'Unseen' News and Views
Pioneering environmental data collection initiative a world first for Africa
ACCRA, 16 July 2021 (FAO)* – A data collection and analysis initiative led by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the African Union Commission (AUC) has revealed 7 billion trees outside forests for the first time, among other findings.
The survey is the first consistent land use representation of the continent and discloses more forests and more arable lands than were previously detected.
– Ongoing online sexual harassment of Muslim women through ‘Sulli Deals’, an auctioning app hosted by GitHub, has been reported to the authorities – but not before it called untold trauma to the targeted women.
Sania Ahmed found her photograph uploaded on ‘Suli Deal’ auctioning app. Credit: Handout
Cyber Cell registered the case in Delhi, India, despite GitHub having shut the open-source app Sulli Deals down.
Sulli is a derogatory term that often used by abusive right-wing trolls for Muslim women in India.
Previously similar profiles and handles were found on Twitter and YouTube.
These platforms were used to harass Muslim women using a similar ‘Sulli Deals’ modus operandi to auction pictures of the women.
Governments Should Reject Costly, Harmful Policy for Refugees, Asylum Seekers
Asylum seekers and human rights activists protest against the detention of refugees amid the Covid-19 crisis in Brisbane, Australia on May 1, 2020. © 2020 Florent Rols /SOPA Images/Sipa via AP Images
(Sydney) – Other governments should reject Australia’s abusive and costly offshore processing of refugees and asylum seekers, Human Rights Watch on 15 July 2021 said. July 19, 2021 is the eighth anniversary of the Australian government’s resumption of its offshore processing policy, which has harmed thousands of people.
Honduran mother Ana, 27, holds her three-year-old daughter in her arms at a makeshift shelter for asylum seekers in Tijuana, Mexico. © UNHCR/Tim Gaynor
15 July 2021 (UNHCR)* — Honduran mother of three Lorena* recalls how she clambered on to a makeshift raft on the banks of the Rio Grande in Mexico with her two eldest children, a girl of seven and a boy four, to cross to the United States and seek asylum.
As more families flee the DRC’s Beni Territory, shelter needs are mounting – over 100,000 families who have found safety in North Kivu urgently need a place to stay.
Elodie, a displaced Congolese woman, cooks outside her durable shelter in Beni, in north-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.
© UNHCR/Justin Kasereka
(UN News)* — There is a “bloody surge” impacting humanitarian crises around the world, with civilians in conflict zones paying the highest price, the UN deputy chief told the Security Council on Friday 16 July 2021.
Briefing on behalf of the UN chief, Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, painted a grim picture of civilian executions, arbitrary arrests, detentions, forced displacement and sexual violence against children, on a massive scale, in the Tigray region of Ethiopia.
She also spoke of “brutal attacks” in Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen, where 20 million people are living “face-to-face” with hunger.
Nairobi, 16 July 2021 (UNEP)* — The Western Indian Ocean region has declared 143* marine and coastal areas as protected – an area covering 553,163 square kilometers, representing 7 percent of the total Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) for the region – according to a new publication by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP)-Nairobi Convention and the Western Indian Ocean Marine Science Association.
(UN News)* — COVID-19 deaths in Africa have risen sharply in recent weeks, amid the fastest surge in cases the continent has seen so far in the pandemic, the regional office for the World Health Organization (WHO) on 15 July 2021 said.
Fatalities are rising as hospital admissions increase rapidly as countries face shortages in oxygen and intensive care beds.
COVID-19 deaths rose by more than 40 per cent last week, reaching 6,273, or nearly 1,900 more than the previous week. The number is just shy of the 6,294 peak, recorded in January.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 