UN Environment Assembly sets stage for green recovery
REUTERS/Pilar Olivares / 15 Feb 2021
15 February 2021 (UNEP)* — In addition to the tragic loss of life, COVID-19 has rolled back decades of progress on poverty, gender and health. It has exposed social and economic inequalities and the inextricable link between human and planetary health.
The pandemic is just one symptom of the damage that human activity has caused. The extraction and consumption of nature’s resources have also resulted in crises of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and growing volumes of pollution and waste.
Victoria Nuland exemplifies the neocons who have led US foreign policy from one disaster to another for the past 30 years while evading accountability. It is a bad sign that President Joe Biden has nominated Victoria Nuland for the third highest position at the State Department, Under Secretary for Political Affairs.
Rick Sterling
As a top-level appointee, Victoria Nuland must be confirmed by the US Senate. There is a campaign to Stop her confirmation.
The following review of her work shows why Victoria Nuland is incompetent, highly dangerous and should not be confirmed.
Afghanistan and Iraq
From 2000 to 2003, Nuland was US permanent representative to NATO as the Bush administration attacked then invaded Afghanistan. The Afghan government offered to work with the US remove Al Qaeda, but this was rejected.
After Al Qaeda was defeated, the US could have left Afghanistan but instead stayed, established semi-permanent bases, split the country, and is still fighting there two decades later.
By Hilde F. Johnson, Norway’s Former Minister of International Development*
This is certainly not the time to leave the region to its own devices
The Horn of Africa is the playground for the rising aspirations of several geopolitical actors | Image from Wall Street International.
15 February 2021 (Wall Street International)* — The Trump administration left a vacuum in many parts of Africa. This had consequences. When the US retreats, others come in and occupy the space. China has gone full speed ahead with the Belt and Road initiative, massively investing in many African countries, nurturing new friendships. The Gulf States have used the opportunity to approach new allies on the African continent, in a battle for hegemony in the Middle East and beyond.
On May 29, 2020 over 20 thousand tons of diesel leaked into the water and soil from a storage tank owned by Norilsk Nickel near Norilsk, turning the Ambarnaya River red. According to official data, the oil spill in Norilsk is the largest ever in the polar Arctic. Norilsk Nickel were taken to a local court for the damage by the Rosprirodnadzor (the Federal Service for the Supervision of Natural Resources), a regulator which is part of the Ministry of Natural Resources in Russia.
This Brazilian facility operates at a church and with donations of oxygen cylinders and other medical supplies.
Health volunteers at the Support Unit, Parque das Tribos, Manaus, Brazil, Jan. 22, 2021. | Photo: Twitter/ @GreenpeaceBR
13 February 2021 (teleSUR)* — In response to the inefficiency of the Brazilian authorities, the residents of the Manaus neighborhood “Tribes Park” (Parque das Tribos) set up their “Support Unit” (SU), a rudimentary field hospital to treat COVID-19 patients.
Despite the high number of COVID-19 cases, they are not being treated directly by the Special Secretariat for Indigenous Health (SESAI) because they reside in an urban area.
13 February 2021 (IWGIA)* — La Guajira is a unique place. Located in the northern-most part of Colombia, it borders on the Caribbean Sea and features a desert landscape adorned with the rare vegetation of the dry, subtropical forest. As one delves deeper into the region, to the so-called Alta Guajira, the flora diminishes until there is nothing but thorny bushes called trumpillos. Likewise, the comforts of Western civilization also fade out as one gets farther from the coast.
The struggle against climate change can be neutralized by the circumstances and conditions under which the clean energy transition is carried out. The behaviour of wind-energy companies in La Guajira, the territory of the Wayuu indigenous people, serves as an illustrative example.
After I’d begun learning about telecommunications’ public health and environmental impacts; after more children than I can count became screen addicts; after studies showed that using a mobile phone increases risk of cancer (but didn’t get media attention) and far too many people got brain or tongue or thyroid cancer; after countless legislative sessions prohibited policymakers from considering the health or environmental effects of exposure to electromagnetic radiation when they voted to permit or deny new transmitting cellular antennas; after learning that 5G mobile networks’ deployment will increase telecommunications’ energy use and greenhouse gas emissions exponentially and increase the public’s and wildlife’s exposure to electromagnetic radiation, I admitted to myself that I am powerless over telecom corporations and that my life has become unmanageable.
ADDIS ABABA/NAIROBI/GENEVA/NEW YORK, 12 February 2021 (UNICEF)* – As more supplies and emergency personnel reach crisis-affected people in Tigray, an incomplete but troubling picture is emerging of severe and ongoing harm to children.
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UNICEF/UN0412581/Leul Kinfu7-month-old Natan Hailay eats a high energy biscuit to boost his nutrition levels.Natan’s family are displaced from the Western Zone of Tigray Setit Humara Woreda and currently sheltered at Meserete high school in Mekelle.
Between 4 February and 7 February, a UNICEF team accompanied by the Regional Health Bureau Head travelled from Mekelle to the town of Shire in Central Tigray, with six trucks filled with 122 tons of emergency supplies. This was the first UN mission to Shire since the conflict erupted on 4 November 2020.
Humanitarian crisis continues to exert a terrible toll on children, warn FAO, UNICEF, WFP and WHO
WFP/Alaa Noman, Mother at the health centre because one of her daughters 1 year and 4 months is suffering from malnutrition. Malnutrition surges among young children in Yemen as conditions worsen. WFP provides nutrition support to children and mothers in Yemen to both treat and prevent malnutrition.
SANA’A/ADEN/ROME/NEW YORK/GENEVA, Nearly 2.3 million children under the age of five in Yemen are projected to suffer from acute malnutrition in 2021, four United Nations agencies warned today [12 February 2021]. Of these, 400,000 are expected to suffer from severe acute malnutrition and could die if they do not receive urgent treatment.
(UN News)* — More children could be pushed into the joining armed forces and armed groups due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, senior United Nations and European Union (EU) officials said on International Day against the Use of Child Soldiers, observed on Thursday [12 February 2021].
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UNICEF/Sebastian Rich | A child solider sits on a log during a ceremony to release children from an armed group in South Sudan, in 2018. However, the risks of recruitment and use of children by armed forces and groups have risen due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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In a joint statement EU High Representative Josep Borrell and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict Virginia Gamba also warned that very few among those released by armed forces and groups are able to access reintegration programmes or support.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 