'Unseen' News and Views
(Brussels) – The Covid-19 pandemic had a profound impact on the lives and rights of people across the European Union, Human Rights Watch on 13 January 2021 said in its World Report 2021.
(New York) – The Indian government increasingly harassed, detained, and prosecuted activists, journalists, and others critical of the government or its policies, Human Rights Watch o 11 January 2021 said in its World Report 2021.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government brought politically motivated cases, including under broadly worded sedition and counterterrorism laws, against human rights defenders, student activists, academics, opposition members, and other critics.
Innovative FAO study maps urban-rural catchment areas and points to ways to optimize policy and planning coordination for agriculture, services and agri-food systems
ROME, 12 January 2021 (FAO)* — Fewer than one percent of the global population live in truly remote hinterlands, sharpening the need for better understanding of how urban forms impact food systems as well as social and economic development, according to ground-breaking new research by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the University of Twente.
– Once a year, on 9 August, the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples is commemorated, celebrating their unique culture and knowledge. This is done mostly from a distance, from our homes in (nominally) developed countries. But are we as developed as we pretend to be? On this question, I reflected for a while, still remembering a special and personal experience of having spent several days with an indigenous Berber family in Morocco.
Credit: Heike Kuhn
(UN News)* — As Portugal assumes the presidency of the European Union (EU), to be followed by Slovenia later this year, the UN refugee Agency (UNHCR) on Tuesday [12 January 2021] called on them to lead the effort to forge a better protection system for those seeking refuge across the continent and beyond.
Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, UNHCR’s Representative for EU Affairs, also called for reform to be central during negotiations over a new EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, and highlighted the importance of “an EU that saves lives, protects refugees in Europe and globally, and finds solutions to end forced displacement and build resilient societies is needed more than ever”.
12 January 2021 (UN News)* — The UN and humanitarian partners in Afghanistan are seeking $1.3 billion to assist almost 16 million people in need of life-saving assistance as a result of decades of conflict, recurrent natural disasters, and the added impact of the continuing COVID-19 pandemic.
Ms. Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate, has today [4 January 2021] nominated Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize.
Mairead Maguire
In her nomination letter to Nobel Committee in Oslo (copy attached) Ms. Maguire wrote:
“My reasons for nominating them together are simple. Individually each has given countless examples of courage exposing governments’ illegal actions that caused millions of deaths – putting their own freedom and lives on the line.
“Collectively, their lives of self-sacrifice and selflessness constitute remarkable demonstrations of the magnificence of the human spirit. They are indeed breathtaking testimonies to the goodness inherent in the human heart.
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(UN News)* — Exactly 19 years after the Guantánamo Bay detention centre first opened, UN independent human rights experts on Monday [11 January 2021] urged the incoming United States administration of Joe Biden, to close the notorious military prison as soon as possible.
In 1624, English poet John Donne penned his famous poem ‘No Man Is an Island’, sublimely evoking the reality of human unity: ‘Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.’ Therefore, he concluded his poem, ‘never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.’
Robert j. Burrowes
This report does two things.
First, in the hope of generating greater consideration of the human condition and the state of the planet, I have presented in straightforward language and point form, a reasonable summary of the nature and extent of our predicament as well as citing the relevant scientific and/or other evidence that explains each problem in more detail.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 