
Thousands of people form a huge peace sign to protest against the invasion of Ukraine in Heroes’ Square, Budapest. © Bence Jardany / Greenpeace
'Unseen' News and Views

Thousands of people form a huge peace sign to protest against the invasion of Ukraine in Heroes’ Square, Budapest. © Bence Jardany / Greenpeace
Protecting plant health can help end hunger, reduce poverty, protect biodiversity and the environment, and boost economic development. Credit: Saleem Shaikh/IPS
As dangerous as the fact that up to 40% of food crops are lost due to plant pests and diseases every single year, according to the world top food and agriculture organisation.
This is affecting both food security and agriculture, the main source of income for vulnerable rural communities, FAOwarns on the occasion of the International Day of Plant Health, marked 12 May 2022.
The We Are Human, We Are Free Campaign
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Millions of people worldwide are aware that their lives, and their children’s lives, are being threatened by lockdowns, vaccine mandates and loss of free speech.
And there is a growing awareness that these immediate and obvious threats are merely parts of a complex overall plan to implement a technocratic system of world governance that can be described as a neo-feudal system that seeks to increase and consolidate the power and wealth of the world’s billionaire individuals and families by destroying any possibility of autonomous individual behaviour.
The intention of these psychopathic elitists is that we ‘the people’ become literal extensions of their will, through technological invasion of all aspects of our lives which will lead to the total loss of our capacity to feel, think and act for ourselves.
Caught in a web of deceit, a human trafficking survivor from Ghana tells her story. Credit: Getty Images
Cissy says although she was a bit sceptical about the offer and afraid of her destination country, the so-called travel agent convinced her that she had nothing to worry about.
Bernie Sanders, a Democratic Socialist
Senator Bernie Sanders (Independent, Vermont) describes himself as a democratic socialist. When asked to explain in more detail what he means by this, he says that he believes that the United States would benefit from having a social system more like those found in the Scandinavian countries.
The Danish Political and Social System

John Scales Avery
I have lived and worked in Denmark for the last half century, teaching at the University of Copenhagen until my retirement, and I am married to a Danish wife.
This gives me some knowledge of the way that the social system works in Denmark, and I will try to describe it for you.
Denmark has a market economy, with private corporations, but it also has cooperatives, owned by the users. The main thing that distinguishes Denmark from a country like the United States is the very high and steeply progressive rate of taxation. Because rich people are taxed so extremely heavily, it is difficult for anyone to become very rich.
(UN News)* — The 15th session of the Conference of Parties (COP15) to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), kicked-off on Monday [9 May 2022], in the Ivorian “economic” capital.

Against the backdrop of a UNCCD warning that up to 40 per cent of all ice-free land has already degraded, threatening dire consequences for climate, biodiversity, and livelihoods, world leaders are meeting in Abidjan under the theme of “Land, Life. Legacy: From scarcity to prosperity”.
“We are faced with a crucial choice,” Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed told the participants.
Geneva, 9 May 2022 (WMO)* – There is a 50:50 chance of the annual average global temperature temporarily reaching 1.5 °C above the pre-industrial level for at least one of the next five years – and the likelihood is increasing with time, according to a new climate update issued by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
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People require humanitarian assistance, livelihood support, jobs, and long-term investment to help solve the crisis.

WFP/Arete/Andrew Quilty
KABUL, (WFP)* – 19.7 million people, almost half of Afghanistan’s population, are facing acute hunger according to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis conducted in January and February 2022 by Food Security and Agriculture Cluster partners, including the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and many NGOs.
With few ways to earn income on the border, many young men turn to the dangerous but well-paid work of people smuggling.

Graffiti on the US-Mexico border wall | Mike Hardiman/Alamy Stock Photo. All rights reserved
The international community calls for a shift towards better prevention, anticipation, and targeting to address the root causes of food crises.
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Conflict remains the main driver of acute food insecurity. ©FAO/Sonia Nguyen
Rome (FAO)* – The number of people facing acute food insecurity and requiring urgent life-saving food assistance and livelihood support continues to grow at an alarming rate.
This makes it more urgent than ever to tackle the root causes of food crises rather than just responding after they occur.