The industrial agriculture paradigm, which sees the world as a machine, and not as a self-organized living system, has created devastation on the planet, while contributing significantly to the issue of climate change.
.
.
Navdanya International’s latest graphic report, ‘Regeneration is Life‘, presented at Cop 28 in Dubai, analyzes the actual causes at the root of climate change and highlights the true regenerative solutions against the false solutions proposed by polluters.
(UN News)* —This year’s surprising spike in dengue infections globally represents a potentially high public health threat, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday [22 December 2023].
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Dec 20 2023 (IPS)* –The World Bank insists commercial finance is necessary for achieving economic recovery and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but does little to ensure profit-hungry commercial finance serves the public interest.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
By failing to address pressing challenges within their purview, the second-ever Bretton Woods institutions’ (BWIs) annual meetings on the African continent, in Marrakech in October 2023, set the developing world even further back.
The International Monetary and Financial Committee, which oversees the International Monetary Fund (IMF), could not agree, by consensus, on the usual end-of-meeting ministerial communique for ‘geopolitical’ reasons. The Development Committee, which governs the World Bank Group, fared little better.
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 18 2023 (IPS)* – The unrestrained destruction of Gaza and the disproportionate killings of over 17,000, mostly civilians– in retaliation for 1,200 killings by Hamas and 120 hostages in captivity– have left the Palestinians in a state of deep isolation and weighed down by a feeling of being deserted by the world at large.
People in Rafah city in the Gaza Strip flee a missile attack. Credit: UNICEF/Eyad El Baba
The United Nations and the international community have remained helpless– with UN resolutions having no impact– while American pleas for restrained aerial bombings continue to be ignored by the Israelis in an act of defiance.
The Biden administration is reportedly considering accepting mandatory detention of asylum seekers, one of the demands of Republican Party lawmakers to “secure the border” in exchange for passing the administration’s supplemental aid bill for Ukraine, Israel, and US border enforcement.
The US Immigration and Nationality Act already makes detention mandatory for asylum seekers in expedited removal who are awaiting credible fear of persecution interviews.
(WMO)* — Mountains Matter and the Cryosphere is Critical is the message from the peaks to the valleys to the desert landscape of COP28 in Dubai on International Mountain Day, an annual event on 11 December drawing attention to the importance of our mountain ecosystems to the whole planet.
WMO 2024 Calendar Competition – Niurma Sanchez
Mountains are home to 15% of the world´s population and host about half of the world’s biodiversity hotspots. They provide freshwater to half of humanity.
(UN News)* — Amidst a multitude of global crises and escalating of armed conflicts, small arms and light weapons remain a silent killer, having claimed over 260,000 lives during 2021, amounting to 45 per cent of all violent deaths.
That’s according to Izumi Nakamitsu, High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, who briefed the Security Council on Friday [], quoting the latest figures available.
“This is more than 700 people a day, or one person dying from small arms every two minutes”, she said.
She added that “small arms and light weapons are the weapons of choice in initiating, sustaining and exacerbating conflict, armed violence, terrorism and other forms of organized crime”.
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 15 2023 (IPS)* – Going back to the 1970s, thousands of UN staffers were given legal status opting for permanent residency in the US– after their retirement.
The UN Secretariat building in New York City, where staff of the UN Secretariat carry out the day-to-day work. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elías
But that longstanding privilege now seems to be in jeopardy forcing retirees to return to their home countries uprooting their lives in the US.
The United States Immigration and Nationality Act has for long allowed long-serving UN staff members, who held the traditional G-4 visa status, and who met certain criteria, to apply for Legal Permanent Residency, also known as a “Green Card,” under the “Special Immigrant” category (EB-4), upon separation on retirement.
(UN News)* —Civilians in Sudan – where rival militaries are waging a bloody war, with devastating consequences – are at a high risk of falling into catastrophic levels of hunger by May next year, the UN emergency food relief agency warned on Wednesday [].
(UN News)* — The outbreak of conflict seven months ago in Sudan has led to “a convergence of a worsening humanitarian calamity and a catastrophic human rights crisis”, according to a senior UN official, and the restive region of Darfur has been particularly badly affected.
Close to nine million people need humanitarian assistance and reports suggest that some 4000 people have been targeted and killed because of their ethnicity.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 