Havana, Cuba, 5 July 2023 (WMO)* – Extreme weather and climate shocks are becoming more acute in Latin America and the Caribbean, as the long-term warming trend and sea level rise accelerate, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
Temperatures over the past 30 years have warmed an average 0.2° Celsius per decade – the highest rate on record, according to the State of the Climate in Latin America and the Caribbean 2022 report. It highlights a vicious cycle of of spiraling impacts on countries and local communities.
(UN News)* — Indigenous Peoples have the ancestral wisdom to guide humanity towards a more sustainable use of the Earth’s resources, yet they are systematically discriminated against and excluded, UN rights chief Volker Türk warned on Monday [17 July 2023].
He was speaking in Geneva at the annual meeting on the rights of Indigenous Peoples, referencing in-depth conversations he had had in recent months with Indigenous representatives during missions to Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela and Kenya.
6 Jul 2023 – Among the comments concerning the previous blog, some readers have questioned the following statement:
“In our times simple colonialism has been replaced by neo-colonialism. . . . economic sanctions and unbridled exploitation carried out by Europe and North America against the countries of the Global South.”
This month I will deal with the question of “unbridled exploitation.”
You are probably aware of the fact that the mineral and agricultural resources of the countries of Africa and Latin America are exploited by big corporations based in Europe and North America.
You may believe that the profits extracted from the South are balanced by humanitarian aid that is given to these countries by the North.
(UN News)* — During the first half of the year, 289 boys and girls died while crossing the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe, or double the number compared to the same period in 2022, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported on Friday [].
The figure is equivalent to about 11 children dying each week, “far beyond what we hear in news headlines,” Vera Knaus, the agency’s Global Lead on Migration and Displacement, told journalists attending the biweekly UN humanitarian briefing in Geneva.
More children continue to fall victims of trafficking from exploitative and discriminative practices. Photo: IOM.
Geneva/ Washington, 5 July 2023 (IOM)* – More than half of child trafficking victims are trafficked within their own country according to new report by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University (FXB).
The report further reveals that in cases of international trafficking children are mostly trafficked to neighbouring, wealthier countries.
Bangladesh authorities are failing to adequately protect Rohingya refugees from surging violence by armed groups and criminal gangs, with layers of barriers to police, legal, and medical assistance.
Authorities have been forcing Rohingya leaders to serve as informants, putting them at grave risk of being abducted or killed, without access to protection.
Dire Dawa, 10 July 2023 (IOM)* – Sixteen-year-old Abel Ahmed* has never been to school. Originally from Dera, Oromia Regional State, North Shoa Zone in Ethiopia, his family could not afford to send him to school. Instead, he was supporting his family’s small-scale farming on their piece of land where they planted sorghum. .
Abel* is a 16-year-old migrant boy who decided to take the Eastern Route for economic reasons. Photo: IOM 2023/Eva Sibanda
“My family has problems with money. I had a plan to go to school but I could not,” he explains.
One month ago, he left home with his peers and friends to look for work, having heard of stories from family members who managed to succeed in finding work in Yemen.
A study by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reveals that children from Habru, Dire Dawa, Bedeno and Sigmo parts of Oromia in Ethiopia reported having been subjected to forms of child labour, including hazardous work in farms in Yemen.
(UN News)* — Women and girls of African descent face a “systemic and historical pattern” of racial abuse in the health sector in countries across the world, leaving them at increased risk of death during childbirth, the UN’s sexual and reproductive health agency said on Wednesday [].
“The scourge of racism continues for Black women and girls in the Americas, many of whom are descendants of the victims of enslavement,” Natalia Kanem, Executive Director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), said in a news release.
“Too often, Afrodescendent women and girls are abused and mistreated, their needs are not taken seriously, and their families are shattered by the preventable death of a loved one during childbirth. “Justice and equality will only be possible when our healthcare systems see these women and provide them with respectful, compassionate care.”
(UN NEWS)* — Global sea surface temperatures reached a record high in May, June, and July – and the warming El Niño weather pattern is only just getting started – experts at the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Monday [].
Unsplash/Rafael Garcin
Global sea surface temperatures were at a record high in May and June 2023.
Alarm bells have been rung at the UN agency in particular because of an “unprecedented peak” in sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic.
MADRID, Jul 10 2023 (IPS)* – A quick glance at the current European political map would clearly show how far the extremist ideology has been installed in European countries –those who still wave the French Revolution’s flag of “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.”
Credit: United Nations
According to the Napoleonic French Revolution’s three pillars, Liberty means freedom for an individual to do what he/she wants to do without harming others’ Liberty. Equality means equal opportunity to all the citizens irrespective of their caste, religion, race, gender.
Fraternity means an environment of brotherhood among the citizens of a nation.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 