Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia are now alarming US political and military elites by forming an alliance and threatening to chart an independent path in the Horn of Africa. Many Ethiopians expressed enthusiasm for what they consider the country’s first real, competitive election.
On Monday, June 21st, Ethiopians went to the polls to select a parliament, which will elect a prime minister, even though US officials told them not to, warning of chaos and violence. Maybe they think it’s arrogant of the United States to presume to be the global arbiter of peace, justice, and democracy.
Latest estimates reveal that 3 in 10 people worldwide could not wash their hands with soap and water at home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
UNICEF/UN0388486/Panjwani
GENEVA/NEW YORK, 1 July 2021 (UNICEF)* – Billions of people around the world will be unable to access safely managed household drinking water, sanitation and hygiene services in 2030 unless the rate of progress quadruples, according to a new report from WHO and UNICEF.
AMBOVOMBE, MADAGASCAR, 27 June 2021 – The World Food Programme Executive Director, David Beasley, is urging the world to step-up and take action after bearing witness to the invisible crisis enveloping Southern Madagascar, where whole communities are teetering on the edge of starvation.
WF1240263 | Drought and severe hunger in Southern Madagascar
30June 2021 — (Wall Street International)* — The story goes that on his first voyage to what would become America, Christopher Columbus disembarked on October 12, 1492, on a beach he named San Salvador, today Wattlin, in the Bahamas archipelago.
By December 1 he chose to live in a wonderful setting on an island he called Hispaniola. He took possession of it without asking, obviously, the locals. Colonization began by building a fort called “La Navidad”, on the north coast of what is today Haiti.
A new ILO report estimates that between 2017 and 2019 the number of international migrants has increased from 164 to 169 million.
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GENEVA, 1 July 2021 (ILO)* – The number of international migrant workers globally has risen to 169 million, a rise of three per cent since 2017, according to the latest estimates from the International Labour Organization (ILO).
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The share of youth migrant workers (aged 15-24) has also increased, by almost 2 per cent, or 3.2 million, since 2017. Their number reached 16.8 million in 2019.
Cultural evolution depends on the non-genetic storage, transmission, diffusion and utilization of information.
John Scales Avery
The development of human speech, the invention of writing, the development of paper and printing, and finally, in modern times, mass media, computers and the Internet: all these have been crucial steps in society’s explosive accumulation of information and knowledge. Human cultural evolution proceeds at a constantly-accelerating speed.
Our modern civilization has been built up by means of a worldwide exchange of ideas and inventions. It is built on the achievements of many ancient cultures.
China, Japan, India, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, the Islamic world, Christian Europe, and the Jewish intellectual traditions, all have contributed.
Potatoes, corn, squash, vanilla, chocolate, chili peppers, and quinine are gifts from the American Indians.
(UN News)* — The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on tourism could result in a more than $4 trillion loss to the global economy, UN trade and development body UNCTAD on 30 June 2021 said in a report issued jointly with the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO).
United Nations/Katya Pugacheva | A lone passenger rides an escalator on the New York City subway at one of the network’s busiest stations. The city’s tourist industry is likely to be decimated by COVID-19 for the rest of 2020.
The estimate is based on losses caused by the pandemic’s direct impact on tourism and the ripple effect on related sectors, and is worse than previously expected.
29 June 2021 (WMO)* — An exceptional and dangerous heatwave is baking the Northwestern USA and Western Canada in areas which are more synonymous with the cold. Temperatures are likely to reach as high as around 45.0°C by day for perhaps five or more days, with extremely warm nights in between.
(UN News)* — With over 4.6 billion internet users around the world, digital advances continue to revolutionize human life, but “we must remain vigilant” in the face of malicious technologies that “could imperil the security of future generations”, the head of the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (ODA) told the Security Council on Tuesday [29 June 2021].
26 June 2021 (openDemocracy)* — The UK’s new aircraft carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth, is a few weeks into its deployment to Japan and back, which is expected to last more than seven months and include a transiting of the South China Sea through areas claimed by China.
The Royal Navy’s new aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth arrives in Gibraltar for her first overseas port visit. The 65,000 tonne future flagship was conducting a routine logistics stop having left her home in Portsmouth a week earlier for helicopter trials | Author: Dave Jenkins – InfoGibraltar | Licensed under the Creative CommonsAttribution 2.0 Generic license.