'Unseen' News and Views
4 June 2021 (UNEP)* — With the world beginning to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, there is increasing recognition that healing from the pandemic is linked to healing the planet.
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Resetting humanity’s relationship with nature will be the focus of World Environment Day on June 5, which also marks the launch of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, a ten-year global push to prevent, halt and reverse ecosystem degradation.
ROME (FAO)* – Global food prices rose in May at their fastest monthly rate in more than a decade, even as world cereal production is on course to reach a new record high, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) on 3 June 2021 reported.
The FAO Food Price Index averaged 127.1 points in May, 4.8 percent higher than in April and 39.7 percent higher than in May 2020.
Rome (FAO)* – Due to the impact of climate change, plant pests that ravage economically important crops are becoming more destructive and posing an increasing threat to food security and the environment, finds a scientific review released on 2 June 2021.
Countries also need to add similar commitments for oceans, according to a new report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), launched as the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030 gets underway.
(UN News)* — The world must harness “clear, transformative and actionable solutions” to address the ocean crisis, the President of the UN General Assembly on 1 June 2021 said, opening a meeting to generate momentum towards the 2022 UN Ocean Conference, when public health safety measures allow.
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How to hide a democracy that is not one
May 2021 (Wall Street International)* — The notion of political parties in the non-United States existing along a neat and orderly linear continuum from left to right (or right to left depending on your predilection I suppose) is yet another American fantasy about ourselves, outdated at best and madly simplistic at worst.
31 May 2021 (United Nations)* — Since the 1980s, the important role of the family has increasingly come to the attention of the international community. The General Assembly adopted a number of resolutions and proclaimed the International Year of the Family and the International Day of Families.
Emphasizing the critical role of parents in the rearing of children, the Global Day of Parents recognizes that the family has the primary responsibility for the nurturing and protection of children.
31 May 2021 (WHO)* — Tobacco causes 8 million deaths every year. When evidence was released this year that smokers were more likely to develop severe disease with COVID-19 compared to non-smokers, it triggered millions of smokers to want to quit tobacco.
Quitting can be challenging, especially with the added social and economic stress that have come as a result of the pandemic, but there are a lot of reasons to quit.
The benefits of quitting tobacco are almost immediate:
A Case Study from Nicaragua
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US foreign policy is increasingly promoted by billionaire funded foundations. The neoliberal era has created individuals with incredible wealth and through “philanthropy”, they flex their influence and feel good at the same time.
While these philanthropists can be liberal on some issues, they universally support U.S. foreign policy and the “free market”.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 