UNITED NATIONS, Jun 23 2020 (IPS)* – The coronavirus pandemic is beginning to transform the United Nations into an institution far beyond recognition. The Secretariat building has been shut down since mid-March, and the UN campus will continue to remain a ghost town through end July– and perhaps beyond– with nearly 3,000 staffers, delegates and journalists working, mostly from home.
23 June 2020 (Wall Street International)* — Homo sapiens is the main predator of nature and its peers. For the sake of progress, our species has polluted seas, air, and land, destroyed ancient forests, over-exploited natural resources and is currently doing everything possible to destroy the Amazon basin, one of the main sources of oxygen, that regulates the climate of the region and neutralizes the greenhouse effect.
22 June 2020 (United Nations)* — The loss of a partner is devastating. For many women around the world, especially in developing countries, that loss is magnified by a long-term struggle for their basic needs, their human rights and dignity.
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Women and children are seen in the widows camp. In the refugee settlement of Balukhali, over 116 widows, orphans, and women who have been separated from their husbands have found shelter within a dense settlement of 50 red tents where no men or boys over the age of 10 years old are allowed. UN Women/Allison Joyce.
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The pandemic has just worsened the situation during the past several months with a devastating human loss, and one that is likely leaving tens of thousands of women newly widowed at just the time when they are cut off from their usual socio-economic and family supports.
As forced displacement tops 79.5 million, Filippo Grandi urges UN Security Council to use its authority seek peace and inclusion for the displaced. |Español | Français
GENEVA (UNHCR)* – Ending conflicts around the world that are driving unprecedented global displacement is not just a moral imperative but critical for international stability, the UN’s refugee chief on 18 June 2020 told a top UN body.
By producing soap, treating the sick and shopping for the vulnerable, these refugees from around the world are taking action to fight the coronavirus. | Español | Français | عربي
19 June 2020 (UNHCR)* — For almost two months now, Carmen Parra has been working 12- and 24-hour shifts as part of an ambulance crew in Peru that visits suspected COVID-19 patients in their homes and transports those who are critically ill to hospital.
(UN News)* — UN Secretary-General António Guterres has reminded countries of their fundamental obligation to protect the nearly 80 million people worldwide forced to flee their homes due to conflict, persecution and other crises.
In his message to mark World Refugee Day [20 June], the UN chief also praised those nations and communities hosting refugees and internally displaced people, often amid their own economic and security challenges.
“We owe these countries our thanks, our support and our investment,” he said.
Only through an understanding of the historical impact of colonialism can we begin to heal the wounds caused by centuries of slavery, violence, and oppression.
Pro-Mosaddegh protests in Tehran, 16 August 1953 | Wikimedia Commons. Public domain
18 June 2020 (openDemocracy)* — In August 1619, a ship called the White Lion arrives in Virginia, a year before the Mayflower, the ship that was transporting the first English Puritans. It carries with it the first load of African slaves, captured in West Africa, starting the enslavement of Africans in the North American colonies.
A woman living in Kassab Camp for Internally Displaced People in Kutum, North Darfur, expresses her sorrow over the increase in rapes in the area. Photo: UN Photo/Albert González Farran
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Already a dramatically under-reported crime, CRSV has been further obscured by this pandemic. COVID-19 hampers the possibility of survivors to report sexual violence and further exacerbates the existing structural, institutional and sociocultural barriers to reporting such crimes.
(UN News)* — Conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) is “a brutal crime” that is being exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the UN chief underscored on Friday [19 June 2020], the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict. Mainly perpetrated against women and girls, CRSV also affects men and boys.
“It reverberates throughout communities and societies, perpetuating cycles of violence and threatening international peace and security”, Secretary-General António Guterres said in his message for the day.
Fifty years ago this year, I published my first book, entitled Rebels in Eden – an exploration of mass political violence in America focusing on the uprisings that had by then incinerated substantial portions of the inner city communities of Los Angeles, New York, Newark, Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore, and Washington, as well as scores of smaller towns and cities.[i]
Richard E. Rubenstein
Those riots were far more destructive than anything experienced in the protests following the recent killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery by police and ex-police officers.
The sixties uprisings killed several hundred people (almost all Black civilians), injured more than 12,000, and caused billions of dollars in property damage.
What Hasn’t Changed
Rebels in Eden was reviewed in popular journals like TIME and Newsweek and was widely read, along with a small flood of similar publications. But, what difference did any of this make?
A Congolese family pose for a photo in Tshikapa in the Kasai region of south-central Democratic Republic of the Congo in November 2019. They had recently returned from Angola as security returned to their region. © UNHCR/John Wessels
From health workers to educators, to broadcasters and volunteers, many refugees are finding ways to play a part in fighting the coronavirus pandemic and caring for those who fall ill.© UNHCR
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 