'Unseen' News and Views
4 February 2020 (UN News)* — “My flesh has been taken away, but I can never give away my heart”; those are the powerful words of resolve from Abida Dawud, one of three women survivors of female genital mutilation, or FGM, from Ethiopia, who have been speaking to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) about their experiences.
Indigenous and tribal communities are around three times more likely to face extreme poverty than others with women “consistently at the bottom of all social and economic indicators”, UN labour experts said on Monday [3 February 2020]. (*).
Highlighting new data showing that disproportionate numbers of indigenous people live on less than $1.90 a day – 18.2 per cent versus 6.8 per cent of non-indigenous people – the International Labour Organization (ILO) insisted that millions are being held back by a “spectre of poverty”.
Toward a new Universal Declaration of Human Rights
30 January 2020 (Wall Street International)* — Baruch de Spinoza, the great 17th century philosopher, wrote that the two basic human emotions (or “affections”, as he called them) are fear and hope, and he suggested that a balance needs to be struck between the two, because fear unmingled with hope leads to despair and hope unmingled with fear can lead to destructive self-confidence.
Draconian Migration Measures Put Lives, Rights at Risk
Migrants are crowded together on deck of the rescue ship “Eleonore” as it seaches for a safe port in the Mediterranean. The “Eleonore” took in the migrants on August 26, 2019 off the Libyan coast, as their boat was sinking © 2019 Johannes Filous/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images (Photo posted here from HRW’s article).
MILAN, Italy (Human Rights Watch)* – Italy’s Democratic Party-Five Star Movement coalition government should revoke anti-asylum and anti-rescue measures held over from the previous government, Human Rights Watch on 31 January said.
1 February 2020 (UN Environment)* — A new global study sheds light on how interactions between specific characteristics of catchments, such as carbon and pollution, affect aquatic plant diversity and function in freshwater environments.
Photo by Lars L Iversen
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Photosynthesis in many aquatic plants relies on bicarbonate (HCO3−) in addition to carbon dioxide (CO2). The study investigates the link between the two and their impact on plant distribution.
30 January 2020 (UN Environment)* — World Wetlands Day marks the date of the adoption of the Convention on Wetlands on 2 February 1971 in the Iranian city of Ramsar on the shores of the Caspian Sea.
The 2020 theme for World Wetlands Day is an opportunity to highlight wetland biodiversity, its status, why it matters and to promote actions to reverse its loss.
The official’s comments disregard the fact that as of Thursday, there have been 8,137 confirmed cases of Wuhan coronavirus in mainland China, including 171 deaths.
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross at the 50th World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 22, 2020. | Photo: Reuters (Photo posted here from teleSUR‘s article).
The top UN official in Libya on Thursday [30 January 2020] expressed his “deep anger and disappointment” over intensifying conflict in Libya despite a high-level summit held in the German capital of Berlin earlier this month, that set out measures to de-escalate fighting and put the divided country back on a path towards peace. (*).
“There are unscrupulous actors inside and outside Libya who cynically nod and wink towards efforts to promote peace and piously affirm their support for the UN”, Ghassan Salamé, Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the UN Support Mission in Libya, told the Security Council.
(UN News)* — The rise in new coronavirus cases outside China, now constitutes a global health emergency, the World Health Organization’s Emergency Committee declared on Thursday [30 January 2020], calling on all countries to take urgent measures to contain the respiratory disease.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 