'Unseen' News and Views
Urgent need to stop the impact of habitat degradation and climate change
Male Xylocopa frontalis pollinating a Moringa oleifera tree in Peru
ROME, 9 June 2020 (FAO)* – Forests and trees are critical for promoting pollination by bees, butterflies and other animals, and there is an urgent need to stop their habitat degradation and safeguard biodiversity, according to a new report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
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In rich countries, economic activity is expected to decline by seven per cent as the coronavirus outbreak severely disrupts domestic demand and supply, trade and finance activities, it said.
By Ida Sawyer, Acting Crisis and Conflict Director | ida_sawyer*9 June 2020 (Human Rights Watch)* — Police conduct in the United States – including unprovoked beatings, excessive force, and arbitrary arrests – has come under intense scrutiny as protests erupted after the police killing of George Floyd.
Let’s add to this list the police’s actively endangering people’s health during a pandemic.
Across the country, protesters, journalists, and sometimes bystanders have been arrested in large groups – often for breaking curfews, blocking traffic, failure to disperse, or other minor offenses.
Many were detained for hours in crowded cells with no masks, no hand sanitizer, and no way to stay apart. Police have reportedly torn the masks off some protesters when they were arrested, and many police officers seen at protests have not been wearing masks themselves.
10 June 2020 — The global elite is conducting a coup that is designed to destroy all of the key elements of human society. It is doing this by destroying the essence of what it means to be human, by destroying the nature of existing human relationships, and by destroying the political, economic and social institutions of nation states.
Robert J. Burrowes
Intentionally or otherwise, the elite coup is also fast-tracking four paths to human extinction.
If this coup succeeds, the human individual will have been reduced to a digitized identity who lives in a ‘techno tyranny’ serving the global elite or Homo Sapiens will be extinct.
There is no third option unless we can defeat the coup and stop key structures and processes being put into place.
– The massive protests in more than 120 US cities over racial injustice and police brutality went global last week– amidst presidential threats of military force on demonstrators in Washington DC.
Protests in cities across the United States including in New York city. Credit: UN News/Shirin Yaseen
At the same time, there were continued political demonstrations against the imposition of authoritarianism in Hong Kong by the current dominating military power there: China.
8 June 2020 (UN News)* — The COVID-19 pandemic is worsening globally, with more than 136,000 cases recorded on Sunday [7 June 2020]: the highest number in a single day, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
On 31st May, while people were dying during the Corona Pandemic, while millions had lost their livelihoods and were going hungry during the “lockdown”, while millions were marching in city after city in the USA to protest against police brutality and police violence after the killing of George Floyd by the police in Minneapolis, billionaire Elon Musk launched Space X.
Prof. Vandana Shiva
For me this was a brutal display of the hubris, indifference and power of the 1% who have pushed ecosystems, communities, countries and humanity to the brink.
Musk wants to create a “self sustaining” Space X city on Mars over the next century for a privileged faction of humanity. He ignores the fact that there is no Planet B, that the Earth is our only living planet, she is Gaia, she is alive.
8 June 2020 (UN Environment)* — At least a quarter of the world’s land area is owned, managed, used or occupied by indigenous peoples and local communities. While nature in these areas is degrading less quickly than in others, the impact of climate and ecosystem change has a direct impact on local livelihoods.
UN Photo/Evan Schneider
By 2100, says United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, “We risk a ‘climate apartheid’ scenario where the wealthy pay to escape overheating, hunger and conflict while the rest of the world is left to suffer.” Many, he projects, will be forced to choose between starvation or migration.
(UN Environment)* — World Oceans Day on June 8 is a time to celebrate and honour the oceans that feed us, regulate our climate, and generate most of the oxygen we breathe. They also serve as the foundation for much of the world’s economy, from tourism and fisheries to international shipping. Careful management of this essential global resource is necessary for a sustainable future.
Every year, an estimated 8 million tonnes of plastic waste end up in the world’s oceans from activities on land. Tackling marine plastic pollution is a priority, considering the impacts to economies, wildlife, and ecosystems. On World Oceans Day, we celebrate the efforts made worldwide to protect the marine environment.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 