [8 November 2021].
(UN News)* — The UN World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Monday [8 November 2021] that the number of people teetering on the edge of famine in 43 countries, has risen to 45 million – up by three million this year – as acute hunger spikes around the world.
American democracy is in crisis. That’s why the US can’t be counted on to act responsibly on the world stage with any consistency.
Senator James Inhofe from Oklahoma uses a snowball to ‘disprove’ global warming, 2015
7 November 2021 (openDemocracy)* — Young Earth creationism, scientists portrayed as part of an anti-Christian conspiracy, environmentalists viewed with extreme suspicion.
Growing up as an evangelical within the world of the US Christian Right, and attending Christian schools, I know first-hand how extreme they are, and how aggressive in their defence of “alternative facts”.
5 November 2021 (UNEP)* — November 6 marks the International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict. Curtailing the use of Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas (EWIPA) is a humanitarian priority due to increasing civilian deaths and injuries from armed conflict in urban settings and indirect environmental impacts, which are now recognized as an important dimension of their use.
REUTERS/Ceerwan Aziz / 05 Nov 2021
The environment is an inseparable part of the well-being, health and survival of civilians. EWIPA cause harmful pollution and destruction, which constrains access to the environment civilians live in.
GLASGOW, Nov 4 2021 (IPS)* – “For my people, the effects of climate change are an everyday reality. The rainy season is shorter and when it rains, there are floods. And we’ve suffered droughts.” said Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, a member of the Wodaabe or Mbororo pastoral people of Chad.| En español
In the face of substantial international offers of funding for indigenous lands and forests at COP26, indigenous peoples are calling for specific schemes for their participation. Shuar leader Katan Kontiak (left) of Ecuador and Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim of Chad took part in a Nov. 2 forum on the indigenous peoples and local communities platform. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS
(UN News)* — As millions took to the streets of cities around the world on Saturday 6 November 2021, demanding greater climate action, some countries taking part in the COP26 negotiations, made new pledges to invest in nature-based solutions and a greener approach to farming.
UN News/Grace Barret | Indigenous activists demonstrate on the streets of the COP26 host city, Glasgow, during the landmark UN climate conference.
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Mother Nature, or “Pachamama”, as they say in Latin America, took centre stage as the pivotal UN climate conference reached the halfway point.
Nature is critical to our survival: it provides the oxygen we need to breathe, regulates weather patterns, supplies food and water for all living things, and is home to countless species of wildlife, and the ecosystems they need to survive.
According to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), human activity has disrupted almost 75 per cent of the earth’s surface and put some one million animal and plant species on the endangered list.
Are you absolutely the type of loser who would get swindled into living among bots and never realize it?
(Wall Street International)* — Let’s be straight: A considerable amount of the traffic generated over the Internet is made by bots.
By the end of this year 2021, most probably 50% of the Internet will be generated by automated bots which means, (at least for me) that the Internet is a huge empty place that is already ruled by “non-human” entities.
MADRID, Nov 5 2021 (IPS)* – While male circumcision is spread mainly among Muslim and other religious communities, and it is apparently accepted by some medical spheres, more than 200 million girls have already fallen prey to a dangerous, abhorrent practice, which is carried out in the name of social and religious traditions: Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).
Latifatou Compaoré, 14, in Burkina Faso, was inspired by her mother to call for the abandonment of FGM. She has recorded a popular song about ending the practice. Luca Zordan for UNFPA
Such a human rights violation is mostly carried out on young girls between infancy and age 15, is one stark evidence of gender inequality. Nevertheless it is not legally typified as a “crime” nor is it a relevant focus of wealthy societies’ feminist movements.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 