El Paso, TX, 2 July 2019 (Human Rights Watch)* – The United Statesgovernment should cease returning asylum seekers to wait in Mexico during their US immigration court proceedings, Human Rights Watch and the Hope Border Institute said in a report released today [2 July 2019].
“My mother entered my room at around 5 pm while I was sitting on the floor, colouring in my princess colouring book. She sat on the bed and called me up. ‘Najma, tomorrow you will get married.’”
Najma’s mother explained what marriage meant. “’You have some duties, and the most important one is to please your husband, prepare his meals, clean and iron his clothes and be an obedient woman,’” she recalled her mother saying.
Figures suggest that many young asylum seekers arriving in the UK have their ages wrongly disputed leading to serious safeguarding problems.
Young asylum seekers who have their age disputed by local authorities are at risk of significant harm.| Wikimedia Commons. Some rights reserved.
1 July 2019 (openDemocracy)* — The Court of Appeal recently declaredthat the UK Home Office’s policy of determining the age of young asylum seekers is unlawful as it fails to ensure that children are not mistakenly treated as adults.
Working in climate and environment, you hear this question a lot. On one hand, environmental groups — including Greenpeace — will tell you that every action you take can make a difference.
Despite U.N. troops, French army troops, European Union military trainers, and national armies, instability is spreading in the Sahel five States: Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Chad. Senegal should normally be added to the Sahel States as part of the country has a Sahel geography, but as the government is relatively stable and free of extremist violence, Senegal is left outside the formal Sahel 5 grouping – all former French colonies.
The French government still plays a large role in the economic, political and security life of these Sahel 5 – what has been called “la Francafrique“.
(UNHCR)* — According to latest estimates released on 01 July 2019 at an annual resettlement forum, hosted by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, more than 1.44 million refugees currently residing in over 60 refugee hosting countries will be in need of resettlement in 2020. | Español
1 July 2019(Wall Street International)* – It has been almost two decades since Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the United Nations, stated that:
Our actions have to be centered now on that part of the equation which is absent: the world public good | Image from Wall Street International.
“when there is a political will it is possible to modify the reigning equilibrium and thus tend toward a more secure peace and a greater economic wellbeing, and social justice and environmental sustainability in addition.
27 June 2019 (UN Environment)* — As September’s UN Climate Action Summit fast approaches and the mercury rises across Europe and India, the pressure is on to find workable solutions that can quickly turn down the planet’s thermostat.
There is an obvious focus on cutting carbon dioxide emissions, the chief culprit for climate change, but there also lies a huge opportunity in reducing methane emissions from the oil and gas industry.
Methane is responsible for at least a quarter of global warming and is over 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a warming gas over a twenty-year timeframe.
28 June 2019 — Mother of three, Mhee Saesong, a strawberry farmer from Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand, has always struggled alongside her husband to provide for her family. She describes how, in the past, when her two older children became sick, she was unable to afford to take them to hospital.
But that changed following the birth of her third child, Monluck, and the introduction of a nationwide child support grant worth just under US$20 per month. “I was so happy when I heard this news,” Mhee says. “Before, I didn’t have money to take my children to see doctors.”
Dakar(Norwegian Refugee Council)* – UN aid agencies and NGOs on 27 June 2019 warned that surging armed violence in the Sahel has propelled forced displacement and humanitarian emergency to unprecedented levels. They called for stepped-up support and greater efforts to address the causes of the region’s crises.
Displaced women at one of the informal sites hosting displaced families in Maiduguri, north-east Nigeria. Photo: Hajer Naili/NRC
In the past year, around 1 million people had to flee their homes due to insecurity and violence. In Burkina Faso, Mali and western Niger displacement has increased five-fold, and the Lake Chad Basin is witnessing a new spike in displacement and attacks. Across the Sahel, 4.2 million people are uprooted.
There is an obvious focus on cutting carbon dioxide emissions, the chief culprit for climate change, but there also lies a huge opportunity in reducing methane emissions from the oil and gas industry.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 