“The time for manufacturing of weapons of war has passed as a viable industry for our nation, despite the way some of our political leadership clings to economies of the past.” — Lisa Savage, U.S. Senate candidate in Maine
Fincantieri Marine Group
On 25 June 2020 President Trump’s re-election efforts took him to the “battleground” state of Wisconsin, where he toured the Fincantieri MarinetteMarine shipyard. He railed against the Democrats as a scarier enemy than Russia or China.
He also celebrated Wisconsin’s win over domestic enemies like the state of Maine in securing a key shipbuilding project.
3 July 2020 (WMO)* — Climate change impacts are affecting water availability and are exacerbating the damages floods and drought cause worldwide. Climate related water action is a key for bringing us back on track to deliver Sustainable Development Goal 6, to ensure access to water and sanitation for all and to sustain a healthy environment.
WMO hosted a virtual diplomatic briefing on 2 July on plans for a Water and Climate Coalition aimed at building momentum on water and climate action through implementing concrete activities at the national, regional and global levels.
It is intended that the coalition will bring together UN partners and Members, donor governments, private sector, non-governmental organizations and financial institutions.
As of Friday [3 July 2020] morning, Brazil had reported 1,508,991 COVID-19 cases and 62,304 deaths.
Crosses installed in tribute to the victims of COVID-19, Brasilia, Brazil, June 28. | Photo: EFE
(teleSUR)* — Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro Friday [3 July 2020] passed a bill on the mandatory use of masks against COVID-19 but vetoed some provisions that required their use in places where people gather such as shops, religious temples, and schools.
The far-right politician, who has always downplayed the importance of physical isolation, argued that wearing masks in such cases “incurs a possible violation of residence” contrary to the Constitution.
“We don’t want to be used as government’s propaganda,” Indigenous leader Parana Yanomami said.
Members of the Yanomami community arrive at a military brigade, Surucucu, Brazil, 2020. | Photo: EFE
3 July 2020 (teleSUR)* — Indigenous leaders from the isolated Brazilian Yanomami community complained that a military mission sent to protect them from the coronavirus brought instead a risk of infection to their people through contact with journalists among other outsiders.
Federal prosecutors said they were investigating the visit for ignoring the wishes of Yanomami communities to remain isolated from society, violating rules of social distancing, and distributing chloroquine to Indigenous people.
If climate change directly affected white Westerners, action would have come quicker.
Climate activist Oladosu Adenike organising with schoolchildren in Abuja, Nigeria, 2019 | Oladosu Adenike (All rights reserved)
1 July 2020 (openDemocracy)* — We have known about climate change for decades. As early as 1992 the threat was sufficiently obvious, and the science sufficiently clear, to justify a UN treaty on the topic. Yet we’ve only even begun to get our act together in the last five or so years. Why?
On May 14, the Central Bank of Venezuela sued the Bank of England to obtain its gold bars.
The High Court in London, Britain, July 2, 2020. | Photo: EFE
(teleSUR)* — The United Kingdom’s High Court Thursday [2 July 2020] decided that opposition lawmaker Juan Guaido can access 31 tons of Venezuelan gold held in the Bank of England, which prevents President Nicolas Maduro’s administration from using those resources to fight the pandemic.
The ruling about this monetary reserve valued at over US $ 1 billion occurs after months of disputes between Venezuela and the Bank of England, which denied the constitutionally constituted government access to its own resources
3 July 2020 (United Nations)* — No country is immune from it. Greenhouse gas emissions are more than 50 percent higher than it was in 1990, and global warming is causing long-lasting changes to our climate system which threatens irreversible consequences if we do not act. Cooperatives for Climate Action was chosen as this year’s theme to address this, and to support Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13 on Climate Action.
Climate change severely impacts people’s livelihoods around the world, especially the most disadvantaged groups such as small-scale farmers, women, youth, indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities, who have to cope with extreme natural disasters and degradation of natural resources.
(UN News)* — A likely link between processed and fried foods containing so-called “transfats” and ovarian cancer has been identified by UN scientists, they said on Thursday [2 July 2020].
PAHO | Women with breast cancer receive free treatment at the National Cancer Institute in Mexico City.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) issued the announcement at the end of a study of nearly 1,500 patients suffering from the disease, which is the eighth most common cause of cancer death in women.
Previous, smaller studies have suggested a link between these industrially manufactured fatty foods and ovarian cancer, but the evidence has been “inconclusive” until now, said IARC’s Dr Inge Huybrechts.
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Jun 30 2020 (IPS)* – Seventy-five years ago, on 26 June 1945, before the Japanese surrender ending the Second World War, fifty nations gathered at San Francisco’s Opera House to sign the United Nations (UN) Charter.
UN Charter
Nations pledged “to practice tolerance and live together in peace …, and to ensure … that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples”.
They sought “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, … and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and to … promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom”.
UNITED NATIONS, New York (UNFPA)* – Every day, hundreds of thousands of girls around the world are harmed physically or psychologically, with the full knowledge and consent of their families, friends and communities. And without urgent action, the situation is likely to worsen.
Without urgent action, the situation for women and girls could worsen. Artwork by Fatma Mahmoud Salama Raslan.
