'Unseen' News and Views
Cartagena/Geneva, 22 July 2022 (WMO)* – Extreme weather and climate change impacts including mega-drought, extreme rainfall, land and marine heatwaves and glacier melt are affecting the Latin America and the Caribbean region, from the Amazon to the Andes and from Pacific and Atlantic Ocean waters to the snowy depths of Patagonia.
Reduce the use of chemical fertilisers, make the chemical industry pay for pollution instead of criminalising farmers who were trapped by the chemical treadmill through industrial agriculture.
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The nitrogen problem in Agriculture is a problem created by synthetic nitrogen fertilisers made from fossil fuels. Nitrogen fertilisers contribute to atmospheric pollution and climate change in the manufacture and the use of fertilisers.
The writer is Editor-in-Chief at CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance. He is one of the lead authors for CIVICUS Lens and the 2022 State of Civil Society Report
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– The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights sits at the top of the UN’s human rights system. It’s a crucial role for the victims of violations and the many civil society activists who look to the UN system to set and apply human rights norms, monitor the human rights performance of states and hold rights violators to account.
And there’s a job vacancy. In June, the current High Commissioner, Michelle Bachelet, announced she wouldn’t be seeking a second term when her current time in office ends in August.
As the Ukraine crisis causes global havoc, US officials won’t negotiate with Russia to end the fighting — and are even willing to “countenance” mounting hunger as a result.
(Marine Corps Cpl. Jailine Alicea-Santiago / media.defense.gov)
15 Jul 2022 – In 2015, one year after a US-backed coup ushered in a US-friendly, far-right-dominated government in Kiev, University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer issued a stark warning. “The West is leading Ukraine down the primrose path,” he said. “And the end result is that Ukraine is going to get wrecked.”
(UN News)* — Billions of people are facing the greatest cost of living crisis in a generation due to rising food and energy prices amid rapid inflation and increasing debt, leaving the most vulnerable consumers in a dire situation, said the UN trade and development body, UNCTAD on Tuesday [19 July 2022].
UNCTAD’s analysis shows that a 10 per cent increase in food prices will trigger a five per cent decrease in the incomes of the poorest families, roughly equivalent to the amount those families would normally spend on healthcare.
As consumers try to reduce their spending, they will pay a high price if they buy cheaper, but unsafe products. The United States reports 43,000 deaths and 40 million injuries per year associated with consumer products, with yearly costs of over $3,000 per capita.
Yemen – Rod Waddington / flickr.
As President Joe Biden embarks on his trip to the Middle East, those of us back home must acknowledge the suffering the United States has caused in places like Yemen.
11 Jul 2022 – President Joe Biden’s foreign policy advisors are applauding themselves for devising a “sensitive” itinerary as he plans to embark on a trip to the Middle East on July 13.
Tasks for the Future
John Scales Avery
In the future, we will be faced with many important challenges and tasks. We need a new economic system, a new society, a new social contract, a new way of life.
Here are the great tasks that history has given to our generation: We must achieve a steady-state economic system. We must restore democracy.
We must decrease economic inequality. We must break the power of corporate greed. We must leave fossil fuels in the ground. We must stabilize and ultimately reduce the global population.
We must eliminate the institution of war.
And finally, we must develop a more mature ethical system to match our new technology We must achieve a steady-state economic system.
UN Photo/Pernaca Sudhakaran
Just three days ahead of this year’s Nelson Mandela International Day (18 July), a group of independent United Nations human rights experts condemned reports of escalating violence targeting foreign nationals in South Africa.
New recommendations released by the three agencies offer solutions and alternatives to the continued practice of detaining asylum-seeking, refugee and migrant children across Europe
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 