'Unseen' News and Views
24 July 2021 (UN News)* — Farmers, especially women and indigenous people, work tirelessly to put food on our tables. UN Deputy Secretary General Amina Mohammed met on Saturday 24 July 2021 women producers at a farmers’ market in Circo Massimo, Rome, ahead of the Food Systems Pre-Summit taking place next week.
©IFAD/ David Paqui
“Rural people have long been side-lined in food value chains. While they toil to produce much of our food, too often they receive a pittance for their efforts and are left vulnerable to shocks,” said Gilbert F. Houngbo, President of IFAD, the UN agency which leads on tackling rural poverty and hunger.
“This is a critical moment to address the inequity of our food systems. Without concrete actions that result in real changes for rural producers, hunger and poverty will only grow, and increased instability and migration will follow,” he added.
The coronavirus pandemic is not yet over — despite our most optimistic thinking — and this year’s Defense News Top 100 list offers hints of how the broader international defense market has coped.
The answer appears to be that national security firms have fared well. Very well.
(Martin Barraud/Getty Images)
Consider that six of the 10 largest U.S. defense companies had revenues jump by 6 percent or more — a total of about $11 billion — from fiscal 2019. And all seven Chinese firms on the list grew during the last year as well.
23 July 2021 (Wall Street International)* — Above our heads, man-made satellites wage war against the stars.
On Earth, a handful of CEOs plan to put hundreds of thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit—in addition to the 5,0001 satellites already launched.
Altogether, these satellites will outnumber the stars visible to the naked eye tenfold.
New York (UNDP)* – In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the gap between extreme wealth and extreme poverty and vulnerability that characterizes the region, was made more evident and deepened even further.
New Global Dashboard on COVID-19 Vaccine Equity finds low-income countries would add $38 billion to their GDP forecast for 2021 if they had the same vaccination rate as high-income countries. Global economic recovery at risk if vaccines are not equitably manufactured, scaled up and distributed.
BEIRUT, 23 July 2021 (UNICEF)* – More than four million people, including one million refugees, are at immediate risk of losing access to safe water in Lebanon.
22 July 2021 (UNEP)* — For the last half-century, money and meat have been a package deal: Across the globe, as wealth increases, so does consumption of animal-based foods. And by 2050, the demand for animal-based foods could increase by as much as 70 per cent.
The irony, of course, is that this voracious consumption has not necessarily improved the quality of human life.
In addition to the fact that many of us are eating more animal-sourced food than is healthy, livestock production is a major contributor to climate change, causes habitat loss and reduces biodiversity, and can facilitate the transmission of zoonotic diseases like COVID-19.
Supposedly increased social protections may just be new words for old policies.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 