RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 26 2021 (IPS)* – For three weeks, the Brazilian government concealed the fact that deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest increased by nearly 22 percent last year, accentuating a trend that threatens to derail efforts to curb global warming. | En español
Brazil has a “green future,” announced Environment Minister Joaquim Leite and Vice-President Hamilton Mourão, in a videoconference presentation from Brasilia at the Glasgow climate summit, in an attempt to shore up Brazil’s credibility, damaged by Amazon deforestation. The two officials concealed the fact that deforestation in the Amazon rose by 21.9 percent last year. CREDIT: Marcelo Camargo/Agência Brasil-Fotos Públicas
Youth at the Grand Médine town hall in Dakar, Senegal. Senegal has a large youth population, half of which is under the age of 18. By 2025, 376,000 youth are expected to enter the job market that offers only 30,000 jobs. And this number will rise to 411,000 in 2030, according to the Wilson Centre. Credit: Samuelle Paul Banga/IPS
ACCRA, Ghana, Nov 25 2021 (IPS)* – The Covid-19 pandemic aggravated Africa’s already severe employment crisis. The solution lies in a long-term political and economic transformation.
(UN News)* — The number of people in need of humanitarian food assistance across northern Ethiopia has spiked as a direct result of ongoing conflict, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday [26 November 2021].
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Nov 23 2021 (IPS)* – When Bonolo Monthe’s neighbours discarded bucketsful of fallen ripe morula fruit from their backyard, she saw food and fortune going to waste.
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UNEP estimates that 50 percent of post-harvest losses occur in vegetable and fruit crops. However, innovative agro-processors have found a way to process Morula fruit into jams and other products. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS
Monthe took a tasty interest in the fruit of the morula (Sclerocarya birrea), a hardy indigenous tree that grows naturally across Africa. The morula fruit is rich in vitamins and nutrients, with eight times the vitamin C of oranges.
25 November 2021 (UNHCR)* — One in five refugee or internally displaced women have faced sexual violence. Today, given the prolonged human rights and socio-economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, we know this situation has only worsened. | Español | عربي
Moving Animals is a powerful short film about Jo-Anne McArthur’s documentation of the long-distance transport of animals, shot and produced by filmmaker Miguel Endara.
“This is my world. Join me as I climb transport trucks, and stay quietly and diligently with animals as they go to slaughter. Join me in the dusty roads and at my little hotel room editing desk, as Miguel and I discuss animals, animal photojournalism and, ultimately, kindness.”
(UN News)* — Following Israeli closures, restrictions and military operations, the West Bank has suffered two decades of arrested development and poverty, according to a report published on Wednesday 24 November 2021 by the UN trade and development body, UNCTAD.
With an economic toll of an estimated at $57.7 billion, the study estimated the cost to be equivalent to three and a half times the 2019 GDP of the occupied Palestinian territory’.
Moreover, it indicated that the minimum cost of eliminating poverty in the West Bank had increased six times between 1998 and 2007 – from $73 million to $428 million.
(UN News)* — Approximately three billion people, almost 40 per cent of the world’s population, cannot afford a healthy diet and another one billion people would join their ranks should further unpredictable events reduce incomes by one-third, the UN food agency said, launching a new report on Tuesday [23 November 2021].
(UN News)* — For the past five years, poverty, food insecurity, climate shocks and violence have pushed, on average, some 378,000 Central Americans a year into the United States, according to a new report launched on Tuesday [23 November 2021] by the UN food relief agency.
A joint report published by the World Food Programme (WFP), Migration Policy Institute (MPI), and Civic Data Design Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) also showed that a high price was paid in human and economic costs, including an annual $2.2 billion on regular and irregular travel.
This article is part of IPS coverage of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on Nov. 25, which kicks off 16 days of activism on the issue around the world. | En español
Despite restrictions due to covid, women from various feminist, youth and civil society groups gathered in the central Plaza San Martin in Lima and marched several blocks demanding justice and protesting impunity for violence against women, on Nov. 25, 2020. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS
LIMA, Nov 24 2021 (IPS)* – Despite significant legal advances in Latin American countries to address gender-based violence, it continues to be a serious challenge, especially in a context of social crisis aggravated by the covid-19 pandemic, which hits women especially hard.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 