'Unseen' News and Views
2 November 2018 – The United Nation’s highest human rights body, the Human Rights Council (HRC), will start reviewing on Monday [5 October 2018] the track records of 14 countries, including Saudi Arabia and China. Here’s our UN News guide to how it works and why it matters.
Hong Kong, – Groundbreaking analysis of new satellite data from 1 June to 31 August this year reveals the world’s largest NO2 air pollution hotspots across six continents in the most detail to date, and points the finger at coal and transport as the two principal sources of emissions.
Photo from Greenpeace International.
NO2 is a dangerous pollutant in and of itself and also contributes to the formation of PM2.5 and ozone, two of the most dangerous forms of air pollution. In the EU alone, cleaning up NO2 pollution could save up to 75,000 lives per year.
Giants – The Global Power Elite by Peter Phillips, New York: Seven Stories Press, 2018
Marc Pilisuk
We live in a world where malnutrition and death from preventable disease are routine. Destroyed habitats force massive displacement of people and destruction of other species.
People work for wages insufficient to feed and house their families or to maintain a sense of security, dignity or belonging. Water and air are seriously toxic and “successful” lifestyles depend upon exploitation of people and planet.
Elections are bought. Human trafficking, massive incarceration and endless wars stifle the aspirations of those most severely displaced and denigrated.
These wars have come close to the ultimate catastrophe of nuclear war ending the continuation of life on this planet.
1 November 2018 — The killing of journalists around the world for doing their job is “outrageous” and should not become the “new normal” according to UN Secretary-General António Guterres. In just over a decade, some 1,010 journalists have been killed for reporting the news, and in nine out of 10 cases, the perpetrators are never brought to justice. In 2018 alone, at least 88 journalists have been killed according to the UN.
Many thousands more have been “attacked, harassed, detained or imprisoned on spurious charges, without due process,” Guterres said in a video message for The International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists, marked annually on 2 November.
The critical difficulties in accessing food in Yemen, and other hardships caused by the ongoing conflict, could lead to the world’s worst famine ever, and place up to two million malnourished, pregnant and lactating women at risk of death, the UN sexual and reproductive health agency, UNFPA, said on Thursday [1 November 2018].
By Robert Eno | Indiana University Bloomington – TRANSCEND Media Service*
Analects Confucius 890 CE
Introduction
The Analects of Confucius is an anthology of brief passages that present the words of Confucius and his disciples, describe Confucius as a man, and recount some of the events of his life.
The book may have begun as a collection by Confucius’s immediate disciples soon after their Master’s death in 479 BCE.
In traditional China, it was believed that its contents were quickly assembled at that time, and that it was an accurate record; the English title, which means “brief sayings of Confucius,” reflects this idea of the text. (The Chinese title, Lunyu 論語, means “collated conversations.”)
1 November 2018 (SPUTNIK)* – China’s growing interest in the Arctic and its energy giants’ enthusiasm for Arctic oil are seen as a welcome source of extra income in Greenland, and a perennial cause for security concerns in both Copenhagen and Washington, where Beijing is seen as a challenger.
Three Polar bears approach the starboard bow of the Los Angeles-class fast attack submarine USS Honolulu(SSN 718) while surfaced 280 miles from the North Pole.| Author: Chief Yeoman Alphonso Braggs, US-Navy | Public Domain.|This file has been identified as being free of known restrictions under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights.
From Hillbrow, after research, they are taken to Olifantsvlei cemetery in Johannesburg. The bodies are then grouped in fives and buried together in nine-feet-deep holes.
A coffin containing the body of a migrant who died, is carried off a navy ship at the Sicilian harbor of Empedocle, December 5, 2014. | Photo: Reuters FILE | Photo from telesurenlgish.
1 November 2018 (FAO)* — High up in Guatemala’s Cuchumatanes mountains, lunch is served in the Torres household. Mom Catarina places a steaming plate of empanadas – pastry stuffed with tomatoes, onions and greens – on the dining table in front of her three daughters, whose eyes shine bright in anticipation.
The programme has led to a drop in malnutrition within the community’s children. ©FAO/Luis Gustavo Sánchez
On 31 October 2002, the UN Security Council adopted unanimously Resolution 1325 (2000) urging “Member States to ensure increased representation of women at all decision-making levels in national, regional and international institutions and mechanisms for the prevention, management and resolution of conflicts.”
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Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security was the first time that the UN Security Council acknowledged that women play a key role in promoting sustainable peace and stressed the participation of women in peace processes from the prevention of conflict, to negotiations, to post-war reconstruction and reconciliation.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 