'Unseen' News and Views
– A new Cold War – this time, between the US and China —is threatening to paralyze the UN’s most powerful body, even as military conflicts and civil wars are sweeping across the world, mostly in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.
The UN Security Council is now the battleground for a new Cold War between the US and China. Credit: United Nations
(UN News)* — A so-called “Rewards for Justice” programme in the United States is violating the human rights of some of the individuals it targets, independent UN human rights experts on 14 April 2021 said.
(UN News)* — Almost half of women in some 57 countries do not have the power to make choices over their healthcare, contraception, or sex lives, a new United Nations report launched on Wednesday [14 April 2021], has revealed.
Indian labourers have been denied pay, food and accommodation. Now, some are demanding their rights
11 April 2021 (Wall Street International)*— All of us alive on the planet today are part of the most significant transition in centuries, whether we know it or not, whether it has touched us lightly or heavily and whether we choose to be or not. Not since the Industrial Revolution has such a total and radical social upheaval occurred.
As with most major cultural shifts, this one follows a technological innovation of which we are all aware and that is the invention of the Internet along with its ready accessibility on a handheld ubiquitous device.
The COVID-19 pandemic has made us refocus on the actions we can take to keep healthy. Maintaining a healthy diet, for example, plays a central role in our overall health and immune systems. ©FAO/Maxim Zmeyev
10 April 2021 (FAO)* — If there was ever a time that made us pay attention to our health, it has been this one of the COVID-19 pandemic. This year has also made that clear that not everything in the world of health is under our control. However, many of us are lucky enough to have a say in one important element and that is what we eat.
9 April 2021 (FAO)* — Jumla beans. Black, red and yellow spotted, cultivated by hand in one of the most remote districts of Nepal’s mountains.
Despite their great nutritional value and environmentally friendly production, jumla beans threaten to be replaced by other crops because mountain producers cannot make a decent income from them.
9 April 2021 (Wall Street International)* — In 1986 on returning for my first 3-week visit to China, I wrote an article, “China: Key Player in a New World Game” in The Futurist, December 1986. I had been invited by China’s State Council at the recommendation of my good friends, Alvin and Heidi Toffler, best-selling authors of Future Shock (1970), who both had, and still, have a big following in China.
A new report, published on 14 Mar 2021 in the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences’ journal Ambio, points out that humanity is hurtling towards destruction unless we have the collective wisdom to change course quickly. Here is a link to the article:
John Scales Avery
The Ambio article was written as part of the preparation of a meeting of Nobel Prize winners to discuss the state of the planet. The virtual meeting will be held on April 26-28, 2021.
We Must Achieve a Steady-State Economic System
A steady-state economic system is necessary because neither population growth nor economic growth can continue indefinitely on a finite earth. No one can maintain that exponential industrial growth is sustainable in the long run except by refusing to look more than a short distance into the future.
(UN News)* — The vast majority of COVID-19 vaccines administered have so far gone to wealthy nations, the World Health Organization (WHO) on 9 April 2021 reported.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 