Archive for ‘Latin America & Caribbean’

02/02/2021

Governments, Businesses Leaders, Civil Society and Environmentalists from around the World Set for Pivotal Environmental Assembly

1 February 2021 (UNEP)* — In February 2021, representatives of the 193 Member States of the UN, businesses leaders, civil society and environmentalists from around the world will come together virtually for the fifth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA), the world’s highest environmental decision-making body.

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Photo by UNEP / 01 Feb 2021

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) answers frequently-asked questions about this biennial assembly, which aims to galvanize international action on climate change, pollution and ecosystem loss.

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01/02/2021

An Open Letter to President Biden…

Human Wrongs Watch

By Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate – TRANSCEND Media Service*

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Press Release from Peace People – 25 Jan 2021

… to Address the Following Requests

Dear Mr President,

Please accept my congratulations and best wishes with your work as President.

I have two urgent requests to ask of you.

1) Free Julian Assange

Please do all you can to free Julian Assange and let him go home to his family. He has served long enough; his family hankers for his presence and for his punishment to end.

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01/02/2021

Making Seawater Potable in Mexico Has High Costs and Environmental Impacts

Human Wrongs Watch

MEXICO CITY, Jan 31 2021 (IPS)* – Mexico is seeking to mitigate water shortages in part of its extensive territory by resorting to seawater, through the expansion of desalination plants. But this solution has exorbitant costs and significant environmental impacts. | En español

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This projected desalination plant in Los Cabos, whose construction received final approval in October 2020, will have a capacity to purify 250 litres of water per second and its cost will exceed 55 million dollars, according to figures from the Baja California Sur state government. CREDIT: Government of Baja California Sur

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31/01/2021

Mega-Rich Recoup COVID-Losses in Record-Time Yet Billions Will Live in Poverty for at Least a Decade

By OXFAM International*

25 January 2021 – The 1,000 richest people on the planet recouped their COVID-19 losses within just nine months, but it could take more than a decade for the world’s poorest to recover from the economic impacts of the pandemic, reveals a new Oxfam report today. ‘The Inequality Virus’ is being published on the opening day of the World Economic Forum’s ‘Davos Agenda’.
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Image from OXFAM International.
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The report shows that COVID-19 has the potential to increase economic inequality in almost every country at once, the first time this has happened since records began over a century ago. Rising inequality means it could take at least 14 times longer for the number of people living in poverty to return to pre-pandemic levels than it took for the fortunes of the top 1,000, mostly White male, billionaires to bounce back. 
31/01/2021

Who Decides What Books We Read

By Sue Stephenson*

The entire process of how books are chosen is too secretive considering its societal impact

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Bart's Books, Ojai, California
Bart’s Books, Ojai, California | Image from Wall Street International.

30 January 2021 (Wall Street International)* — The books we read influence our thinking and our opinions—sometimes for generations.

Yet as readers and writers, we know so little about those who decide which books we

The entire process of how books are chosen is too secretive considering its societal impact.

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31/01/2021

Fair Finance: The Women Entrepreneurs Lifting Communities Out of Poverty

31 January 2021 (UN News)*Helping women start and grow businesses in the world’s poorest countries is a path to lifting them and their families out of poverty, the high-profile businesswoman, and new UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) Goodwill Ambassador Sonia Gardner, has told UN News, in the second of our two part series this weekend, on the role the financial sector can play in reducing inequality.
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Moroccan-born Ms. Gardner, is one of the most prominent senior women in the financial sector, and has been an industry leader for over two decades, as president of a multi-billion dollar New York-based global alternative investment fund.
30/01/2021

Nation-State Attacks

Human Wrongs Watch

By Fernando Velázquez*

Intelligent preparation of the battle-space

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Sophisticated nation-state cyber-attacks involved U.S. federal agencies
Sophisticated nation-state cyber-attacks involved U.S. federal agencies | Image from Wall Street International.

You’ve been hacked. It was by a nation-state.

27 January 2021 (Wall Street International)*  —  The latest example of this type of cyber attack involved U.S. federal agencies and high-profile companies that were breached via a compromised and weaponized version of a software update from a connected third party.

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30/01/2021

Restore School Meals or ‘Risk Losing a Whole Generation’ – World Food Programme and UNICEF

Human Wrongs Watch

By Peyvand Khorsandi*

World Food Programme and UNICEF call on governments to act on nutrition crisis as Covid-19 school closures reduce the diets of 370 million of the most vulnerable children by 40 percent
Schoolgirls in Beira, Mozambique, taking home rations before schools closed in April. Photo: Karel Prinsloo/Arete/UN Mozambique
Mozambique: Schoolgirls in Beira receive rations before schools close in April. Photo: Karel Prinsloo/Arete/UN Mozambique

Children are at the centre of a nutrition crisis, according to the World Food Programme (WFP) and UNICEF.

In a new report, led by the Unicef Office of Research – Innocenti, the UN agencies urge governments to prioritize the reopening of schools while making sure the health, food and nutritional needs of children are met through comprehensive school feeding programmes.

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30/01/2021

European Union Must Place Social Justice ‘At Its Core’ to Lift People Out of Poverty

Human Wrongs Watch

(UN News)*The European Union’s failure to lift 20 million people out of poverty by 2020, is “a defeat for social rights”, an independent UN human rights expert said on Friday [29 January 2021], urging the bloc to boldly rethink its whole socio-economic approach.

World Bank/Mano Strauch | Some 20 million children in the EU are at risk of poverty according to the Special Rapporteur’s report.
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Speaking at the end of an official visit to assess how EU institutions are operating, Olivier De Schutter, Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, warned the States that make up the 27-member bloc “should not fall into complacency”. 

“Since the EU has experienced steady economic and employment growth until very recently, the only explanation for this failure is that the benefits have not been evenly distributed”, he said.

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30/01/2021

Fair Finance: How Can the Global Inequality Gap Be Narrowed?

30 January 2021 (UN News)*Reducing inequality is one of the UN’s flagship goals, but the gulf between rich and poor worldwide, remains persistently high. In the first of a special two-part series on the financial sector this weekend, Hiro Mizuno, the newly-appointed UN Special Envoy on Innovative Finance and Sustainable Investments, explains how the industry can help to create a fairer, more equitable world.
 

Before his appointment as Special Envoy, on 30 December 2020, Mr. Mizuno, of Japan, served as Chief Investment Officer of the Japan Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF). He serves on the board of the Principles for Responsible Investment Association (PRI, an UN-backed body that aims to create sustainable markets that contribute to a more prosperous world for all), and has taken part in UN discussions on promoting the Sustainable Development Goals.

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