'Unseen' News and Views
(UN News)* — The UN chief on Thursday [] described the continued lack of effective protection for civilians in Gaza during the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas as “unconscionable”.
5 September 2024 (UNEP)* — For billions of people across the developing world, particularly children and women, mealtime starts by firing up a kerosene stove, lighting a charcoal grill or setting some logs ablaze.
The problem: much of this cooking happens inside and the smoke it produces is laced with toxic particles. This type of household air pollution led to 3.1 million premature deaths in 2021 and is part of a larger crisis driving climate change and biodiversity loss.
– Last July, we were confronted with alarming statistics: 733 million people experienced hunger in 2023, equivalent to one in eleven people globally.
In Africa it was even higher, with one in five people going hungry. Climate change is a significant driver of this crisis.
05 September 2024 (WMO)* — A vicious cycle of climate change, wildfires and air pollution is having a spiralling negative impact on human health, ecosystems and agriculture, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
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The WMO Air Quality and Climate Bulletin includes a special focus on wildfires. It also looks at global and regional concentrations of particulate matter pollution and its harmful effects on crops in 2023.
Iceland´s glaciers are retreating so rapidly that future generations may wonder how the ancient island nation got its name. No surprise then that the land of the Vikings was chosen to house the world’s first global glacier graveyard which was unveiled at a ceremony last month, close to the capital Reykjavik.
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(UN News)* — From celebrities to civil society, a growing number of people around the world are providing unprecedented support for UNRWA, the UN agency supplying a lifeline to two million Palestinians trapped in war-torn Gaza.
(UN News)* — Recent “catastrophic and massive floods” in Bangladesh have affected millions of people across the country, including those in Cox’s Bazar where nearly one million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar live alongside host communities, spokesperson William Spindler told journalists in Geneva on Friday [].
On 14 August [2024], Indigenous Peoples and rights activists came to find out that the Tanzanian government decided to exclude people from 11 wards composed of 25 villages and 96 sub-villages in Ngorongoro from voter registration, effectively denying more than 100,000 Maasai from their guaranteed democratic right to civic participation.
Between 2001 and 2022, the Mau Forest’s deforestation resulted in the loss of about 533 square kilometers of tree cover. Now, a group of women, under the aegis of the Paran Women Group, are preparing to plant 100,000 saplings this rainy season in an effort to restore the forest.
Paran Women Group’s executive director, Naiyan Kiplagat, is working in the forest. The group are passionate guardians of the environment and promoters of gender equality. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
– The Great Rift Valley is part of an intra-continental ridge system that runs through Kenya from north to south.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 