Global warming causes global swarming. In 2018, Indian Ocean cyclones hit Oman and Yemen, creating conditions for an outbreak of desert locusts.
Swarms grew throughout 2019 and 2020, two of the hottest years on record. Swarms with 80 million insects have swept across Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia, and, as of last week, Kenya, consuming enough staple crops that would otherwise feed 35,000 people, every day.
Scientists have linked the growth of locust plagues to climate change.
Making leather is hard and dirty work, but should children in Bangladesh be banned from it?
Tannery work in Dhaka, Bangladesh | Zakir Hossain Chowdhury/ZUMA Wire/Alamy Live News. All rights reserved
15 November 2021 (openDemocracy)* — Leather production is a global, billion-dollar industry and Bangladesh’s second most profitable export sector after ready-made garments. It also has a problem with child labour.
NEW YORK, Nov 17 2021 (IPS)*– Once again, the U.S. faces a test case along racial lines. Will the courts mete out justice in the case of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man who was shot and killed by three white men while jogging in Georgia?
Anna Shen
The case is one in a long line of prominent trials with similar racial undertones, highlighting the divide in America’s legal system when it comes to race. Recent cases with mixed and highly charged verdicts include: George Floyd, Trayvon Martin, Walter Scott, and Breonna Taylor.
Despite widespread attention — the national movement of Black Lives Matter, widespread protests, and federal laws intended to provide equal access — systemic racism in the legal system is flagrant and persistent. Put simply, it must be eradicated, said a new report by the LexisNexis Rule of Law Foundation.
Nairobi (UNEP)* – Global cities are key to overcoming the climate crisis, biodiversity loss and pollution. A new vision of future cities is detailed in a report released on 18 November 2021 by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat).
20 November 2021 (UN News)* — Nadya Zafira, an international relations student at Indonesia’s Gadjah Mada University, won a writing competition for her letter to UN chief António Guterres, in which she addressed the inequalities laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic, and how indigenous communities and youth are marginalized in global conversations on climate crisis.
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Unsplash/Atilla Taskiran | Lombok island, Indonesia.
.“In the past two years, my reality, yours, and many others, has changed dramatically. Not overnight, but rather, over a series of incremental global disruptions that began with the news of an unknown pneumonia outbreak. While all countries face the common threat of a deadly virus, clearly the pandemic has not proven to be “the great equalizer”, as deep-seated inequalities between the Global North and South shape each country’s path of survivability in this era of multidimensional crises, with some winning first, and others lagging behind.
MADRID, Nov 19 2021 (IPS)* – Kailash Satyarthi, an Indian social reformer and co-recipient of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize, along with Malala Yousafzai, spoke in a recent international forum about the devastating impacts of child labour.
Globally, nine million additional children are at risk of being pushed into child labour by the end of 2022 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, which could rise to 46 million without access to critical social protection coverage. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS.
“Nothing is as brutal as the death of a child’s dream,” said Satyarthi, who campaigned against child labour in his homeland. “We should feel the moral responsibility that we have to fulfill the dreams of these children.”
(UN News)* — Young entrepreneurs have been swapping inspiring stories at a UN-partnered youth summit on Thursday [18 November 2021] about how they’ve driven positive change for their communities and the environment – and how everyone can do the same.
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Magali Girardin | Pictured are five of the six young change-makers who were honoured at the 2021 Young Activists Summit held in Geneva.
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Speaking at the Youth Activists Summit in Geneva, six invitees included 22-year-old coral reef restorer, Titouan Bernicot and 15-year-old anti-cyberbullying app inventor, Gitanjali Rao.
Miss Rao, who is from the US and also TIME Magazine’s first Kid Of The Year, told the audience in the Swiss city and online that her new smartphone app, which is called Kindly, was designed to make bullies reconsider sending or revising potentially hurtful messages online.
MADRID, Nov 18 2021 (IPS)* – Did you know that half of the world’s population do not have toilets? And that, globally, at least 2 billion people use a drinking water source contaminated with faeces? And that every day, over 700 children under five years old die from diarrhoea linked to unsafe water, sanitation and poor hygiene?
A Dalit woman stands outside a dry toilet located in an upper caste villager’s home in Mainpuri, in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Credit: Shai Venkatraman/IPS
This is the dramatic, hushed reality of 3.6 billion people who don’t have one that works properly.
“Who cares about toilets? The UN raises this question as the starting point of this 2021 Campaign for World Toilet Day, marked every year on 19 November.
18 November 2021 (UN News)* — For over 70 years, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has had a presence across Afghanistan – even as the Taliban secured power over the summer.
UN News spoke with Samantha Mort, Chief of Communication, Advocacy and Civic Engagement at UNICEF Afghanistan, who assured that all offices remain open and warehouses full..Some 22.8 million people across the country are facing food insecurity, she explained, adding that they cannot access affordable or nutritious food. .
Of the 38 million people living in Afghanistan, some 14 million children are food insecure.
MADRID, Nov 16 2021 (IPS)* – It sounds incredible: while politicians have been cackling about the climate emergency and profiling in empty promises to halt it, they have spent six trillion US dollars from taxpayers’ money to subsidise fossil fuels in just one year: 2020. And they are set to increase the figure to nearly seven trillion by 2025.
An offshore oil rig drilling platform. Globally, fossil fuel subsidies amounted to 5.9 trillion US dollars in 2020, according to an IMF report. Credit: Bigstock
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 