In terms of climate change, the damage will be reduced taking into account that nowadays, food loss and waste is responsible for about 7% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and nearly 30% of the world’s agricultural land is currently occupied to produce food that is ultimately never consumed, just to name a few examples.
These are the names of but a few of the military exercises carried out by the U.S. Africa Command forces (AFRICOM) on the African continent in recent years.
The exercises have occurred across the expanse of the continent – east, west, north, and south – as well as on the surrounding seas and oceans.
And the exercises have included participation from Europe, and from almost every African country.
(Wall Street International)* — President Barack Obama sits in front of the American flag: “We are entering an era in which our enemies can make it look like anyone is saying anything at any point in time,” he warns.
Although he is using familiar expressions and hand gestures, there is something strange about the video. Obama’s face looks weird, and his voice sounds flat and forced.
(UN News)* — A sharp increase in the deaths and disappearances of migrants at sea heading to Spain’s Canary Islands, along the West African coast, is a cause for “extreme concern” the UN’s migration agency, IOM, said on Friday [24 September 2021].
IOM/Peter Schatzer | Conflict and poverty continue to compel people to undertake extremely perilous journeys at sea.
By the end of last month, the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) Missing Migrants Project recorded 785 people, including 177 women and 50 children, who had died or disappeared this year.
23 September 2021 (UN News)* — Every day, hundreds of millions of people go to bed hungry. Three billion people cannot afford a healthy diet. Two billion are overweight or obese and yet 462 million, are underweight. Nearly a third of all food that is produced, is lost or wasted.
FAO/Luis Tato | Women vendors sell fresh vegetables at a market in Limuru, Kenya.
These are just some of the problems and contradictions laid bare by the UN Secretary-General on Thursday [23 September 2021] at the opening of the landmark UN Food Systems Summit, that is bringing together farmers and fishers, youth, Indigenous Peoples, Heads of State, governments and many more, in an effort to transform the sector and get the world back on track to achieve all 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.
WFP racing against clock to provide most vulnerable with life-saving food – but funding is short
Two droughts in the space of three years have hit Afghanistan hard. Photo: WFP/Arete
(WFP)* — As the harsh Afghan winter looms closer, recent surveys conducted by the World Food Programme (WFP) have revealed that only five percent of families have enough to eat every day, while half reported they had run out of food altogether at least once in the past two weeks.
Sculpture depicting St. George slaying the dragon. The dragon is created from fragments of Soviet SS-20 and United States Pershing nuclear missiles. PHOTO:UN Photo/Milton Grant
24 September 2021 (United Nations)* — Achieving global nuclear disarmament is one of the oldest goals of the United Nations.
It was the subject of the General Assembly’s first resolution in 1946, which established the Atomic Energy Commission (dissolved in 1952), with a mandate to make specific proposals for the control of nuclear energy and the elimination of atomic weapons and all other major weapons adaptable to mass destruction.
LETHBRIDGE, Canada, Sep 22 2021 (IPS)* – Food processing extends shelf-life and can transforms raw food into attractive, marketable products. It can also prevent contamination. The transformation can involve numerous physical and chemical processes such as mincing, cooking, canning, liquefaction, pickling, macerating, emulsification, irradiation and lyophilization.
Processed, canned food lines the shelves at a Canadian supermarket. Credit: Trevor Page
New York, 21 September 2021 (UNEP)* – Today, at Climate Week NYC 2021, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), Global Environment Facility (GEF) and partners launched UrbanShift – a new global initiative to improve lives and transform cities into green and liveable spaces that address climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.
Cities are home to 4.2 billion people, more than half of the world’s population. But they face growing challenges – from floods, storms and heatwaves triggered by the climate crisis to dangerous air quality, lack of affordable housing and deep social divides.
(FAO)* — The running fresh water of the Amazon River is a welcoming sound to the peoples of the indigenous resguardo (reserve) in Puerto Nariño, southern Colombia.
This watercourse is the only access to the banks of rivers, lakes, flood plains and mainland areas that connect the 22 communities where the Tikuna, Cocama and Yagua peoples live.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 