As forced displacement tops 79.5 million, Filippo Grandi urges UN Security Council to use its authority seek peace and inclusion for the displaced. |Español | Français
GENEVA (UNHCR)* – Ending conflicts around the world that are driving unprecedented global displacement is not just a moral imperative but critical for international stability, the UN’s refugee chief on 18 June 2020 told a top UN body.
The UN celebrates the sixth annual International Day of Yoga on 21 June, recognizing the ancient practice as a holistic approach to health and wellbeing, and a powerful tool for dealing with the myriad stresses brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic
Winnie Witt | Jon Witt, a yoga teacher, practicing therapeutic yoga postures in Jersey City, USA.
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21 June 2020 — (UN News)* — Yoga is an ancient physical, mental and spiritual practice that originated in India and is now practiced in various forms around the world.
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The word “yoga” derives from Sanskrit and means “to join or unite”, symbolizing the union of body and consciousness.
21 June 2020 (UN News)* — “Conversion therapy” is built on the false premise that it can alter the sexual orientation of gender diverse people, and many more countries around the world need to recognize its “dehumanizing” and deeply corrosive impact, according to a UN report that’s before the UN Human Rights Council this month.
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Matheus Affonso | Matheus Affonso considers himself an “LGBT photographer” and believes it’s important to “portray a population that is often invisible inside the favela”, or slum area.
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UN Independent Expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, Victor Madrigal-Borloz, will present his findings to the global human rights body, during what is celebrated across the world as LGBT Pride Month, calling for a global ban on the dangerous and deeply harmful practice.
By producing soap, treating the sick and shopping for the vulnerable, these refugees from around the world are taking action to fight the coronavirus. | Español | Français | عربي
19 June 2020 (UNHCR)* — For almost two months now, Carmen Parra has been working 12- and 24-hour shifts as part of an ambulance crew in Peru that visits suspected COVID-19 patients in their homes and transports those who are critically ill to hospital.
(UN News)* — UN Secretary-General António Guterres has reminded countries of their fundamental obligation to protect the nearly 80 million people worldwide forced to flee their homes due to conflict, persecution and other crises.
In his message to mark World Refugee Day [20 June], the UN chief also praised those nations and communities hosting refugees and internally displaced people, often amid their own economic and security challenges.
“We owe these countries our thanks, our support and our investment,” he said.
19 June 2020 (UN Environment)* — After a five-hour journey by boat and an inland journey on a ranger´s backpack, Diego, the giant tortoise who helped save his species from extinction, finally arrived his native Española Island, in the emblematic Ecuadorian archipelago of Galápagos.
Diego will finally be able to wander in this native island, 87 years after he left to participate in breeding programmes in captivity. Photo by Galapagos National Park...
Diego, now over 100 years old, will have the chance to live in the wild after eight decades of residing in a zoo and in a conservation center, where he fathered at least 800 offspring.
Only through an understanding of the historical impact of colonialism can we begin to heal the wounds caused by centuries of slavery, violence, and oppression.
Pro-Mosaddegh protests in Tehran, 16 August 1953 | Wikimedia Commons. Public domain
18 June 2020 (openDemocracy)* — In August 1619, a ship called the White Lion arrives in Virginia, a year before the Mayflower, the ship that was transporting the first English Puritans. It carries with it the first load of African slaves, captured in West Africa, starting the enslavement of Africans in the North American colonies.
A woman living in Kassab Camp for Internally Displaced People in Kutum, North Darfur, expresses her sorrow over the increase in rapes in the area. Photo: UN Photo/Albert González Farran
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Already a dramatically under-reported crime, CRSV has been further obscured by this pandemic. COVID-19 hampers the possibility of survivors to report sexual violence and further exacerbates the existing structural, institutional and sociocultural barriers to reporting such crimes.
(UN News)* — Conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) is “a brutal crime” that is being exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the UN chief underscored on Friday [19 June 2020], the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict. Mainly perpetrated against women and girls, CRSV also affects men and boys.
“It reverberates throughout communities and societies, perpetuating cycles of violence and threatening international peace and security”, Secretary-General António Guterres said in his message for the day.
Fifty years ago this year, I published my first book, entitled Rebels in Eden – an exploration of mass political violence in America focusing on the uprisings that had by then incinerated substantial portions of the inner city communities of Los Angeles, New York, Newark, Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore, and Washington, as well as scores of smaller towns and cities.[i]
Richard E. Rubenstein
Those riots were far more destructive than anything experienced in the protests following the recent killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery by police and ex-police officers.
The sixties uprisings killed several hundred people (almost all Black civilians), injured more than 12,000, and caused billions of dollars in property damage.
What Hasn’t Changed
Rebels in Eden was reviewed in popular journals like TIME and Newsweek and was widely read, along with a small flood of similar publications. But, what difference did any of this make?
A Congolese family pose for a photo in Tshikapa in the Kasai region of south-central Democratic Republic of the Congo in November 2019. They had recently returned from Angola as security returned to their region. © UNHCR/John Wessels
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 