'Unseen' News and Views
9 December 2020 (UN News)* — Not only has the coronavirus crisis unleashed immense social and economic suffering, it has created opportunities for corruption to thrive, the UN Secretary-General has said, underscoring that measures to prevent and fight such unscrupulous activities must be included in recovery from the pandemic as well as in the development and rollout of COVID-19 vaccines.
(Athens) Thousands of asylum seekers, aid workers, United Nations, and Greek and European Union employees may be at risk of lead poisoning in a new migrant camp that Greek authorities have built on a repurposed military firing range on the island of Lesbos, Human Rights Watch said on 8 December 2020.
8 December 2020 – Writer Neil Gaiman launches animated version of ‘What You Need to Be Warm’ to raise life-saving funds for Syrian refugees left out in the cold.
A submission for the Neil Gaiman #DrawForRefugees initiative. © UNHCR/Christina Clemis
(Stockholm) — Sales of arms and military services by the sector’s largest 25 companies totalled US$361 billion in 2019, 8.5 per cent more than in 2018. The largest companies have a geographically diverse international presence. This is according to new data released on 7 December 2020 by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
“The rights and needs of women and adolescent girls in emergencies are often overlooked, and COVID-19 has made matters worse, with rising intimate partner violence, sexual violence and child marriage”, said Natalia Kanem, Executive Director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA).
7 December 2020 (UNEP)* — The record-breaking wildfires that engulfed the western United States this year show the danger from global heating and ecosystem decline, but also light up opportunities for forest and landscape restoration to reduce the threat of catastrophic fires.
Altered rainfall patterns are lengthening fire seasons from the Mediterranean to Australia. Record heat and drought are sucking moisture from trees and undergrowth. And some regions are seeing more violent thunderstorms, whose lightning can provide a fateful spark.
Scientists say forest restoration and other natural solutions could provide up to one-third of the mitigation needed to keep global warming below 2°C.
UNITED NATIONS, New York (UNFPA)* – A new data dashboard launched by UNFPA on 2 December 2020 shows that young women face the greatest risk of intimate partner violence. Yet partner violence is rampant around the world, and older women are not immune, the new tool reveals.
– COVID-19 has magnified global food insecurity and is driving unhealthy eating and worsening malnutrition, food experts say. They have called for deliberate global investment in food as medicine on the back of growing diet-related illnesses.
Sorghum is has nutritional and health benefits. Small scale farmer, Catherine Sibanda examines her sorghum crop in field, in Jambezi District, Zimbabwe, March 2015. Credit: Busani Bafana / IPS
Famed Greek physician, Hippocrates, foretold the future of food. He is attributed to have said: ‘Let food be thy medicine and let medicine be thy food’. COVID-19 has pushed the conversation about food as medicine onto the world agenda as more people are paying attention to their health and increasingly what they eat.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 