Archive for ‘Latin America & Caribbean’

22/08/2019

Fascism, Then and Now

21/08/2019

‘Restraint and Genuine Dialogue in the Middle East, Urgently Needed to Avoid a Major Confrontation, Which Would Have Disastrous Consequences, Even Well beyond the Region’

Human Wrongs Watch

UN Photo/Manuel Elias | Maria Luiza Viotti, Chef de Cabinet to Secretary-General António Guterres, briefs the Security Council meeting on challenges to peace and security in the Middle East. (20 August 2019)
21/08/2019

5 Ways to Reduce Our Reliance on Plastic

21 August 2019 (FAO)*Plastic is so prevalent in our lives that we don’t even notice it anymore. It is convenient. It is cheap. It is ubiquitous. The unfortunate truth is that more than 70 percent of the plastic we use does not get recycled, and much of this plastic trash gets swept into our oceans from beaches or gets washed into rivers from our streets. An estimated 5 trillion pieces of plastic currently float in our oceans.
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An estimated 5 trillion pieces of plastic are currently in our oceans. ©Kochneva Tetyana/shutterstock.com (Photo from FAO).

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21/08/2019

Negotiating Legally-Binding Agreement to Provide Future Generations with a ‘Healthy, Resilient and Productive Ocean’

Human Wrongs Watch

20 August 2019 — While the world’s oceans contain some 200,000 identified living species, the actual numbers could reach the millions ­­– all exposed to the dangers of climate change, pollution and over-exploitation. To stem these threats, the United Nations is meeting to negotiate a treaty that would protect three-quarters of the earth’s surface by 2030.

UNEP/NOOR/Kadir van Lohuizen | An underwater sculpture at Molinere Bay, in the Marine Protected Area of Grenada.
21/08/2019

‘Invisible’ Crisis of Water Quality Threatens Human and Environmental Well-Being: World Bank Report

Human Wrongs Watch

Deteriorating water quality worldwide is slashing the economic potential of heavily polluted areas, according to a new World Bank report, released on Tuesday [20 August 2019]. It also warns that the “invisible crisis of water quality” is threatening human and environmental well-being.

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John Hogg / World Bank | Water, along with pollutants and contaminating agents, flows into a canal in Maputo, Mozambique. (File) Photo: John Hogg / World Bank

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20/08/2019

South Must Also Set International Tax Rules

Human Wrongs Watch

SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 20 2019 (IPS)* – Recently, Christine Lagarde, outgoing Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), argued that developing ‘countries need a seat at the table’ to design rules governing international corporate taxation.

Anis Chowdhury

This acknowledges recent IMF findings that developing countries lose approximately USD200 billion in potential tax revenue yearly, about 1.3 per cent of their GDP, due to companies shifting profits to low-tax locations.

Oxfam estimated in 2018 that extreme poverty could be eradicated for USD107 billion annually, i.e., about half the lost revenue.

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19/08/2019

America’s Migratory Routes Reach Grim Milestone: Over 500 Deaths So Far in 2019

Geneva, 16 August 2019 (IOM)*  –  In total, at least 514 people have lost their lives in the Americas in 2019, compared with 384 recorded through this point in 2018 – an increase of just over one-third.

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This is the earliest point in any of the past six years that IOM’s Missing Migrants Project has reached a threshold of 500 or more deaths in the Americas.

In prior years, the 500-death mark was reached in either September (2016), October (2017, 2018) or December (2015), or, in the case of 2014, not at all, as only 495 deaths were recorded of migrants in transit in the Americas that year.

Women (67 deaths) and children (40) made up just over one-fifth of all deaths recorded in the Americas in 2019, although remains also were recovered from 137 sites where the age and gender of the deceased has yet to be determined.

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19/08/2019

All-Women Team Provides Life-Saving Humanitarian Support in Marawi [Philippines]

19/08/2019

Prisoners Of The Cyber Space – Click Delete to Save Your Mind

Human Wrongs Watch

By Fernando Velázquez*

August 2019 (Wall Street International)*  — We are at the beginning of the 21st century, which means these words will be read mostly by non-people: automata or stunned crowds that no longer act as individuals, words will be chopped up, atomized and turned into search engine keywords within industrial conglomerates of cloud computing, located around the world in remote, hidden places, words will be copied millions of times by algorithms designed to send an advertisement to someone, somewhere, who accidentally identifies itself with something I say.

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Prisoner of the cyber space | Image from Wall Street International.
19/08/2019

‘The Work of Women Humanitarians Makes a “Huge Difference” to the Lives of Millions of Women, Men and Children in Urgent Need’ – World Humanitarian Day

Human Wrongs Watch

The work of women humanitarians makes a “huge difference” to the lives of millions of women, men and children in urgent need, the United Nations chief said in his message for World Humanitarian Day.

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©UNICEF/Brown | A volunteer at the Primary Health Centre in on of Cox’s Bazaar’s vast refugee camps inoculates the baby of an 18-year-old mother, Bangladesh 2019.
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