Archive for ‘Climate Crisis’

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01/03/2016

Learning from Mathematics

Human Wrongs Watch

By Johan Galtung*

29 February 2016 – TRANSCEND Media Service – “Mathematics” comes from Greek mathema knowledge, science and mathesis learning, understanding-Leibniz’ mathesis universals. Deep knowledge?

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Johan Galtung

Mathematics started with numbers (arithmetic) and shapes (geometry).* The concepts were related by “self-evident truths”, axioms, mirroring, inspired by empirical reality, counting, observing.

And took on its own life: from primary concepts to new concepts by definition, from axioms to theorems by deduction.

An abstract reality with one law: No Contradictions: a theorem and its negation cannot both be true, nor a theorem be both true and false. Forbidden, Streng verboten, Interdit. Many key mathematicians were German and French. Deductive cultures?

From the other side of the world came the daoist axiom that life is contradictory, yin/yang, with forces and counter-forces acting upon each other ad inf.

Can mathematics only mirror dead nature? Does it through mirroring reduce life to contradiction-free, dead, matter? And what can we possibly learn from mathematics for peace, and how?

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08/02/2016

Help Is a Phone Call Away for Displaced Yemenis

Human Wrongs Watch

By Teddy Leposky*

SANA’A, Yemen, 5 February 2016 (UNHCR) – Fleeing airstrikes near his home in Haradh, near the border with Saudi Arabia, Yemeni father of 10 Ahmed* sought shelter in the capital Sana’a – where he found help was only a phone call away.

© UNHCR/A.Alsayaghi | A new call centre in Sana’a provides an essential bridge between Yemenis and the humanitarian community.

“We lost everything and wherever I go I am humiliated,” he told an operator he called at Tawasul, an innovative new call centre set up to link Yemenis in need with those in those in the humanitarian community who are there to assist.

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02/02/2016

Op-Ed: Don’t Shoot the Messenger, Israel – Ban

Human Wrongs Watch

By Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary General*

1 February 2016 (UN News Centre) – In Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, 2016 has begun much as 2015 ended — with unacceptable levels of violence and a polarized public discourse. That polarization showed itself in the halls of the United Nations last week when I pointed out a simple truth: History proves that people will always resist occupation.

On the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, Israel, Muslims leave the Dome of the Rock after Friday prayers. Police presence is always tight and young males are not allowed or have their ID’s seized going in. Photo: Edward Parsons/IRIN

Some sought to shoot the messenger — twisting my words into a misguided justification for violence. The stabbings, vehicle rammings and other attacks by Palestinians targeting Israeli civilians are reprehensible. So, too, are the incitement of violence and the glorification of killers.

Nothing excuses terrorism. I condemn it categorically.

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02/02/2016

UN Launches New Initiative to Tackle Employment Crisis

Human Wrongs Watch

As more than 800 young leaders gather in New York for the annual United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Youth Forum, UN officials on 1 February 2016 launched a new initiative to tackle youth unemployment, making it clear that success in fighting poverty and inequality will largely depend on them being a driving force.

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Youth in Peru. Photo: UNFPA/Leslie Searles

“The challenges we face may seem overwhelming and out of reach for us to solve. But that is not true. Each and every one of us can be an agent of change, no matter our age or means,” said Oh Joon, the President of ECOSOC, at the opening of the two-day event at UN Headquarters.

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25/01/2016

UK’s Cameron Covertly Helping House of Saud’s Military Offensive in Yemen

Human Wrongs Watch

By Catherine Shakdam*

24 January 2016 (RT) – Britain’s veneer is cracking. If ever anyone was left to believe that London still stands for all things fair and democratic, PM David Cameron’s love affair with al-Saud should have long dissolved any such naivety.
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**A plaque targeting Prime Minister David Cameron, as demonstrators protest in Oxford Street, London | 26 March 2011 | Author: Mark Ramsay | 245/ | Wikimedia Commons

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13/01/2016

Steady Increase of Int’l Migrants – From 173 Million in 2000 to 244 Million in 2015

Human Wrongs Watch

The number of international migrants worldwide has continued to grow. Back in 2000, there were 173 million international migrants, in 2010 there were 222 million, and this past year in 2015, 244 million migrants, the UN reported.*

Migrants and refugees from several countries arrive by special train in Berlin, Germany. Photo: UNICEF/Ashley Gilbertson VII

Presenting the key finding of the latest United Nations survey on international migrant trends, the UN Deputy Secretary-General on 12 January 2016 stressed that the issue of migration is one of the most challenging and important that the Organization is taking on in the new global landscape.

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13/01/2016

African Union–UN Mission Calls for Restraint in West Darfur as Tensions Rise over Recent Violence

Human Wrongs Watch

The African Union-United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) on 12 January 2016 expressed concern over continued tension in El Geneina town and around Mouli village, 15 kilometers south of El Geneina, West Darfur, after an armed attack on Mouli village.

A landscape view of El Geneina town, the capital of West Darfur, Sudan. Photo: UNAMID/Hamid Abdulsalam

“Receiving reports of continuous unrest and sporadic firing across El Geneina and in Mouli with an undetermined number of casualties, UNAMID calls on the government authorities to exert their utmost efforts to contain the situation and investigate the incidents,” the Mission said in a press statement issued on 11 January 2016.

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03/01/2016

Opportune Moment to Discuss Water (In)Security in Brazil

Human Wrongs Watch

By Johanna Sjödin*

Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) – An ecological disaster hit Brazil during the first week of November this year. The Fundão dam in the Doce River, which collects wastewater from an iron mine owned by BHP Billiton/Vale, burst and released 40-62 million m3 of polluted water.
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 Source: SIWI

High levels of arsenic and other persistent pollutants now threaten food chains in the river ecosystem.

Two weeks later the pollution reached the sea where the coastal zone fauna also was damaged. 12 people have died and another eleven are still missing.

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30/12/2015

2015 and the Struggle for Europe’s Core

Human Wrongs Watch

By Cas Mudde*
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28 December 2015 (openDemocracy) – 2015 was the year that everyone could see that the European emperor is not (not any longer) wearing clothes. Worse, the emperor didn’t even deny that he was naked! 
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449px-OrbanViktor_2011-01-07

**Viktor Orbán | Author: Európa Pont | Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. | Wikimedia Commons

Devastating terrorist attacks, months of insecurity about the Eurozone, huge electoral victories for populist parties, an unprecedented refugees crisis… there is no doubt that 2015 was Europe’s annus horribilis.

Both the projects of the European Union and of European liberal democracy were challenged in ways we have not seen before.

The real question for the coming year(s) is: was 2015 just a freak year, soon to be forgotten, or a transformative year, shaping European politics for years to come?

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25/12/2015

Migrant Workers Account for 150 Million of 232 Million International Migrants

Human Wrongs Watch

Geneva, December 2015 – Migrant workers account for 150.3 million of the world’s approximately 232 million international migrants, according to a new study by the International Labour Organization (ILO).* 

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Photo source: ILO

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The report, ILO Global Estimates on Migrant Workers , shows migrant workers account for 72.7 per cent of the 206.6 million working age migrant population (15 years and over).

The majority – 83.7 million – are men, with 66.6 million women migrant workers.

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