Archive for ‘Latin America & Caribbean’

01/08/2022

Equal in the Eyes of Bees

Human Wrongs Watch

(By FAO)* — “The turning point came when my husband and I participated in the FAO training together. That’s where my motivation to become a beekeeper came from,” says Fatoumata Kandé, a farmer and mother from the village of Sare Bidji in the Kolda region of southern Senegal.

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Mamadiang Mballo and Fatoumata Kandé both work as beekeepers and are finding new ways of working together after attending a gender-sensitive, FAO farmer field school training. ©FAO/ Yacine Cissé

“Beekeeping in Senegal has traditionally been considered a man’s job. The training helped me understand that I too can contribute and make a difference.”

As a member of the local cooperative, Coopérative Agroalimentaire de la Casamance – Miel (CAC/Miel), Fatoumata’s husband, 52-year-old Mamadiang Mballo, has practised beekeeping for over 15 years.

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01/08/2022

Nicaragua: Human Rights Experts Denounce Shutdown of over 700 Civil Society Groups

Human Wrongs Watch

(UN News)* — The arbitrary shutdown of hundreds of civil society organizations in Nicaragua is deeply concerning and will have a chilling effect on activists and human rights defenders across the country, UN-appointed independent human rights experts said on Friday [29 July 2022].

Artículo 66 | “They were students, not criminals” reads a 2018 demonstrator’s placard in Managua, Nicaragua. (file)

In a letter to the Nicaraguan Government last Monday, the group of 16 UN experts upheld that the action “represents a clear pattern of repressing civic space”.

The UN experts echoed a statement earlier this year by the High Commissioner for Human Rights regarding the crackdown. They expressed shock over the extent of the shutdowns by the National Assembly at the request of the Government – counting more than 700 closures, 487 in just the past month.

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30/07/2022

Of the Secret Leaks and the Baking Planet

Human Wrongs Watch

MADRID, Jul 29 2022 (IPS)* – Strangely enough, two major scientific findings, both announced in July, did not attribute the current dangerous world’s disasters to the proxy war unfolding in Ukraine.
The methane leaks are an open secret in the oil and gas industry and it is feeding the climate crisis, explains UNEP

Due to its structure, methane traps more heat in the atmosphere per molecule than carbon dioxide (CO2) making it 80 times more harmful than CO2 during the 20 years after it is released into the atmosphere.. Credit: Bigstock

One of them, launched by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), focuses on the dangers of what it calls: “secret methane leaks.” Methane is a colourless, odourless gas, responsible for more than 25% of the global warming the Earth is experiencing today.

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30/07/2022

UN Committee against Torture: Focus on Botswana, Nicaragua, Palestine, United Arab Emirates

Human Wrongs Watch

(UN News)* — The UN Committee against Torture on Friday [29 July 2022] concluded its current session by releasing findings on Botswana, Nicaragua, the State of Palestine and the United Arab Emirates.

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Unsplash/Nathan Wright | People who have endured the ordeal of torture have an enforceable right to fair and adequate compensation.

The findings highlighted positive aspects of each country’s implementation of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, as well as concerns and recommendations.

Botswana and the Death Penalty 

The committee raised serious concerns over excessive and inhuman force concerning the use of the death penalty in Botswana.

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29/07/2022

“Don’t Get Trapped”: One Worker’s Warning about What Really Happens in the Fishing Industry

A fisher shares his story of forced labour in the high seas and how he’s taking action to help protect the rights of migrant workers in the fishing industry.

A fishing vessel at sea. © Abbie Trayler-Smith / Greenpeace

From 2019 to 2021, Pukaldi Saswanto did not touch land for 30 months whilst working on a fishing vessel. Originally from Bengkulu, a coastal province in Sumatra, Indonesia, Pukaldi had signed up with a recruitment agency to be a fisher based on a friend’s recommendation.

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29/07/2022

Heat Records Continue to Topple across the Globe as Concurrent Heatwaves Bake Multiple Countries

Human Wrongs Watch

29 July 2022 (UNEP)* — From the United States to Europe and China to Japan, extreme temperatures have soared for weeks, killing hundreds of people, sparking wildfires in Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, and Greece and displacing thousands of residents, as many seek refuge in public cooling centers.

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Photo by Reuters

Close to 90 cities have issued heat alerts, including several Japanese cities that broke heat records dating as far back as 1875, according to the Japanese Meteorological Agency.

Meanwhile, in the United States, more than 100 million people are under heat alerts as wildfires rage in California, leading President Joe Biden to consider declaring a climate emergency.

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28/07/2022

The World Was Already Broken. Shall Ukrainian Cereals Fix It Up?

Human Wrongs Watch

MADRID, Jul 28 2022 (IPS)* – A wide majority, including the United States, has cheered the 22 July Turkey-brooked agreement between Russia and Ukraine to resume cereals and fertilisers exports from both countries.

Credit: Bigstock

Such exports had been stopped since last February due to the ongoing proxy war in Ukraine, on the one hand, and the successive United States-led Western sanctions imposed on Russia.

The Istanbul agreement is set to allow both countries to release their cereals and fertilisers exports, under UN and international supervision.

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26/07/2022

Sowing Hunger, Reaping Profits – A Food Crisis by Design

Human Wrongs Watch

By Vandana Shiva | Navdanya International – TRANSCEND Media Service*

14 Jul 2022 – Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, headlines have been dominated by the warnings of risk in global food supply shortages and rising global food prices, all due to the conflict. But, according to many international groups, there is currently no risk of global food supply shortages. So why are so many countries now facing an increased risk of food insecurity, and in worst cases famine?

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23/07/2022

Latin America and Caribbean: Mega-Drought, Extreme Rainfall, Land and Marine Heatwaves, Deforestation, Glacier Melt…

22/07/2022

The Nitrogen Problem in Agriculture

Human Wrongs Watch

By Prof. Vandana Shiva | Navdanya International – TRANSCEND Media Service*

Reduce the use of chemical fertilisers, make the chemical industry pay for pollution instead of criminalising farmers who were trapped by the chemical treadmill through industrial agriculture.

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The nitrogen problem in Agriculture is a problem created by synthetic nitrogen fertilisers made from fossil fuels. Nitrogen fertilisers contribute to atmospheric pollution and climate change in the manufacture and the use of fertilisers.

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