I support family in Ethiopia, have to pay my Lebanese sponsor who keeps my passport – and my cleaning work has stopped with lockdown. #HumansofCOVID19
“My employers fear that I might infect them because I share an apartment with other people | Selam Abebe
24 April 2020 (openDemocracy)* — I am a domestic worker. I clean people’s houses. I am from Ethiopia but I came here to Lebanon nine years ago. I could only finish grade nine at home and then I had to start working. But I was earning a very low salary in a beauty salon back home in Ethiopia, so I came to Beirut.
In Chile, private ownership of water is guaranteed in the Constitution
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Chile is the only country in the world where water is private | Image from Wall Street International.
I want to go back to girlish lands; take me to a land soft of waters.
(Gabriela Mistral)
24 April 2020 (Wall Street International)*— For 10 years, Chile has been facing what is already considered a mega drought or the worst drought in its history, covering six regions North and South of the capital, including Santiago.
24 April 2020 (UN Environment)* — In this video, Bernard Bett discusses the delicate relationship between humans, wildlife and the pathogens that circulate among them in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Bett leads research on neglected and emerging infectious diseases at the International Livestock Research Institute as part of the research portfolio under the Improving Human Health flagship.
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His studies of zoonoses–diseases that are transmissible between animals and humans–informed the UNEP Frontiers 2016 Report and drew attention to the issue that now concerns just about everyone.
23 Apr, 2020 (RT)* — As fear and uncertainty swirl around the Covid-19 epidemic, an invisible evil potentially lurking anywhere, protective measures like masks have taken on a talismanic quality, and a religion built on shaming ‘heretics’ is growing.
Unable to see the microscopic “enemy” and bereft of a scientifically proven cure, those seeking deliverance from the new coronavirus are left with only their faith that the measures prescribed by health experts –our scientific priest class– will work to keep it at bay. That’s all well and good until those who buck the new orthodoxy are scapegoated for the plague.
By Mennatallah Homaid, Media and Communications Assistant, IOM Yemen*
“Before I came to Yemen, I was full of hope about the life I would have in the Gulf,” said seventeen-year-old Almaz. “But nobody told me about the war.”
Almaz in her wheelchair at IOM’s foster family after losing her leg. Photo: IOM 2020/ Mennatallah Homaid
Close to six years of conflict in Yemen have had little impact on the number of people travelling on the Eastern Route from the Horn of Africa to the Arabian Gulf. Many are not aware that they will enter a conflict zone by making the sea voyage across the Gulf of Aden.
Geneva, 23 April 2020 (WHO)* —Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, WHO has seen a dramatic increase in the number of cyber attacks directed at its staff, and email scams targeting the public at large.
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This week, some 450 active WHO email addresses and passwords were leaked online along with thousands belonging to others working on the novel coronavirus response.
23 April 2020 (UN Environment)* — In the past, coronaviruses that circulated in humans caused only mild infections. This changed in 2002, when the SARS-CoV virus presented itself in humans as the disease we now know as SARS. In 2020, SARS-CoV-2–a relative of the same virus–has presented itself in humans in the disease we now call COVID-19.
Photo by Unsplash/@capyvara
Bernard Bett leads research on neglected and emerging infectious diseases at the International Livestock Research Institute as part of the research portfolio under the Improving Human Health flagship.
Geneva 22 April 2020 (WMO)* — In the 50 years since the first celebration of Earth Day, the physical signs of climate change and impacts on our planet have gathered pace, reaching a crescendo in the past five years, which were the hottest on record. That trend is expected to continue, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
Carbon dioxide levels at a key global observing station are about 26 percent higher than in 1970, whilst the average global temperature has increased by 0.86°C since then, and is 1.1°C warmer than the pre-industrial era.
(UN News)* — In his message for International Mother Earth Day this Wednesday [22 April 2020], UN Secretary-General António Guterres acknowledged that all eyes are on the COVID-19 pandemic, which he flagged as “an unprecedented wake-up call.”
NASA | The Earth, an image created from photographs taken by the Suomi NPP satellite.
Recognizing the “immediate and dreadful” impact of the coronavirus, the UN chief urged everyone to “work together to save lives, ease suffering and lessen the shattering economic and social consequence”.
(UN News)* — An expected drop in greenhouse gas emissions linked to the global economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is only “short-term good news”, the head of the UN weather agency said on Wednesday [22 April 2020].
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WMO/Kabelo Tamocha | The World Meteorological Organization says above average temperatures are expected in many parts of the world in the first months of 2020.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 