'Unseen' News and Views
– Millet could be Africa’s silver bullet for combating anaemia – and apart from health benefits, it is climate-resilient.
Supermarkets stock both millet and sorghum products, but these are often ignored. Now research has shown the crops have health benefits and are climate resilient. Credit: Ignatius Banda/IPS
(UN News)* — Lack of opportunities, gangs, organized crime, the ravages of the pandemic and climate change, have triggered the displacement of nearly one million people in Mexico and Central America in recent years.
To deal with the problem more effectively, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees called on Thursday [2 December 2021] for a new mechanism that could operate across the whole region, to deal with what is now an unprecedented displacement crisis.
(UN News)* — Over 700,000 children have been impacted by school closures due to often brutal violence in Cameroon, according to an analysis released by the UN humanitarian arm, OCHA, on Thursday [2 December 2021].
– No matter what it is called — it is the abhorrent daily life of a billion enslaved humans. The real number of “modern” slaves is understandably unknown. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that more than 40 million people worldwide are victims of modern slavery.
Teenage girls harvest tomatoes on a farm in the state of Sinaloa, in northern Mexico. Credit: Courtesy of Sinaloa Institute for Adult Education
Although modern slavery is not defined in law, it is used as an umbrella term covering practices such as forced labour, debt bondage, forced marriage, and human trafficking, it says.
Big brands sit back and wait for consumers to think they are making a smart decision just because the price is low, forgetting that the lower the discount, the lower price put on the planet.
A joint publication of FAO, IFAD, PAHO/WHO, WFP and UNICEF
The Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition 2021 ©FAO
Santiago/Chile, 1 December 2021 (FAO)* – Hunger in Latin America and the Caribbean is at its highest point since 2000, after a 30 percent increase in the number of people suffering hunger from 2019 to 2020, says a new UN report.
Why COP26 Failed Future Generations
John Scales Avery
In discussing the threat of catastrophic climate change, we need to be aware of the contrast between the short-term future and the long-term future.
Unless we take immediate and drastic action, we risk passing environmental tipping points, beyond which uncontrollable feedback loops will take over, making human efforts useless.
However, it is difficult to mobilize the political will needed for immediate and drastic action, because the worst effects of catastrophic climate change lie in the very distant future.
What will happen if we fail to act decisively and immediately on the issue of climate?
(UN News)* — The UN refugee Agency, UNHCR, is “appalled by a series of deadly attacks” on displaced people in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the agency’s spokesperson told journalists on Tuesday [30 November 2021] in Geneva.
It was with deep sadness that on Wed 23 Nov 2021 the world watched in horror the news that 27 people had drowned in the English Channel when their flimsy dinghy overturned in the sea in an attempted crossing from Calais to Dover.
At least 27 migrants drowned crossing the English Channel from France. ABC
I am sorry and I ask the forgiveness of migrants and refugees who have been forced to flee their lands and seek a place of refuge in any country who would give them a place to lay their heads. I send my condolences to the families at the loss of their beloved ones in a cold watery tragedy far away from their homes.
– For three weeks, the Brazilian government concealed the fact that deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest increased by nearly 22 percent last year, accentuating a trend that threatens to derail efforts to curb global warming.
Brazil has a “green future,” announced Environment Minister Joaquim Leite and Vice-President Hamilton Mourão, in a videoconference presentation from Brasilia at the Glasgow climate summit, in an attempt to shore up Brazil’s credibility, damaged by Amazon deforestation. The two officials concealed the fact that deforestation in the Amazon rose by 21.9 percent last year. CREDIT: Marcelo Camargo/Agência Brasil-Fotos Públicas
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 