'Unseen' News and Views
(UN News)* — UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi urged on Monday [21 February 2022] for greater protection for refugees and asylum-seekers in Europe.
War would be in no-one’s interests. How often have we heard that, in the current Ukraine crisis? But there is one obvious exception.
Jake Lynch
‘Defence industries’ are perennial winners in such situations and – whatever the outcome of the standoff involving thousands of Russian troops at the border – arms dealers will be circling for opportunities to profit.
Stability is no good, from their perspective, if it engenders too great a sense of security. “Actual shooting wars are needed” from time to time, as Ismael Hossein-Zadeh puts it, “not only to draw down stockpiles… but also to display the wonders of what they produce”.
Being able to stamp the brochure for a new weapons system with the words, ‘battle-tested’ is the ultimate marketing ploy. In between open hostilities, however, a period of raised tensions will do nicely.
20 February 2022 (UN News)* — Although child marriage and “bride kidnapping” are illegal in Kyrgyzstan, both practices still exist in parts of the country. An initiative from a UN-backed programme is finally leading to a change in attitudes, and a decline in these harmful practices.
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– A recent Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) study shows the largest farms cultivate a high and increasing share of agricultural land in much of the world.
Vikas Rawal
Farm size concentration
World Agricultural Census data for 129 countries show about 40% of the world’s farmland is operated by farms over 1000 hectares (ha) in size. About 70% is operated by the top 1% of farms, all bigger than 50 ha each.
A rising share of farmland is in larger farms. But farm sizes in developed and developing countries seem quite different.
Farms smaller than 5 ha accounted for 63% of land in low and lower middle-income countries. But such farms covered only 8% of farmland in upper middle and high-income countries.
The “share of farmland farmed on the largest holdings has increased in … several European countries (France, Germany and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) and in the United States of America.”
Conflict in January 2022 highlights the geostrategic relevance of this region
15 February 2022 (Wall Street International)* — At the beginning of the year, Kazakhstan was suddenly catapulted into the focus of international attention. What actually happened, how was the reaction, and what are the consequences of the current events for neighboring states? A stocktake.
These critical environmental issues, requiring greater attention, are highlighted in the new Frontiers Report published today by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).
The Seychelles is a nation made up of some 115 islands in the Indian Ocean. Credit: UN News, Manahas Farquhar/ Matthew Morgan
Speaking before the UN’s Ad Hoc Committee on the Indian Ocean last year, an Indian diplomat told delegates: “India and the Indian Ocean are inseparable. It is not just a statement of a fact of geography; but of deeper civilizational, historical, cultural, economic and political linkages that have been forged over centuries between India and the Ocean that bears its name”.
(UN News)* — Thousands of Eritrean refugees sheltering at a camp in the Ethiopian Afar region, have fled following a deadly attack on the facility earlier this month, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said on 18 February 2022.
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(UN News)* — The consequences of colonialism are “still being felt to this day”, Chef de Cabinet Courtenay Rattray told the Special Committee on Decolonization on Friday [18 February 2022].
“Global cooperation is central to addressing its impacts”, he underscored, urging the Committee, also known as C-24, to “commit to making 2022 a year of recovery for everyone”.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 