Space travel was once about collective efforts to go beyond the limits of one’s imagination. Now it’s an exhibition of extreme entitlement
Billionaire Jeff Bezos is launched into space aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket on 20 July 2021 | Joe Skipper/Reuters/Alamy
24 July 2021 (openDemocracy)* — On 20 July, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos became the second billionaire in a matter of weeks to take a flashy joyride into space. The date was significant, marking 52 years since the first moon landing in 1969.
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 26 2021 (IPS)* – As a wisecracking cynic once remarked: “The sun would never set on the British empire because God wouldn’t trust an Englishman in the dark“. Perhaps it was an uncharitable remark because most of the British colonies have long gone.
Trusteeship Council. Credit: UN Photo/CCOI
But when I quoted this witticism to a British journalist, he countered: “I am sure it was told by a Scotsman.“
Since Scotland is not a colony, its demand for independence is not a matter of decolonization, which is virtually dead on the UN’s political agenda.
23 July 2021 (openDemocrcay)* — Iraq in 2021 is still a state afflicted by poverty, injustice, the trauma of great loss of life, and daily fear. Iraqis still suffer from a sense of powerlessness, defeat and humiliation.
– Devastating floods in Europe. Temperatures soaring to 45ºC in Canada. Mudslides in Japan. Cloud bursts in India. Floods in New York subways, central China and Uganda, and a sweltering heatwave in Morocco.
.
A woman is trying to move in a flooded street following heavy rains in Liege, on July 15, 2021. Illustration shows the scene in Liege after heavy rainfall, Thursday 15 July 2021. – The provincial disaster plan has been declared in Liege, Luxembourg and Namur provinces after large amounts of rainfall. Water in several rivers has reached alarming levels. – Belgium OUT (Photo by BRUNO FAHY / Belga / AFP)
ROME, (WFP)* — Ahead of the UN’s Food Systems Summit in September, people involved in all aspects of the production, transport and consumption of food are meeting at a ‘pre-summit’ in Rome.
VIDEO: Click on image to check out how we consume, distribute and consume food
24 July 2021 (UN News)* — Farmers, especially women and indigenous people, work tirelessly to put food on our tables. UN Deputy Secretary General Amina Mohammed met on Saturday 24 July 2021 women producers at a farmers’ market in Circo Massimo, Rome, ahead of the Food Systems Pre-Summit taking place next week.
UN Photo | UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed meets women producers at a farmers’ market in Circo Massimo, Rome.
Dozens of stalls were set up in the vicinity of the UN event’s venue, where heads of state and delegates will gather from Monday to discuss ways to transform food systems to tackle hunger, poverty, climate change and inequality.
.
UN and government officials toured the market to meet with farmers before paying tribute to producers, particularly women, for their central role in food systems.
A family flees Panjwai district in Kandahar province on July 4, 2021, after the Taliban captured the area. © 2021 Javed Tanveer / AFP via Getty Images
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 