During my time as an oceans campaigner at Greenpeace, I’ve sat in a tiny boat in the middle of the Indian Ocean, watching a fishing boat pull in miles of drift nets. The nets were full of tuna, but there were also dead spinner dolphins, manta rays, thresher sharks and more – a grim demonstration of devastation at sea. I’ve been right up close with some of the biggest fishing vessels in the world, watching as they haul out incomprehensible numbers of fish.
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Mar 23 2021 (IPS)* – At least 85 poor countries will not have significant access to coronavirus vaccines before 2023. Unfortunately, a year’s delay will cause an estimated 2.5 million avoidable deaths in low and lower-middle income countries. As the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General has put it, the world is at the brink of a catastrophic moral failure.
Anis Chowdhury
Vaccine apartheid
The EU, US, UK, Switzerland, Canada and their allies continue to block the developing country proposal to temporarily suspend the World Trade Organization (WTO) Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement to enable greatly increased, affordable supplies of COVID-19 vaccines, drugs, tests and equipment.
Meanwhile, 6.4 billion of the 12.5 billion vaccine doses the main producers plan to produce in 2021 have already been pre-ordered, mostly by these countries, with 13% of the global population.
ROME (FAO)* – Acute hunger is set to soar in over 20 countries in the coming months without urgent and scaled-up assistance, warn the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP) in a new report issued on 23 March 2021.
Agong and her child in South Sudan, where over 7 million people are projected to fall into crisis or worse levels of acute food insecurity.
Nairobi/Stockholm, 22 March 2021 (UNEP)* – A book by Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), launched on World Water Day, reports that the sanitation waste of 50% of the global population is still disposed of without having been treated – posing enormous risks to both public health and the environment.
Geneva, 23 March 2021 (WMO)* – The ocean drives the world’s weather and climate and anchors the global economy and food security. Climate change is hitting the ocean hard, but also increasing hazards for hundreds of millions of people.
23 March 2021 (UN News)* — United Nations humanitarian personnel are on the ground evacuating and assisting tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees, after a devastating fire tore through their densely populated camp in southern Bangladesh.
UNICEF Bangladesh 2021 | Charred remains of shelters and belongings of Rohingya refugees after a devastating fire tore through the Kutupalong refugee camp on 22 March.
Though exact numbers are yet to be confirmed, initial estimates indicate that more than 87,000 refugees could have been affected in the fire, which started around 3pm on Monday (local time) in Camp 8W of the Kutupalong mega camp.
It is not currently clear exactly how the fire started.
The blaze then rapidly spread to Camps 8E, 9 and 10. In all, about 66 per cent of the four camps’ populations have been impacted, according to the UN International Organization for Migration (IOM).
UN chief ‘profoundly concerned’ over rise in violence against Asians
Unsplash/Jason Leung | In San Francisco in the United States, demonstrators take to the streets to protest against the rise of race-related hate crimes against people of Asian descent.
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22 March 2021 (UN News)* — The UN Secretary-General António Guterres has issued a statement expressing his profound concern over the rise in violence against Asians, and people of Asian descent, during the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Collective commitment needed to end the ‘poison’ of racism: UN cultural chief says
UN News/Shirin Yaseen | Anti-racism protesters in Brooklyn, New York, demonstrate demanding justice for the killing of African American, George Floyd.
(UN News)* — With the COVID-19 pandemic providing fertile ground for the resurgence of racism and discrimination, the head of the UN’s educational and cultural agency, UNESCO, on 22 March 2021 called for countries to stand united in what she described as “these testing times”.
19 March 2021 (UNEP)* — Globally, over 3 billion people are at risk of disease because the water quality of their rivers, lakes and groundwater is unknown, due to a lack of data.
UNEP / Lisa Murray / 19 Mar 2021
Meanwhile, a fifth of the world’s river basins are experiencing dramatic fluctuations in water availability, and 2.3 billion people are living in countries categorized as “water-stressed,” including 721 million in areas where the water situation is “critical,” according to recent research carried out by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and partners.
The world needs to get water smart. Everyone has a role to play, and we cannot afford to wait.
UNICEF/UN0328236/Chakma
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18 March 2021 (UNICEF)* — Climate change is disrupting weather patterns, leading to extreme weather events, unpredictable water availability, exacerbating water scarcity and contaminating water supplies. Such impacts can drastically affect the quantity and quality of water that children need to survive.
Today, a change in climate is felt primarily through a change in water. Millions of children are at risk.
Agong and her child in South Sudan, where over 7 million people are projected to fall into crisis or worse levels of acute food insecurity.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 