'Unseen' News and Views
“Amid the continued escalation of global challenges, crises that were previously unthinkable are now becoming reality throughout the world” — Daisaku Ikeda
On January 26, 2019, the 37th annual peace proposal by Daisaku Ikeda, president of the Soka Gakkai International (SGI) Buddhist movement, was released, titled “Toward a New Era of Peace and Disarmament: A People-Centered Approach.”
In Countries Destroyed by the West, People Should Stop Admiring the U.S. and Europe
It may sound incredible, but it is true: in countries that have been damaged, even totally robbed and destroyed by the West, many people are still enamored with Europe and North America.
Migration and sustainable development are “deeply interconnected” and the 2030 Agenda, the UN’s blueprint for a sustainable future for all, will not be achieved if we do not “comprehensively include migrants,” the President of the General Assembly said on Wednesday [27 February 2019].
27 February 2019 – With around half a million in effect, stateless Rohingya refugee children living in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar camp, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) chief stressed that the international community must address their “untenable situation” and “invest in this generation”.
“Staggering levels” of humanitarian need persist throughout Syria, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) told Security Council members on Tuesday [26 February 2019].
Speaking on behalf of UN emergency relief chief Mark Lowcock, Reena Ghelani, OCHA’s Director for Operations and Advocacy, said that this year, an estimated 11.7 million people will require life-saving humanitarian assistance across the country.
‘When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it – always.’ M.K. Gandhi
23 February 2019 (Wall Street International)* – As we remember Gandhi Jayanti on 2 October, the Mahatma’s 149th birthday and the International Day of Nonviolence, there is plenty of room for despair.
Never before has the Earth and its many inhabitants been under siege as they are now, more than 100 years after Gandhi started warning us of the predicament in which we are embroiled and presenting his strategy for addressing it before it spiraled out of control.
People’s rights are under fire “in many parts of the globe,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres told the Human Rights Council on Monday [25 February 2019], before insisting that he was not “losing hope”, thanks to the progress made by powerful grassroots movements for social justice.
Addressing the Geneva-based forum on the opening day of its 40th session, Mr. Guterres underlined the Council’s key role as the “epicentre” for dialogue and cooperation on all human rights issues: civil, political, economic, social and cultural.
The UK Government is “under an obligation” to end its administration of the Chagos Archipelago “as rapidly as possible” the International Court of Justice, the principal judicial body of the UN, stated in an Advisory Opinion released on Monday [25 February 2019]. The Opinion calls the continued administration of the archipelago “unlawful,” and “a wrongful act.”
The Chagos Islands were retained by the United Kingdom during negotiations over independence for the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius, which came to fruition in 1968. The islands have since been used for defence purposes by the UK and the United States, which established a military base on the island of Diego Garcia.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 