'Unseen' News and Views
Blackwater founder wants to hire soldiers to take out Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. | Photo: Reuters | Photo fromteleSUR.
30 April 2019 (International Work Group for indigenous Affairs – IGWIA)* — In a landmark decision on 13 March 2019, the Australian High Court ordered the Government of the Northern Territory to pay $2.53 million AUD (1.78 million USD) in compensation to the Ngaliwurru and Nungali peoples for the loss of Native Title in the town of Timber Creek.
Image from IGWIA
The verdict is significant, as it is the first time that the issue of compensation for lost rights to Native Title has been considered in Australia by the High Court.
It has set a precedent that will influence and spur future claims for compensation by groups of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples across Australia.
Jakarta, 30 April 2019 (IOM)*– A new mobile app developed by IOM Indonesia provides frontline law enforcement with a powerful tool to quickly detect victims of human trafficking in the fisheries sector.
In March 2015, the Government of Indonesia rescued hundreds of crew from conditions of modern slavery aboard foreign fishing vessels. IOM helped to identify the victims of trafficking, provided shelter, health and catering services and ultimately organized the safe return home of all of the men including these Myanmar nationals. Photo: Ed Wray/IOM Indonesia
– The World Bank has successfully promoted its ‘Maximizing Finance for Development’ (MFD) strategy by embracing the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, internationally endorsed in September 2015.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
It has also secured support from the G20 of twenty biggest economies, and effectively pre-empted alternative approaches at the third UN Financing for Development summit in Addis Ababa in mid-2015.
As the main ‘show in town’, developing countries will need to address the MFD’s implications by responding pro-actively and collectively to address the new challenges it poses.
Managing new macro-financial challenges
As the MFD agenda privileges foreign investors and portfolio inflows, multilateral development banks (MDBs) should be obliged to clearly show how developing countries will benefit.
Strengthening both security and the Ebola response effort is essential to contain the growing outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), UN health agency’s officials said on Tuesday [30 April 2019], following a visit to the epicentre of what is already the worst outbreak in the country’s history.
Looking Backwards
In the Cold War Era there was a sharp polemical contrast drawn between the ‘liberal’ West and the rest of the world, which was regarded as either Communist or authoritarian, regardless of whether its constitution was framed in democratic language or not.
Richard Falk
And liberal in the West was used to signify the primacy of the individual citizen as well as policies and practices reflecting an overall commitment to an economy centered in the private sector, although unevenly modified by various measures of social protection.
In the latter stages of the Cold War, the Western effort to hold the moral and political high ground in the ideological struggle emphasized freedom versus totalitarianism.
– The United States dropped a political bombshell when President Donald Trump announced his administration would withdraw from the historic Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) which the former Obama administration signed in September 2013.
“We are taking our signature back”, said Trump April 26, addressing a meeting of the National Rifle Association (NRA), one of the most powerful gun lobbies in the US.
29 April 2019 (UN Environment)* — In the world before modern medicine it was up to the local shaman, monk or wise woman to treat injury and disease, often with remedies based on local medicinal plants.
Today, many of these time-worn cures remain popular around the globe, but in some countries, traditional healers have extended their arsenal to include not only nature’s gifts, but the products of human industry, amongst them an oily liquid, clear to yellow in colour with neither smell nor taste, that often spills or leaks from electrical equipment.
Winning the race against climate change to keep our planet livable and on a healthy trajectory requires action rooted in sustainable solutions aligned with the Paris Agreement and the UN-driven 2030 Agenda for sustainable development, Secretary-General António Guterres said on 27 April 2019.
“To put it simply, we need green development. We need sustainable development. And we need it now,” the UN chief told world leaders in Beijing, discussing ways to boost green development as part of a conference on China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
26 April 2019 — More than three decades after the devastating explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, parts of Belarus’ adjoining regions have sprung back to life and the biggest of them, Homiel, has become a leading destination for domestic and international investors.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 