'Unseen' News and Views
Geronimo Stilton author to kickstart exclusive children’s book reading initiative amid COVID-19 pandemic
NEW YORK/GENEVA, 2 April 2020 (UNICEF)* – Much-loved children’s authors are joining an initiative to read extracts of their books to millions of children and young people currently living in isolation amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Human History as Cultural History
John Scales Avery
We need to reform our teaching of history so that the emphasis will be placed on the gradual growth of human culture and knowledge, a growth to which all nations and ethnic groups have contributed.
I would like to announce the publication of a book which presents an historical anthology of the poems of some of the world’s great poets, from very early times until the present, and from many countries and cultures. The book may be freely downloaded and circulated from the following link:
http://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Lives-in-Poetry-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf
This book is part of a series on cultural history. Here are links the other books in the series that have, until now, been completed:
(UN News)* — COVID-19 will be responsible for pushing a further 8.3 million people in the Arab region into poverty, according to a new policy brief issued on Wednesday [1 April 2020] by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA).
Joint press release from OHCHR, IOM, UNHCR and WHO
(UN News)* — As the world exhibits new bonds of solidarity in response to the coronavirus pandemic, it is a matter of “humanitarian and practical urgency to lift unilateral economic sanctions immediately,” to prevent hunger crises in pandemic-hit countries, a UN human rights expert, said on Tuesday [31 March 2020].
The continued imposition of such measures on Syria, Venezuela, Iran, Cuba and Zimbabwe in particular, severely undermines the fundamental right to sufficient and adequate food, Hilal Elver, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, stressed.
We See Clearly What Is Near to Us
There is a remarkable contrast in the way that governments around the world have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic and the way that they have responded to the climate emergency.
John Scales Avery
The pandemic, which indeed represents an extremely grave danger to humanity, has produced a massive global response.
Borders have been closed, airlines have become virtually inoperative, industries, restaurants and entertainments have been closed, sporting events have been cancelled or postponed, people have been asked to stay at home and practice social distancing, and the everyday life of citizens around the world has been drastically changed.
By contrast, let us consider the threat that if immediate action is not taken to halt the extraction and use of fossil fuels, irreversible feedback loops will be initiated which will make catastrophic climate change inevitable despite human any human efforts to prevent it.
In what is being called the worst financial crisis since 1929, the US stock market has lost a third of its value in the space of a month, wiping out all of its gains of the last three years. When the Federal Reserve tried to ride to the rescue, it only succeeded in making matters worse. The government then pulled out all the stops. To our staunchly capitalist leaders, socialism is suddenly looking good.
Ellen Brown
The financial crisis began in late February, when the World Health Organization announced that it was time to prepare for a global pandemic.
The Russia-Saudi oil price war added fuel to the flames, causing all three Wall Street indices to fall more than 7 percent on March 9. It was called Black Monday, the worst drop since the Great Recession in 2008; but it would get worse.
In a recent article I reported existing evidence on the way in which COVID-19 is being used to implement, but also divert attention from, initiatives being taken by the global elite to consolidate and expand its power in significant ways, and perhaps to make the final drive to take total control of global society. See ‘Observing Elites Manipulate Our Fear: COVID-19, Propaganda and Knowledge’.
Robert J. Burrowes,
Moreover, while global attention is focused on COVID-19, attention has been distracted from the many other ongoing crises – particularly including the vast range of threats that constitute an imminent danger to human existence: see ‘Human Extinction Now Imminent and Inevitable? A Report on the State of Planet Earth’ – and no doubt other undesirable initiatives being carried out by the global elite outside our view.
– As coronavirus makes its way through different continents, countries, and communities around the world having claimed more than 23,000 lives, experts are ringing alarm bells about the implications of the disease as it hits South Asia, which hosts almost 2 billion of the world’s population.
As the elderly and unwell self-isolate, a network of Syrians provides a vital bridge to the outside world for Swiss in greatest need. | Español | Français | عربي
Shadi Shhadeh holds up a flyer offering the support of Syrian refugees to shop for COVID-19 most vulnerable in Geneva and Lausanne, Switzerland. © UNHCR/Elisabet Diaz Sanmartin
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