'Unseen' News and Views
Pacific Islanders depend on coastal fisheries for food and commercial livelihoods. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS
(UN News)* — The world must be made a safer place for people working to protect the planet, who sometimes pay with their own lives for their activism, UN Human Rights High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet said on Tuesday [1 March 2022].
“Protecting the environment goes hand-in-hand with protecting the rights of those who defend it,”she told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, which is holding its annual month-long session.
Dangers of speaking out
Ms. Bachelet revealed how speaking out and standing up for environmental rights can come at enormous cost as activists have been killed or subjected to abuse, threats and harassment.
Credit: Parvez Ahmad/Unicef
The report “Why we don’t feel safe,” elaborated by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and released on 8 February 2022, adds that in the years leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic, people were on average living healthier, more prosperous and better lives than ever.
“Yet still a growing sense of unease has taken root and is flourishing.”
By 2050, minorities would make up more than 50 percent of the American population
26 February 2022 (Wall Street International)* — White Supremacy ideology is based upon the mythology that those designated and perceived as “white” in America are inherently superior to those of other races, especially black people, and should rightfully be the dominant and controlling group in the society.
Due to demographic pressures of growing elderly populations and the relative decline of workers paying taxes, governments are increasingly facing the need to adjust budgetary expenditures. Credit: K. S. Harikrishnan/IPS
COVID-19 Crisis: Extending Social Protection to Rural Populations Is Key to Recovery
In Africa, more than 80 percent of population lack access to social protection benefits of any kind. ©FAO/Olympia de Maismont
Rome, 24 February 2022 (FAO)* – The expansion of social protection for rural populations is a prerequisite for a sustainable, inclusive and resilient recovery from COVID-19 and must be at the core of the post-pandemic recovery policies, QU Dongyu, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), said on 24 February 2022 at the Global Forum for a Human-Centred Recovery hosted by the International Labour Organization (ILO).
As citizens we must prevent our politicians from pursuing this insane brinksmanship
26 February 2022 (Wall Street International)* —In many countries, and especially in the United States, we do not have “government of the people, by the people, and for the people”, which Abraham Lincoln called for in his famous Gettysburg Address.
Instead, we have government of the people, by corrupt politicians and for the enrichment of corporate oligarchs. In the United States, both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party (with the exception of progressive Democrats) owe their allegiance, not to the people, not to the voters, but to large corporate donors.
(UN News)* — The impact of extreme weather on Madagascar is an example of the “runaway humanitarian needs” the world will face, unless it takes action to tackle the climate crisis, the World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday [25 February 2022].
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New report details exploitative practices employed by $55 billion formula industry, compromising child nutrition, violating international commitments.
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The report, How marketing of formula milk influences our decisions on infant feeding, draws on interviews with parents, pregnant women and health workers in eight countries.
It uncovers systematic and unethical marketing strategies used by the formula milk industry – now worth a staggering US$55 billion – to influence parents’ infant feeding decisions.
– Nothing is wasted from sugarcane, one can conclude from the biomethane production process at the Cocal plant, a Brazilian company that produces sugar, ethanol, electricity and other by-products from sugarcane agro-industrial waste.
Biomethane, equivalent to natural gas, which is methane of fossil origin, is the result of a long chain starting with the planting of sugarcane, originally intended for the production of sugar and spirits.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 