'Unseen' News and Views
$72.9 billion. That’s how much nine countries spent on nuclear weapons in 2019. In a just-released report, ICAN produced the first estimate in nearly a decade of global nuclear weapon spending, taking into account costs to maintain and build new nuclear weapons.
That amounts to $138,699 spent in the world on nuclear weapons per minute. Global nuclear spending rose $7.1 billion from 2018, in line with total military spending which rose dramatically from 2018 to 2019.
Nuclear weapons production leaves a nasty legacy both for people and the environment. Around the world, nuclear weapons facilities have contaminated land and water with radioactive waste lasting at least 100,000 years. Efforts to clean up the sites have cost billions of dollars over decades – and are still largely unfinished.
The five case studies below provide just a preliminary look into the devastating global environmental consequences of building the bomb.
Ensuring the health of humanity and the planet requires a consolidated effort that acknowledges and incorporates the vision of those who have protected nature for so long. | Español
27 May 2020 (openDemocracy)* — The onslaught of diseases like smallpox, and influenza brought by the European powers of the 15th century, combined with slavery and genocide, decimated indigenous populations throughout the Americas. Today, there are an estimated 826 indigenous groups in the region, with a total population of 45 million people.
Sadly, the continued disregard for indigenous peoples in many governments’ responses to the novel coronavirus could place those left at the brink of extinction.
As chilly weather steals over South America, vulnerable Venezuelan refugees and migrants brace for added hardship. | Español | Français
The upcoming Southern Hemisphere winter will be the first truly cold weather the Díaz family has ever experienced. © UNHCR/Hugo Fuentes
State, City Should Compensate Survivors, Descendants; Adopt Broad Plan
Reverend Robert Turner of the historic Vernon African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church, damaged in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, leads a reconciliatory pilgrimage of sorts from Mount Vernon AME to Tulsa City Hall every Wednesday, demanding “reparations now.” © 2019 Ian Maule/Tulsa W
Washington, DC – State and local authorities in Tulsa, Oklahoma should provide reparations for the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, when a white mob killed several hundred black people and destroyed a prosperous black neighborhood, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today [29 May 2020].
(UN News)* — Shocked over the killing last weekend of five men in Nepal, who had planned to escort home one of their girlfriends from a higher caste, the UN human rights chief on Friday [29 May 2020] stressed that ending caste-based discrimination is “fundamental” to the overall sustainable development vision of leaving no one behind.
Hajjah, Yemen, 29 May 2020 (UNFPA)* – In mid-May, just as the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in Yemen, funding for UNFPA’s life-saving reproductive health services dried up. UNFPA has been forced to suspend the provision of reproductive health care in 140 out of 180 health facilities. Now only 40 health facilities across the country are providing these services.
(UN News)* — The UN human rights chief on Thursday [28 May 2020] condemned the killing of 46-year-old George Floyd while in police custody in the city of Minneapolis, calling it the latest in “a long line of killings of unarmed African Americans by US police officers and members of the public”.
(UN News)*–Unless countries across the world act together now, the COVID-19 pandemic will cause “unimaginable devastation and suffering around the world”, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Thursday [28 May 2020] at a virtual high-level meeting on financing for development.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 