06/01/2021
Oh, Lord won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz.
My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends.
Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends.
So, oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz.
Janis Joplin, 1970
James Dean accident.
STOCKHOLM / ROME, Jan 6 2021 (IPS)* – COVID-19 has made several of us aware of the frailty of our bodies, the certainty of death and how valuable health, companionship and compassion are. Such insights are not uncommon in poor societies where a person’s main and perhaps only asset is her/his body and what s/he is able to do with her/his hands.
However, wealthy and privileged people are surrounded by, dependent on, and even integrated with an ever more sophisticated technology, which increasingly, for better or worse, is separating us from what human existence has been for thousands of years.
Once technology has made its entry into the human sphere; from fire and wheels, to printing presses, trains, radio, aircraft, TV, the Intranet, sophisticated weaponry and … cars, everyone’s life, even unprivileged ones, has changed to an extent that it is difficult to fathom. For example, cars were invented as an effective and comfortable means of transport, but they soon became so much more.
read more »
Posted in Africa, Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, Market Lords, Middle East, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples |
Leave a Comment »
06/01/2021
What can we do to avoid this crisis
5 January 2021 (Wall Street International)* — Here are some quotations from a December 2, 2020 article by Justin Rowlatt entitled Humans waging suicidal war on nature – UN chief Antonio Guterres:
Humanity is waging what he describes as a suicidal war on the natural world.
Nature always strikes back, and is doing so with gathering force and fury, he told a BBC special event on the environment.
read more »
Posted in Africa, Asia, Climate Crisis, Latin America & Caribbean, Market Lords, Middle East, Migrants and Refugees, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords |
Leave a Comment »
06/01/2021
(UN News)* — The World Bank Group on Tuesday [5 January 2021] issued a guarded growth forecast for the global economy this year, saying that a four per cent overall expansion was likely, although the recovery will likely be a “subdued” one.
World Bank/Paul Salazar | Shopping during the coronavirus pandemic: greater population growth in regions such as Latin America, will require more productive and sustainable agriculture.
Policy makers must move decisively, according to January’s Global Economic Prospects, and although it is already growing again following the 4.3 per cent contraction of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused “a heavy toll of deaths and illness, plunged millions into poverty, and may depress economic activity and incomes for a prolonged period”, said a press release issued by the World Bank – a key financial institution within the United Nations system.
Posted in Africa, Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, Market Lords, Middle East, Migrants and Refugees, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords |
Leave a Comment »
05/01/2021
Boost nutrition in your household with these traditional recipes from around the world! ©FAO/Benjamin Rasmussen
5 January 2021 (FAO)* — Meal after meal. Day after day. It’s easy to get into routines with food and forget about the variety of fruits, vegetables, grains and other foods that exist, with all the different nutritional benefits that they offer.
If that sounds familiar, then FAO is here to help. Drawing on our experiences from around the world, we’ve consulted with local cooks, chefs and families to put together some fascinating and useful cookbooks.
read more »
Posted in Africa, Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, Market Lords, Middle East, Migrants and Refugees, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples |
Leave a Comment »
05/01/2021
5 January 2021 (Wall Street International)* — We are unknown to most Americans. But some notables – New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s former wife Kerry Kennedy, Congressman Joe Kennedy, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s daughter Christine, Paul Simon, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Samantha Power, actor Oscar Isaac, Susan Robeson (granddaughter of opera singer Paul Robeson) have visited us. Oscar Isac even played me in a film partly shot here.
Posted in Africa, Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, Market Lords, Middle East, Migrants and Refugees, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords |
Leave a Comment »
05/01/2021
Conversations with leading experts in childhood love, adversity and mental health.
Why is love so important in childhood?
4 January 2021 — In this ground-breaking new series by UNICEF, Laura Mucha – author, poet and children’s advocate – interviews some of the world’s leading experts to find out.
The series sets out to cover how adversity impacts us as children and the adults we become, what we can do to protect and improve young people’s mental health, and why safe and loving relationships are so vital for children’s health, development and wellbeing throughout life.
Posted in Africa, Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, Market Lords, Middle East, Migrants and Refugees, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples |
Leave a Comment »
05/01/2021
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jan 5 2021 (IPS)* – Goodbye 2020, but unfortunately, not good riddance, as we all have to live with its legacy. It has been a disastrous year for much of the world for various reasons, Elizabeth II’s annus horribilis. The crisis has exposed previously unacknowledged realities, including frailties and vulnerabilities.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
For many countries, the tragedy is all the greater as some leaders had set national aspirations for 2020, suggested by the number’s association with perfect vision. But their failures are no reason to reject national projects.
As Helen Keller, the deaf and blind author activist, noted a century ago, “The only thing worse than being blind is having sight, but no vision.”
After JFK’s assassination in November 1963 ended US opposition to Western intervention in Indonesia, President Sukarno warned his nation in August 1964 that it would be ‘living dangerously’, vivere pericoloso, in the year ahead.
A year later, a bloody Western-backed military coup had deposed him, taking up to a million lives, with many more ruined.
read more »
Posted in Africa, Asia, Climate Crisis, Latin America & Caribbean, Market Lords, Middle East, Migrants and Refugees, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords |
Leave a Comment »
04/01/2021
4 January 2021 (Wall Street International)* — Looking at our planet, we see that it is mostly water.
So why are so many politicians, scientists, public officials in hundreds of global conferences all warning of a “Water Crisis”? These alarms are really just focused on the planet’s 3% of freshwater, ignoring the abundant 97% of our planet’s saltwater.
The broad assumption in most of these alarms is that 97% of saltwater is no use for the everyday needs of humans. So all these alarms warn of shrinking food supplies, rising hunger, malnutrition, dwindling drinking water, as taps almost ran dry in some cities, including Cape Town, South Africa in 2019.
read more »
Posted in Africa, Asia, Climate Crisis, Latin America & Caribbean, Market Lords, Middle East, Migrants and Refugees, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords |
1 Comment »
04/01/2021
4 January 2021 (UNEP)* — “It is unacceptable that hunger is on the rise at a time when the world wastes more than 1 billion tonnes of food every year. It is time to change how we produce and consume, including to reduce greenhouse emissions,” says United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.
Photo by Reuters / 04 Jan 2021
The Secretary-General will convene a UN Food Systems Summit in 2021 to launch bold new actions to transform the way the world produces and consumes food, delivering progress on all 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
For decades, synthetic fertilizer – containing nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium – has been used all over the world to increase crop yields. Plants need phosphorus to grow but using too much of it can harm the environment.
read more »
Posted in Africa, Asia, Climate Crisis, Latin America & Caribbean, Market Lords, Middle East, Migrants and Refugees, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples |
Leave a Comment »
03/01/2021
2 January 2021 (UN News)* — In a bid of optimism for the new year, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) expressed confidence that clean energy would grow in 2021.
UNDP Yemen | Men install solar panels for a hospital in Yemen.
Despite that the world is not on track to meet climate objectives and achieve Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7) for universal access to clean, affordable and reliable energy, Marcel Alers, UNDP Head of Energy, said that “clean energy solutions exist that can get us there”.
“There is growing momentum to make them political and investment priorities”, he added.
read more »
Posted in Africa, Asia, Climate Crisis, Latin America & Caribbean, Market Lords, Middle East, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples |
Leave a Comment »
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 