I spoke with Indian scholar, food sovereignty advocate and environmental activist #VandanaShiva. She speaks about #BillGates‘ book and the colonisation of land and food production. However, she provides us with hopeful and powerful words of advice that might help us challenge these Tech Giants and monopolies.
The discovery of yet more graves of Indigenous children taken by the government for forcible assimilation has – at last – shocked the world | ESPAÑOL
Installation in Vancouver honouring the 215 Indigenous children whose unmarked graves were discovered in May | JSMimages / Alamy Stock Photo. All rights reserved
5 July 2021 (openDemocracy)* — Imagine if your child was ripped from your arms by police who were enforcing the laws of your oppressors; if the devil in the form of forced assimilation and colonisation, under the guise of church-run institutions, stole your children – and your flesh and blood were beaten, sexually violated, shamed and stripped of their identity; or if your child – or aunt, uncle, brother or sister – died from malnutrition, unsanitary living conditions or were murdered by their abusers. Imagine it as your beating heart ripped from your chest.
6 July 2021 (UNEP)* — Unprecedented biodiversity loss, pollution, climate change and the rise of zoonotic diseases have showcased the symbiotic relationship between humans and nature.
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Unsplash / Markus Spiske / 05 Jul 2021
The human right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment, as well as other human rights, can only be realized where biodiversity thrives and ecosystems are healthy.
In stirring opening remarks at the international 2021 mega-conference, Palestine Writes, Susan Abulhawa asserts that “… this festival is meant to expand Palestine’s cultural imprint in the world.”
Such an imprint is being achieved by Palestinian cultural creativity, inscribing the Palestinian struggle and the distinctive spirit of the Palestinian people at the center of the moral and political imagination of persons of conscience around the world.
By so doing, Israel’s concerted attempt to remove the Palestinian struggle from the global agenda is being thwarted, discredited, and increasingly likely, reversed.
Human Rights Watch on 2 July 2021 joined Afghan and international human rights organizations calling for a United Nations-mandated fact-finding mission to investigate escalating attacks on civilians in Afghanistan to promote justice and accountability.
2 July 2021 (UN News)* — Some 4.4 million people in Nigeria are facing what the UN humanitarian office, OCHA, is describing as “catastrophic food conditions”.
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UNOCHA/Damilola Onafuwa | Farmers in northeastern Nigeria have been unable to cultivate their crops because of insecurity.
A combination of insecurity caused by terrorist groups, the effects of climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic, have meant that people in the northeast of the country are struggling to get enough to eat; OCHA says 775,000 are at “extreme risk”.
Many are farmers but are unable to grow their crops fearing for their personal safety, and so rely on humanitarian support “as their only lifeline”.
(UN News)* — Senior UN officials on 2 July 2021 appealed for immediate and unrestricted humanitarian access to Tigray – and for an end to deadly attacks on aid workers – as the Security Council held its first open meeting on the conflict in the restive northern Ethiopian region.
Painting a grim picture, Ramesh Rajasingham, Acting Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, said that 400,000 people have “crossed the threshold into famine” – with another 1.8 million on the brink of following them.
NEW DELHI, India, Jul 2 2021 (IPS)* – Two Indian women, one Muslim and the other Dalit (former untouchables), separated by culture and geography, have found common ground in leading change in conflict-torn South Sudan.
Rama Hansraj
Rama Hansraj, a Dalit, grew up in a humble railway colony in Secunderabad. Huma Khan, a Muslim, born and raised in the controversial north Indian city of Faizabad, now Ayodhya, home to the demolished Babri Masjid.
(Greenpeace International)* — After living on and fighting for their lands for centuries, the rights of Indigenous Peoples in Brazil are endangered by a legal loophole called Marco Temporal that could legalize theft of their lands—unless the Brazilian Supreme Court stops it.
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.