'Unseen' News and Views – By Baher Kamal & The Like
The police brutality that sparked protests in the United States and beyond reminds some refugees of the bigotry they fled — and sometimes still encounter in places they now call home. Here are some of their voices.
Indigenous women are on the front lines of resistance against forest evictions.
6 July 2020 (openDemocracy)* — The outbreak of the coronavirus and the regulations that have been installed by governments worldwide to protect citizens, life and vulnerable groups effect everyone – but not every person or community in the same way.
It is not yet clear, if indigenous groups in India, often living in remote areas with lack of information and restricted access to health care are particularly threatened by Covid-19 or more resilient to its spreading if they devise innovative coping mechanisms (such as self-isolation and protective health measures).
In the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Spain, researchers are poring over samples of wastewater for signs of the coronavirus, which is believed to be shed in human feces.
Given that many people with the virus are asymptomatic and will not be tested for the disease, scientists say sewage could act like a COVID-19 early warning system.
Countries have long monitored sewage, which is laden with traces of the food people eat, the medicine they take, and the disinfectants they use. Wastewater monitoring has been used for decades to assess the success of vaccination campaigns against poliovirus, for example.
(UN News)* — As the battle against COVID-19 rages, the world can expect to see other diseases that pass from animals to humans emerge, according to a new UN report launched on 6 July 2020, which maintains that there is still time to head off potential zoonotic pandemics.
Preventing the Next Pandemic: Zoonotic diseases and how to break the chain of transmission identifies seven trends driving the increasing emergence of zoonotic diseases, including a growing demand for animal protein, unsustainable farming practices and the global climate crisis.
(UN News)* — States, civil society, psychiatric organizations and the World Health Organization (WHO) itself must change the way they address mental health challenges, a UN independent rights expert said, calling for a shift towards understanding the context behind mental distress.
(Wall Street International)* — Accepting rules and commitments established in contexts that organize their validity corresponds to limits defining necessary functions. When these rules and commitments exist independently of the situations they regulate, when they exist to maintain other orders, they enslave and chain. Thus, being bound by commitments and rules makes the individual a link to alienating chains.
6 July 2020 (UN Environment)* — A new report by UNEP and The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) considers the root causes of the emergence and spread of COVID-19 and other zoonoses. Zoonoses are diseases that originate in animals and are transferred to humans.
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The report offers a set of practical recommendations that can help policymakers prevent and respond to future disease outbreaks.
3 July 2020 (openDemocracy)* — Widely regarded as the first film made in Black Africa, Borom Sarret (The Wagoner) by Ousmane Sembène provides an immediate glimpse of post-colonial reality. Made in 1963 on Sembène’s return from the Gorkii Studios in Moscow, it portrays one day in the life of a cart driver in Dakar, Senegal. Its formal minimalism enables Borom Sarret to reveal several layers of complexity.
Environmental stories out of Russia have been in the news lately. First, there was one of the largest diesel spills in the Russian Arctic’s history. Then, there is the shocking heating of the Arctic which can be directly connected to climate change, which is driven by the burning of fossil fuels, like diesel. Now — once again, as is happening with increasing fury every year — there are wildfires raging across Siberia, another effect of climate change.
Well, here’s a story that ties all these things together:
How did it get done? You might call it an act of God.
The events last December were convened by the Peruvian program of the Interfaith Rainforest Initiative (IRI) an international alliance launched in 2017 to mobilize religious leaders to defend rainforests, through collaboration with indigenous communities, local groups, and advocates for rainforest protection.
