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Category: United Nations

  • Shame on NDP for supporting imperialism in Haiti

    Which is the Canadian political party most likely to stand up to the world’s rich and powerful? Which is willing to help the poorest of the poor gain a semblance of dignity and respect? Which can proudly proclaim, we stand for what is right, not just what is easy and expedient?

    Unfortunately, the answer is not the Conservatives, Liberals or the NDP.

    When it comes to Canada’s most flagrantly racist and colonial alliance NDP truly does stand for No Difference Party.

    In response to a Canadian Foreign Policy Institute election questionnaire asking, “Does your party support ‘greater’, ‘same’, ‘less’ or ‘no’ focus on Haiti Core Group”? The NDP answered “same”. It’s a remarkable endorsement of imperialism, racism and Canadian policy in Haiti.

    The Core Group is a coalition of foreign representatives (US, Canada, France, Spain, Germany, Brazil, UN and OAS) that periodically releases collective statements on Haitian affairs. They also meet among themselves and with Haitian officials. Recently, the Core Group propped up an unpopular president and effectively appointed Haiti’s de-facto prime minister. On Thursday Madame Boukman-Justice 4 Haiti tweeted, “international law bars foreign embassies from meddling in the internal affairs of nations. But in Haiti, a group of ambassadors from the US, France, Canada, Spain, Germany, EU, UN, OAS formed a bloc called CORE GROUP that literally controls the country and chooses its leaders.”

    The Core Group was officially established by a UN Security Council resolution on April 30, 2004. That resolution replaced the two-month-old Multinational Interim Force — created after US, Canadian and French troops invaded to overthrow the elected government — with the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), which occupied the country for 15 years. Point 5 of the resolution “supports the establishment of a Core Group chaired by the Special Representative and comprising also his/her Deputies, the Force Commander, representatives of OAS and CARICOM, other regional and sub-regional organizations, international financial institutions and other major stakeholders, in order to facilitate the implementation of MINUSTAH’s mandate, promote interaction with the Haitian authorities as partners, and to enhance the effectiveness of the international community’s response in Haiti.”

    While it is specifically cited in the UN resolution, CARICOM (Caribbean Community) hasn’t played much of a role in the Core Group, John Reginald Dumas recently explained. He is a Trinidadian diplomat who was the UN Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on Haiti at the time of the Core Group’s creation.

    Unofficially, the Core Group traces its roots to the 2003 “Ottawa Initiative on Haiti” meeting. In a rare major media look at that private meeting, Radio Canada’s Enquête pointed out that the Core Group was spawned at the “Ottawa initiative on Haiti”. Held at the Meech Lake government resort on January 31 and February 1, 2003, no Haitian officials were invited to a gathering where US, French, OAS and Canadian officials discussed overthrowing Haiti’s elected government, putting the country under UN trusteeship and recreating the Haitian military, which largely transpired a year later.

    The 2004 coup and UN occupation that spurred the Core Group has been an unmitigated disaster for most Haitians. An individual who had been living in Florida for 15 years, Gerard Latortue, was installed as prime minister for two years and thousands were killed by the post-coup regime. Besides their role in political repression, UN occupation forces disregard for Haitian life caused a major cholera outbreak, which left more than 10,000 dead and one million ill.

    In a sign of the disintegration of Haitian political life under Core Group direction, two months ago the (de facto) president was assassinated in the middle of the night by other elements of the government. While there were thousands of elected officials before the overthrow of the elected government in 2004, today Haiti doesn’t have a single functioning elected body (10 senators mandates have not expired but it’s not enough for a quorum).

    By basically any metric, 17 years of Core Group influence in Haiti has been a disaster. But even if that were not the case the NDP should oppose the nakedly imperialistic alliance on principle. Just imagine the Jamaican, Congolese, Guatemalan and Filipino ambassadors releasing a collective statement on who should be prime minister of Canada. How would Canadians feel about that?

    Remarking on the racial dimension, Haitians on social media often contrast the skin tone of Core Group ambassadors to most Haitians. Above a video of the German ambassador speaking on behalf of the alliance, last week Madame Boukman noted on Twitter, “The media deceptively covers up Haiti’s reality as a modern colonial project, where a German ambassador can boldly announce the country’s future under the control of a CORE GROUP of white supremacist ambassadors from the US, Canada, France, Brazil, Spain, Germany, EU, UN & OAS.”

    While the alliance may not be widely known in Canada, this country’s role in the Core Group has been publicly contested. Solidarity Québec Haiti has long criticized the Core Group. A February public letter signed by numerous prominent individuals, including NDP MPs Leah Gazan and Alexandre Boulerice, criticized the Core Group. I have written about the alliance on multiple occasions.

    Every NDP member should be ashamed of their party’s endorsement of Canadian colonialism in Haiti.

    Haitian Lives Matter!

    The post Shame on NDP for supporting imperialism in Haiti first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Biden At The UN Forgets What War Is

    Joe Biden, in his first address to the United Nations General Assembly, told world leaders Tuesday: “I stand here today, for the first time in 20 years, with the United States not at war.”According to the latest available White House war report, the U.S. was involved in seven wars in 2018: Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and Niger. The U.S. withdrew last month from Afghanistan, so the number of current U.S. wars is likely six.  Likely because in an age of so-called counter-terrorism operations it’s not entirely clear where U.S. forces are deployed.

    The post Biden At The UN Forgets What War Is appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • UN Is Prioritizing Corporate Profiteers Over Global Hunger, Activists Say

    With hunger growing across the globe during the pandemic, the United Nations is holding its first Food Systems Summit, but the gathering is facing fierce criticism for giving corporations an outsized role framing the agenda. The United Nations’ own experts on food, human rights and the environment released a statement warning the summit could “serve the corporate sector” over the needs of workers, small producers, women and Indigenous peoples around the world. U.N. figures show the pandemic has increased the number of hungry people to 811 million, and nearly one in three people worldwide — almost 2.4 billion — lack access to adequate nutrition. “When you’ve got conflict, climate and capitalism compounded with COVID, you see a really apocalyptic situation,” says journalist and academic Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World’s Food System.

    TRANSCRIPT

    This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

    AMY GOODMAN: With hunger growing across the globe during the pandemic, the United Nations is holding its first Food Systems Summit today. But the summit is facing fierce criticism for giving corporations an outsized role framing its agenda, with Big Food names like PepsiCo invited to fireside chats during a pre-summit in Rome. The U.N.’s own experts on food, human rights and the environment released a statement that, quote, “there is a risk the Summit will serve the corporate sector more than the people who are essential to ensuring our food systems flourish such as workers, small producers, women and indigenous peoples,” they said.

    This comes as U.N. figures show the pandemic has increased the number of hungry people in the world by as many as 161 million, to 811 million, and nearly one in three people worldwide — almost 2.4 billion — lack access to adequate nutrition.

    Soon we’ll be joined by leading food advocates in India and Ethiopia. But we begin with Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World’s Food System. His piece, just out in the Scientific American, is headlined “Agroecology Is the Solution to World Hunger.”

    Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Raj. It’s great to have you with us. If you can start off by talking about just what this World Food Systems Summit is all about at the United Nations, and then the fierce attack by hundreds of groups and leading people who are experts in the area, fearful that the corporatization of the summit will only increase hunger in the world?

    RAJ PATEL: Thank you, Amy. And thank you for having me.

    So, let’s first, as you did, set the scene, recognizing that there is already far too much hunger in the world. You’ve observed that as many as 811 million people are undernourished and well over 2 billion are food insecure. Right here in the United States, we have 38 million people who are unable to be certain that they’re going to be able to put food on the table for their families.

    And it was bad enough before COVID. There were forces that were pushing up the number of people and the percentage of people around the world who were going hungry even before COVID. And driving that were climate — so, climate change has made farming much more precarious, particularly for frontline and low-income communities around the world. So, climate. We’ve got conflict. You’ll be talking later on about the U.S. complicity in the engines of conflict and the arms trade around the world. But conflict is driving hunger because it creates displacement. It means that you plant the field, and the war tears through your community; you must move on, and harvests are lost, and livelihoods are lost. So, climate, conflict and, of course, capitalism. Capitalism operates through making sure that you buy low and you sell expensive. And that’s why in the United States seven out of the 10 worst-paying jobs are in the food system. But around the world, the deep irony is that the poorest people are usually the people whose hands touch our food. Now, when you’ve got conflict, climate and capitalism compounded with COVID, you see a really sort of apocalyptic situation.

    And so, there’s clearly a need for policymakers to up their game. One of the ways that that can happen is through summits being pulled together where member states say, “Look, we really need to focus on this. We need to bump this up the policy agenda.” And unfortunately, what the U.N. Food Systems Summit is doing is sort of an end run. It’s a very strange summit, because rather than having countries come together and say, “Look, we all agree that we must do this,” it’s being driven the U.N. secretary-general, António Guterres. Now, he may have entirely benign intentions, because we do, as I say, need to address this problem. In 2016, the world committed itself to having zero hunger, zero undernourishment by 2030. But the rate we’re going, we won’t have zero; we’ll have about a billion people who are undernourished by 2030, if current trends continue. So we do need to do something about this. But the way this summit operated was that Secretary-General Guterres appointed in December 2019 the president of the Alliance for the Green Revolution in Africa. And Agnes Kalibata, the president of AGRA, was, before that, a — you know, she’s been president of AGRA since 2014, but before that she was the secretary of agriculture in Rwanda from 2008 to 2014.

    Now, I mention this because part of her credentials for heading up this summit is that, under her tenure, you saw a huge increase in the amount of corn that was produced. Maize output from 2016 to 2019 increased fourfold, and the rice harvest doubled. And that kind of success story coming from Africa was part of the reason why the secretary-general appointed her. But, unfortunately, AGRA, this Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, is driven — I mean, it’s had mixed results. I mean, even in Rwanda, while the amount of food has gone up, hunger has — chronic hunger has increased by 40% over the same period, and so has the number of people who are undernourished.

    Now, what this means is that we need to look very closely at what AGRA is and how it operates. AGRA was set up by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation in 2006. And the goal there was to bring better agricultural practices to 30 million people across 13 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. And a billion dollars later, a lot of those dollars coming from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, but also from the United States Agency for International Development and other countries, the results have been fairly grim. So, again, just a sort of CliffsNotes version here, and this comes from excellent research by academics like Tim Wise at Tufts University, but what we’ve seen is that in the countries where AGRA operates, there’s been a 30% increase in the number of people who are suffering hunger, and the agricultural productivity is kind of the same as it was before AGRA began. But what AGRA is is a way of locking in a certain kind of way of doing agriculture, where you increase productivity and hope that the money that that generates for certain kinds of farmers trickles down to end hunger. And as we’ve seen from AGRA’s own data, it fails on its own terms.

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: You said, Raj, that this summit is taking place on the initiative of the U.N. secretary-general. Could you also talk about the role of the World Economic Forum and how that’s informed the content of the summit and who participates?

    RAJ PATEL: Well, certainly, the ideas that you’ll see floating around and the kinds of language that you see floating around the summit bear a striking resemblance to the sorts of ideas that come from the World Economic Forum’s sustainability roundtables and sort of corporate-driven missions to try and do something about hunger. I think that when we hear a little bit more about multistakeholderism from Shalmali Guttal in India, we’ll really be able to get under the hood of this.

    But the idea here is that corporations fully understand that if we are to have zero hunger, their bottom lines are going to be targeted. You know, many of the world’s largest food corporations recognize already that they are producing food that is not making the world healthy. A leaked report, leaked in the Financial Times earlier on this year, showed that, I believe it was, 60% of Nestlé’s food failed to meet even the very basic definition of healthy output. And I think 98% of Nestlé’s non-coffee beverages and non-water beverages are considered unhealthy. Corporations know that their number is up. And when they understand that they are going to be regulated and their profits are going to be hit — because how else are we going to be able to end hunger among the poorest but by paying them more, which means corporations will be earning less profit — they want to be on the inside of this regulation game. And they want to control the terms on which policy is set.

    And so you’ve got organizations within the sort of U.N. Food Systems Summit in some of the pre-summit meetings who represent industry. Greenpeace reported yesterday that the International Meat Secretariat, for example, and the International Poultry Council were part of the stakeholders who were around the table talking about livestock and sustainability. And the meat council was there saying, “Well, look, the only way for us to have a really sustainable future is to have more meat production in the Global North, because if it goes to the Global South, it will be poorly deregulated,” which is a spectacularly disingenuous argument to be making. But, of course, you know, they can make this argument uninformed by the science of sustainability that says that industrial meat production is one of the drivers of climate change. And we’ve seen in the United States industrial meat production was one of the industries that put people, particularly low-income communities and people of color, in the frontlines of COVID because of the opening of slaughterhouses in the pandemic. This powerful industry is largely immune to the best practices that we see emerging from the scientific community and the consensus we see emerging from the scientific community around climate change and around poverty. But they’re there at this summit because they’re considered stakeholders.

    And that idea of having all the stakeholders around the table together is something that characterizes this summit. That’s why you’ll hear from this summit that, you know, “We invited everyone to come. And those movements outside, you know, we invited them in, and they chose not to be here.” But the sort of philosophy of multistakeholderism that was transported from the World Economic Forum to this summit is that you have everyone around the table — murderers and victims — and they try and reach a consensus. And, of course, that’s not how we’re going to end hunger. And that’s one of the reasons why so many organizations are on the outside of the summit protesting its process and trying to moderate the more dangerous effects of its outcomes.

    AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Raj Patel, research professor at University of Texas–Austin. His piece in Scientific American is headlined “Agroecology Is the Solution to World Hunger.” Next up, we’ll be continuing with Raj and go to Ethiopia and India, as well, as we talk about hunger growing across the globe. Stay with us.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Myanmar junta abducting children of people targeted for arrest, says UN expert

    Children as young as 20 weeks old are being seized to force opponents to hand themselves in

    Myanmar’s military junta is systematically abducting the relatives of people it is seeking to arrest, including children as young as 20 weeks old, according the UN special rapporteur for the country.

    Tom Andrews told the UN Human Rights Council on Wednesday that conditions in the country had continued to deteriorate and “current efforts by the international community to stop the downward spiral of events in Myanmar are simply not working”.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Brazil minister shook hands with Johnson only hours before positive Covid test

    Downing Street faced questions over whether Boris Johnson would have to undertake extra coronavirus tests after coming into contact with a positive coronavirus case on his US trip.

    Brazil’s health minister Marcelo Queiroga has confirmed via social media that he has tested positive for Covid and is in isolation only 24 hours after being filmed shaking hands with the Prime Minister in New York on Monday.

    He was part of the delegation when Mr Johnson met with Brazil president Jair Bolsonaro on the fringes of the United Nations general assembly (UNGA).

    Unmasked

    Asked whether Mr Johnson had taken a Covid-19 test or any other precautions since Mr Queiroga’s result, a spokesman for the Prime Minister emphasised that the UK leader was fully vaccinated against Covid-19.

    The No 10 spokesperson told reporters on Wednesday:

    I’m obviously not out there and it is early in the morning (in the US).

    But there are strict Covid measures in place at UNGA which the Prime Minister will obviously adhere to.

    As you know, he is double jabbed.

    Queiroga shared an image on social media last month confirming he was vaccinated against Covid-19, unlike his leader Bolsonaro.

    During the UK-Brazil talks on Monday, Queiroga was pictured sitting away from Johnson and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, who also attended.

    The health official wore a mask but neither the Prime Minister nor Truss chose to use a face covering.

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Detained West Papuan activist at risk of ‘dying in jail’, UN expert warns

    Asia Pacific Report newsdesk

    A United Nations expert has urged Indonesia to provide proper medical care to a Papuan independence activist to “keep him from dying in prison”, after reports emerged that his health had deteriorated, reports The Jakarta Post.

    Victor Yeimo, 39, the international spokesman for the West Papua National Committee, was arrested in Jayapura in May.

    He has been charged with treason and inciting violence and social unrest in relation to the pro-independence protests that swept the region for several weeks in 2019. Yeimo has denied the charges.

    His trial went ahead in August despite repeated requests from his lawyer for a delay on medical grounds.

    “I’ve seen it before: States deny medical care to ailing, imprisoned human rights defenders, which results in serious illness or death,” said Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders.

    “Indonesia must take urgent steps to ensure the fate does not await Mr. Yeimo.”

    Political trial adjourned
    The human rights watchdog TAPOL reports that Yeimo’s political trial was adjourned by the District Court of Jayapura on 31 August 2021 until he was declared physically fit by the hospital.

    On the same day, the court also dismissed his pretrial motion, challenging his arrest and detention for violating criminal procedural law, on the grounds that the main trial had begun.

    Victor Yeimo was finally hospitalised on August 30 despite the court having issued an order to hospitalise him since the evening of August 27.

    The prosecutors defied the court’s order, which caused uproar among the public.

    Papuan leader Victor Yeimo
    Accused Papuan activist Victor Yeimo … his health has been a concern since the beginning of his detention in May 2021. Image: Foreign Correspondent

    Dozens of people protested in front of the prosecutors’ office and their residence on August 28.

    Hundreds of people protested again at the prosecutors’ office on August 30 before the prosecutors finally honoured the court order and took Yeimo to hospital.

    Victor Yeimo’s health has been a concern since the beginning of his detention in May 2021.

    Health deteriorated
    His health deteriorated as he was placed in isolation and did not receive proper food or any medication.

    Yeimo’s lawyers repeatedly asked that he be treated but were denied the request by the authorities. He was afforded only perfunctory medical tests on August 10 and 20.

    During his first and second hearings, he told the court that he had never been told the results of these tests and had never been given any medicines or prescriptions.

    He pleaded for help to the judges.

    The prosecutors, having withheld the medical results stating that Victor Yeimo must be hospitalised, finally shared the medical results dated August 20 with Victor Yeimo’s lawyers on August 26.

    On the same day, the court issued an order for Victor Yeimo to be treated at the hospital from 9 am to 6 pm the following day.

    The prosecutors only appeared to take him to the hospital at 4 pm. At the hospital, Victor Yeimo pleaded to stay, but was dragged out by armed police despite still being on a drip.

    At 11 pm, the court issued an order for Yeimo to be hospitalised.

    Crackdown on peaceful protests
    Peaceful protests demanding Victor Yeimo be released in seven cities across Indonesia during the period of 15 to 30 August 2021 were subjected to excessive use of force resulting in the death of protestor Ferianus Asso in Yahukimo, 104 arrests, and 40 people who were known to have been injured.

    Those arrested have all been released. Internet freedom watchdogs found that the internet in Jayapura was shut down for three hours at around the time of Victor Yeimo’s trial.

    Following TAPOL’s submission a week after Victor Yeimo’s arrest, the United Nations  Special Rapporteurs questioned the Indonesian government on the matter on June 30. The document was made public on August 31.

    “We regret the government of Indonesia’s response which has distorted the facts. UN Special Rapporteurs on Human Rights Defenders, the Right to Freedom of Assembly, the Right to Health, and Anti-Racism yesterday have issued a press release calling for Indonesia to provide Victor Yeimo with ‘the basic care he so desperately needs’, said TAPOL.

    “The UN experts also concluded that his prison conditions may have amounted to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.”

    Given the gravity of the situation and the treason charges that Yeimo is facing, TAPOL said it would provide a summary of each of his trial sessions so that they could be properly and transparently monitored.

    “We would encourage international organisations and interested experts to actively monitor his trial once it has been resumed,” TAPOL said.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • New Report On US’ Illegal Sanctions; A Day Of Reckoning Is Coming

    One of President Biden’s first statements included an intention to review the United States’ sanctions, which are actually unilateral coercive measures, to determine if they ‘unduly hinder’ the ability of targeted countries to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. That review, to be conducted by the US Treasury and State Department, has not been made public, if it has been done at all. The Sanctions Kill coalition conducted its own report on “The Impact and Consequences of US Sanctions,” which was released last week. Clearing the FOG speaks with two of the authors, John Philpot and David Paul, about what sanctions are, why they are illegal and the findings of the report. They explain that the US’ sanctions are not just impacting the 39 targeted countries but are also restraining countries and companies that do business with those countries. Given the growing backlash against the US’ overreach, Philpot, an international lawyer, predicts the US will be held accountable for its crimes and required to pay reparations.

    The post New Report On US’ Illegal Sanctions; A Day Of Reckoning Is Coming appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Likely Assassination Of UN Chief By US, British And South African Intelligence Happened 60 Years Ago

    Former President Harry Truman told reporters two days after Dag Hammarskjöld’s death on Sept. 18, 1961 that the U.N. secretary-general  “was on the point of getting something done when they killed him. Notice that I said ‘when they killed him.’” To this day the U.S. and other governments have continued to stonewall the U.N. investigation. The National Security Agency says it has files but are refusing to turn them over, 60 years after the event. In November last year, The Observer in London revealed that a Belgian mercenary pilot, who died in 2007, confessed to a friend that he had shot down Hammarskjöld’s plane.

    The post Likely Assassination Of UN Chief By US, British And South African Intelligence Happened 60 Years Ago appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Indigenous Leaders Face Barriers To UN Climate Conference

    Indigenous leaders are largely being excluded from participation in the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference as the world grapples with escalating problems from floods, fires, heat, drought and other disasters.

    Limited access to COVID-19 vaccines in certain regions, travel restrictions and quarantine in the United Kingdom for people from “red list” countries in Central and South America, Africa and Asia, and rising costs of travel and lodging are hindering Indigenous participation, Indian Country Today has found.

    Even those who manage to get to Glasgow, Scotland, for what is shaping up to be one of the world’s most important meetings on addressing climate change may have little access to influence the discussion, despite the UN’s recognition that Indigenous knowledge is key to long-term success.

    The post Indigenous Leaders Face Barriers To UN Climate Conference appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Nearly 90% of Global Farm Subsidies Harm Environment and Health: UN Report

    4 Mins Read Almost 90% of all subsidies going to the global agricultural industry cause harm to nature and human health, warns a new UN report.

    The post Nearly 90% of Global Farm Subsidies Harm Environment and Health: UN Report appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • UN Human Rights Chief Calls For Venezuela Sanctions Relief

    Mexico City, Mexico – Michelle Bachelet, United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights, called on Monday for sectoral sanctions against Venezuela to be lifted.

    “I reiterate my call for sectoral sanctions to be lifted,” the former Chilean president said, recalling the negative impact of the measures on the Caribbean nation’s economy.

    The High Commissioner’s call came during the opening of the 48th session of the Human Rights Council where she presented her report on the human rights situation in Venezuela. Bachelet also expressed her support for the ongoing dialogue between the government and the US-backed opposition being held in Mexico.

    Venezuela welcomed Bachelet’s appeal for unilateral coercive measures to be lifted but took exception to what Venezuela’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Héctor Constant Rosales, called the “politicization” of the High Commissioner’s report.

    The post UN Human Rights Chief Calls For Venezuela Sanctions Relief appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • New Report Says We Will Miss 1.5 Degrees Celsius Goal Without Drastic Action Now

    Indigenous leaders, Water Protectors and allies protest the Canadian oil-and-gas-transport company Enbridge, who are expanding the Line 3 pipeline, on August 25, 2021, in St. Paul, Minnesota.

    United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned Thursday that humanity’s “future is at stake” with governments’ climate commitments, as he marked the launch of a U.N.-backed report he called “an alarming appraisal of just how far off course we are.”

    “This year has seen fossil fuel emissions bounce back, greenhouse gas concentrations continuing to rise, and severe human-enhanced weather events that have affected health, lives, and livelihoods on every continent,” wrote Guterres in a foreword to the report, United in Science 2021.

    “Unless there are immediate, rapid, and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions,” he continued, “limiting warming to 1.5°C will be impossible, with catastrophic consequences for people and the planet on which we depend.”

    The third edition of the multi-agency United in Science report was compiled by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and brings together assessments from partner organizations including the Global Carbon Project (GCP), Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

    Guterres also gave a video message alongside the launch in which he said that “we continue to destroy the things on which we depend for life on Earth.”

    The U.N. chief noted in his remarks that developed nations aren’t immune from climate-related disasters, pointing to recent events like Hurricane Ida, which “cut power to over a million people in New Orleans” and left New York City “paralyzed by record-breaking rain that killed at least 50 people in the region.”

    Key points noted in the report are that concentrations of key greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O) — continued to increase in 2020 and the first half of 2021.

    CO2 emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels dropped in 2020 as a result of the pandemic-related economic slowdown. And while there remains “uncertainty about the global post-pandemic recovery,” the report warns that decline appears to be temporary, pointing to “initial estimates for 2021 [that] show a strong recovery in emissions with a possible return to pre-Covid levels within a year or two.”

    The report also highlights the warming planet’s impact on Arctic sea ice.

    “In every year from 2017 to 2021,” the report stated, “the Arctic average summer minimum and average winter maximum sea-ice extent were below the 1981–2010 long term average. In September 2020, the Arctic sea-ice extent reached its second lowest minimum on record.”

    The publication further notes the climate crisis’ impacts on human health.

    “The increased occurrence of wildfires leads to peaks in air pollution concentrations,” the publication states, and “long-term exposure to air pollution is linked to chronic diseases such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung cancer, heart diseases, effects on the nervous system and diabetes.” The study also cites increasing evidence related to how “the compound effects of air pollution and Covid-19 may lead to increased Covid-19 mortality.”

    It’s also likely that the annual global mean temperature will be between 0.9°C and 1.8°C above pre-industrial conditions for the period of 2021–2025, with a 40% chance of a single year within that five-year span being 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

    According to WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas, the report shows that global demands for governments to “build back better” from the pandemic have fallen on deaf ears. “We are not going in the right direction,” he wrote in a foreword to the report.

    Joeri Rogelj, one of the authors of the report and the director of research and lecturer in climate change and the environment at the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London, said the publication is another call to action.

    “The messages in this report provide a grim and alarming picture,” he said in a statement. “We are experiencing unprecedented climate change. We have caused it. And our actions to date are largely insufficient to avoid it from getting worse.”

    “The combined evidence in this report should empower anyone to make sure the report’s messages are heard in places of power by those making decisions about our future,” said Rogelj, pointing to COP 26, the upcoming U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, as “a key date where the world will have to come together to take the decisions necessary to halt climate change within our lifetimes.”

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Farmers And Civil Society Reject Corporate UN Food Systems Summit

    The World Economic Forum and Gates Foundation are convening a food summit through the United Nations on September 23. Global farmer, peasant and fishing coalitions have called a boycott of the summit for its pro-corporate agenda, refusal to include the human right to food and exclusion of the intergovernmental body, the Committee on World Food Security, that has created an inclusive and democratized international structure. Clearing the FOG speaks with Patti Naylor, a family farmer in Iowa who works on agroecology and food sovereignty. She is on the board of Family Farm Defenders and a member of the US Food Sovereignty Alliance. Naylor describes the failures of the current global food system, how it is unprepared for the crises we are experiencing and that will occur and why it is headed in a dangerous direction. She talks about the global fight to change the food system to one that is flexible enough to respond to crises and that protects and restores the environment. 

    The post Farmers And Civil Society Reject Corporate UN Food Systems Summit appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Taliban assure UN over safety and security of humanitarian workers

    Written assurances also say aid agencies will be able to operate independently of government and will be free to employ women

    The Taliban have given the UN written assurances on the safe passage and freedom of movement for humanitarian workers operating in Afghanistan, the UN under-secretary for humanitarian affairs, Martin Griffiths, has told a UN fundraising conference in Geneva.

    Reading extracts from the Taliban undertakings, Griffiths said he had also received the assurances that aid agencies would be able to operate independently of the government, and would be free to employ women.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • The Taliban are not the only threat to Afghanistan. Aid cuts could undo 20 years of progress

    The most vulnerable people will bear the cost of sanctions, as services and the economy collapse

    Watching Afghanistan’s unfolding trauma, I’ve thought a lot about Mumtaz Ahmed, a young teacher I met a few years ago. Her family fled Kabul during Taliban rule in the late 1990s.

    Raised as a refugee in Pakistan, Ahmed had defied the odds and made it to university. Now, she was back in Afghanistan teaching maths in a rural girls’ school. “I came back because I believe in education and I love my country,” she told me. “These girls have a right to learn – without education, Afghanistan has no future.”

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • At least four killed in Taliban crackdown on protests, says UN

    Human rights official says group conducting house-to-house searches and threatening journalists

    The Taliban’s violent crackdown on protests against their hardline rule has already led to four documented deaths, according to a UN human rights official who said the group had used live ammunition, whips and batons to break up demonstrations.

    Ravina Shamdasani, the UN’s rights spokesperson, told a briefing in Geneva that it had also received reports of house-to-house searches for those who participated in the protests.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • USP and Canterbury University partner for Pacific climate research

    By Timoci Vula in Suva

    The University of Canterbury and the University of the South Pacific are partnering in a unique research project that will explore the impact of climate change in the Pacific, and the role indigenous ecological knowledge can play to help communities to adapt.

    A statement from the USP said the project would address a lack of research into community resilience and response mechanisms, and how indigenous knowledge could work with Western scientific approaches to inform a range of responses — from government policies to community plans.

    It stated the research would support Pacific academics and take a Pasifika approach to research, including talanoa and culturally relevant methodologies.

    It would also capture indigenous approaches and local responses to changes in climate being experienced.

    In the statement, University of Canterbury team leader Professor Steven Ratuva said the “trans-disciplinary innovation is needed to explore the multi-layered impacts of the climate crisis on the environment and people in the Pacific and beyond”.

    “The project is a unique opportunity to weave science, social science, humanities and indigenous ecological knowledge in creative and transformative ways,” said Professor Ratuva, who is director of the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies.

    USP’s professor of Ocean and Climate Change and director of the Pacific Centre of Environment (PaCE-SD), Dr Elisabeth Holland, said the project responded to increasingly urgent calls from Pacific leaders and peoples to address the climate crisis.

    ‘First of its kind’
    “It is truly a first of its kind of synthesis of research on both climate change and the ocean in the Pacific,” she said.

    “This ‘by the Pacific for the Pacific’ project provides the opportunity to amplify community voices in the ongoing national and international discussions.”

    According to the statement, the research will contribute to the global understanding of climate change in the Pacific region, contributing to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Global Stocktake in 2023.

    It will also provide valuable information to Pacific governments and civil society groups and Pasifika peoples.

    It will highlight Pacific solutions to Pacific experiences, sharing these experiences across the region and the world.

    The project is funded by the NZ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

    Timoci Vula is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Building Social Solidarity Across National Boundaries

    Is it possible to build social solidarity beyond the state?

    It’s easy to conclude that it’s not.  In 1915, as national governments produced the shocking carnage of World War I, Ralph Chaplin, an activist in the Industrial Workers of the World, wrote his stirring song, “Solidarity Forever.”  Taken up by unions around the globe, it proclaimed that there was “no power greater anywhere beneath the sun” than international working class solidarity.  But, today, despite Chaplin’s dream of bringing to birth “a new world from the ashes of the old,” the world remains sharply divided by national boundaries—boundaries that are usually quite rigid, policed by armed guards, and ultimately enforced through that traditional national standby, war.

    Even so, over the course of modern history, social movements have managed, to a remarkable degree, to form global networks of activists who have transcended nationalism in their ideas and actions.  Starting in the late nineteenth century, there was a remarkable efflorescence of these movements:  the international aid movement; the labor movement; the socialist movement; the peace movement; and the women’s rights movement, among others.  In recent decades, other global movements have emerged, preaching and embodying the same kind of human solidarity—from the environmental movement, to the nuclear disarmament movement, to the campaign against corporate globalization, to the racial justice movement.

    Although divided from one another, at times, by their disparate concerns, these transnational humanitarian movements have nevertheless been profoundly subversive of many established ideas and of the established order—an order that has often been devoted to maintenance of special privilege and preservation of the nation state system.  Consequently, these movements have usually found a home on the political Left and have usually triggered a furious backlash on the political Right.

    The rise of globally-based social movements appears to have developed out of the growing interconnection of nations, economies, and peoples spawned by increasing world economic, scientific, and technological development, trade, travel, and communications.  This interconnection has meant that war, economic collapse, climate disasters, diseases, corporate exploitation, and other problems are no longer local, but global.  And the solutions, of course, are also global in nature.  Meanwhile, the possibilities for alliances of like-minded people across national boundaries have also grown.

    The rise of the worldwide campaign for nuclear disarmament exemplifies these trends.  Beginning in 1945, in the aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing, its sense of urgency was driven by breakthroughs in science and technology that revolutionized war and, thereby, threatened the world with unprecedented disaster.  Furthermore, the movement had little choice but to develop across the confines of national boundaries.  After all, nuclear testing, the nuclear arms race, and the prospect of nuclear annihilation represented global problems that could not be tackled on a national basis.  Eventually, a true peoples’ alliance emerged, uniting activists in East and West against the catastrophic nuclear war plans of their governments.

    Much the same approach is true of other global social movements.  Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, for example, play no favorites among nations when they report on human rights abuses around the world.  Individual nations, of course, selectively pick through the findings of these organizations to label their political adversaries (though not their allies) ruthless human rights abusers.  But the underlying reality is that participants in these movements have broken free of allegiances to national governments to uphold a single standard and, thereby, act as genuine world citizens.  The same can be said of activists in climate organizations like Greenpeace and 350.org, anticorporate campaigns, the women’s rights movement, and most other transnational social movements.

    Institutions of global governance also foster human solidarity across national borders.  The very existence of such institutions normalizes the idea that people in diverse countries are all part of the human community and, therefore, have a responsibility to one another.  Furthermore, UN Secretaries-General have often served as voices of conscience to the world, deploring warfare, economic inequality, runaway climate disaster, and a host of other global ills.  Conversely, the ability of global institutions to focus public attention upon such matters has deeply disturbed the political Right, which acts whenever it can to undermine the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, the World Health Organization, and other global institutions.

    Social movements and institutions of global governance often have a symbiotic relationship.  The United Nations has provided a very useful locus for discussion and action on issues of concern to organizations dealing with women’s rights, environmental protection, human rights, poverty, and other issues, with frequent conferences devoted to these concerns.  Frustrated with the failure of the nuclear powers to divest themselves of nuclear weapons, nuclear disarmament organizations deftly used a series of UN conferences to push through the adoption of the 2017 UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, much to the horror of nuclear-armed states.

    Admittedly, the United Nations is a confederation of nations, where the “great powers” often use their disproportionate influence—for example, in the Security Council—to block the adoption of popular global measures that they consider against their “interests.”  But it remains possible to change the rules of the world body, diminishing great power influence and creating a more democratic, effective world federation of nations.  Not surprisingly, there are social movements, such as the World Federalist Movement/Institute for Global Policy and Citizens for Global Solutions, working for these reforms.

    Although there are no guarantees that social movements and enhanced global governance will transform our divided, problem-ridden world, we shouldn’t ignore these movements and institutions, either.  Indeed, they should provide us with at least a measure of hope that, someday, human solidarity will prevail, thereby bringing to birth “a new world from the ashes of the old.”

    The post Building Social Solidarity Across National Boundaries first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • The Status of Refugees

    Seventy years after the UN Refugee Convention, the United States should refresh its commitment to displaced people.

    This post was originally published on Dissent MagazineDissent Magazine.

  • Taliban close Kabul airport road to Afghans to block their evacuation

    Decision likely to leave tens of thousands who had been hoping to escape trapped under group’s control

    The Taliban have moved to prevent Afghans from leaving the country by joining the US-led airlift, declaring the route to Kabul airport only open to foreigners.

    The Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said: “The road that ends at Kabul airport has been blocked. Foreigners can go through it but Afghans are not allowed to take the road.”

    Related: Boris Johnson fails to persuade US to extend Kabul exit deadline

    Related: How the west will try to sway the Taliban

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Fijians in Afghanistan will only leave if Taliban takeover crisis worsens

    By Filipe Naikaso of FBC News

    Five Fijians who are based in Afghanistan say they are safe and well.

    Speaking to FBC News, one of them who is living in the capital Kabul, said they kept tabs on each other and shared information on the Taliban takeover.

    They say that they will only leave Afghanistan if the situation worsens.

    The Fijian national spoke under the condition of anonymity and said he and three others were in Kabul while the others were in Mazar and Khandahar.

    They said the situation was calm in the the three cities.

    The man said he has been out and about in Kabul conducting assessment and supporting the UN evacuation flights in the last couple of days.

    He had noticed that the usual traffic congestion had decreased significantly as most people were staying home.

    Every five minutes
    He said there was an evacuation flight almost every five minutes. However, movement within the country was challenging at times.

    One other Fijian in Kabul was expected to relocate to Almaty in Kazakhstan.

    Meanwhile, RNZ News reports that the first group of New Zealand citizens, their families and other visa holders evacuated arrived yesterday in New Zealand.

    New Zealand lawyer Claudia Elliott has worked across Afghanistan with the United Nations and is now trying to get visas to get at risk Afghani professionals to also be evacuated to New Zealand.

    She says seeing the Taliban’s takeover has been traumatising – she is worried about how those who are given visas to New Zealand will actually be able to get out of Afghanistan.

     

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Here’s how the UN can make a difference right now in Afghanistan | Mark Malloch-Brown

    Establishing humanitarian corridors and monitoring human rights is crucial – and achievable – as the Taliban take control

    • Mark Malloch-Brown is a former UN deputy secretary general

    I have seen this tragedy before. As a young UN planner in the late 1980s, I helped design the relief operation after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan. More than a decade later, as head of the UN Development Programme, I led early relief and reconstruction efforts after the fall of the Taliban. In both cases, the fragile peace that followed conflicts was undermined by key actors in the international community, who stood back or actively opposed when their assistance was needed. The US armed the opposition to the government the Soviets left behind; and when a US-backed government then took power after 9/11, it faced opposition from America’s Asian rivals.

    Related: Why did we ignore the lessons of history in Afghanistan? We need a public inquiry | Jonathan Steele

    Mark Malloch-Brown, a former UN deputy secretary general, is president of the Open Society Foundations

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Papua’s Victor Yeimo must be set free immediately, says Wenda

    Asia Pacific Report newsdesk

    The United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) has called on Indonesian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release Papuan leader Victor Yeimo from custody.

    Benny Wenda, interim president of the ULMWP, said Yeimo was a “clear victim” of Indonesian racism and his health was deteriorating under captivity.

    Yeimo, spokesperson for the West Papua National Committee (KNPB), has been detained for three months on charges of makar, alleged treason.

    “Victor Yeimo is now facing possible life imprisonment for “treason”. Why? Simply for being accused of peacefully protesting against racism towards West Papuans,” Wenda said in a statement.

    “Victor Yeimo is himself a clear example of what it means to be a victim of the deep-seated racism we West Papuans endure under Indonesian colonialism.”

    The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, Mary Lawlor had raised particular concerns about Yeimo’s deteriorating health in prison, stating on Twitter, “I’m concerned because his pre-existing health conditions put him at grave risk of #COVID19.”

    Amnesty International was calling for Yeimo’s immediate and unconditional release from jail and was running a letter writing campaign encouraging people to support this call.

    Similar to ‘Balikpapan 7’ case
    “Victor Yeimo’s situation is highly similar to the plight of the ‘Balikpapan 7’, West Papuan political prisoners who were also arrested and jailed in 2020 for the same anti-racist protests of the 2019 West Papua Uprising.

    “They were finally released following a huge national and international solidarity campaign.

    “Their suffering and struggle should have proved to Indonesia and to the world, we do not need any more political prisoners in West Papua.

    “I also condemn all Indonesian state violence towards the people of West Papua which has been perpetrated by the Indonesian security forces in recent days.”

    During last weekend’s demonstrations for the right of self-determination and for Victor Yeimo’s release, “many people were arrested and tortured and one person in Yahukimo was shot by the Indonesian police“.

    In Jayapura, several people were brutally beaten by the Indonesian police, including KNPB chairman Agus Kossay.

    People were also arrested in other cities, including Indonesians “standing in solidarity with us West Papuans”.

    “There must be justice following these human rights violations,” Wenda said.

    He called on Indonesian authorities to immediately release all those detained from custody.

    On August 16, police harassed and blocked West Papuan church leader and peacemaker Rev Dr Benny Giay from entering the local Parliament where he had wanted to pray, Wenda said.

    “Who are the peacemakers in West Papua? Certainly not the Indonesian police, who have no respect for those actively building peace,” he said.

    “This is a disgraceful incident and the Indonesian police should be deeply ashamed.”

    Wenda said the Indonesian government had shown it had no respect for the human rights of the West Papuan people.

    The only solution for West Papua was a peaceful one of self-determination.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • With the Taliban return, 20 years of progress for women looks set to disappear overnight

    ANALYSIS: By Azadah Raz Mohammad, The University of Melbourne and Jenna Sapiano, Monash University

    As the Taliban has taken control of the country, Afghanistan has again become an extremely dangerous place to be a woman.

    Even before the fall of Kabul on Sunday, the situation was rapidly deteriorating, exacerbated by the planned withdrawal of all foreign military personnel and declining international aid.

    In the past few weeks alone, there have been many reports of casualties and violence. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes.

    The United Nations Refugee Agency says about 80 percent of those who have fled since the end of May are women and children.

    What does the return of the Taliban mean for women and girls?

    The history of the Taliban
    The Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 1996, enforcing harsh conditions and rules following their strict interpretation of Islamic law.

    A crowd of Taliban fighters and supporters.
    The Taliban have taken back control of Afghanistan with the withdrawal of foreign troops. Image: Rahmut Gul/AP/AAP

    Under their rule, women had to cover themselves and only leave the house in the company of a male relative. The Taliban also banned girls from attending school, and women from working outside the home. They were also banned from voting.

    Women were subject to cruel punishments for disobeying these rules, including being beaten and flogged, and stoned to death if found guilty of adultery. Afghanistan had the highest maternal mortality rate in the world.

    The past 20 years
    With the fall of the Taliban in 2001, the situation for women and girls vastly improved, although these gains were partial and fragile.

    Women now hold positions as ambassadors, ministers, governors, and police and security force members. In 2003, the new government ratified the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, which requires states to incorporate gender equality into their domestic law.

    The 2004 Afghan Constitution holds that “citizens of Afghanistan, man and woman, have equal rights and duties before the law”. Meanwhile, a 2009 law was introduced to protect women from forced and under-age marriage, and violence.

    According to Human Rights Watch, the law saw a rise in the reporting, investigation and, to a lesser extent, conviction, of violent crimes against women and girls.

    While the country has gone from having almost no girls at school to tens of thousands at university, the progress has been slow and unstable. UNICEF reports of the 3.7 million Afghan children out of school some 60 percent are girls.

    A return to dark days
    Officially, Taliban leaders have said they want to grant women’s rights “according to Islam”. But this has been met with great scepticism, including by women leaders in Afghanistan.

    Indeed, the Taliban has given every indication they will reimpose their repressive regime.

    In July, the United Nations reported the number of women and girls killed and injured in the first six months of the year nearly doubled compared to the same period the year before.

    In the areas again under Taliban control, girls have been banned from school and their freedom of movement restricted. There have also been reports of forced marriages.

    Afghan woman looking out a window.
    Afghan women and human rights groups have been sounding the alarm over the Taliban’s return. Image: Hedayatullah Amid/EPA/AAP

    Women are putting burqas back on and speak of destroying evidence of their education and life outside the home to protect themselves from the Taliban.

    As one anonymous Afghan woman writes in The Guardian:

    “I did not expect that we would be deprived of all our basic rights again and travel back to 20 years ago. That after 20 years of fighting for our rights and freedom, we should be hunting for burqas and hiding our identity.”

    Many Afghans are angered by the return of the Taliban and what they see as their abandonment by the international community. There have been protests in the streets. Women have even taken up guns in a rare show of defiance.

    But this alone will not be enough to protect women and girls.

    The world looks the other way
    Currently, the US and its allies are engaged in frantic rescue operations to get their citizens and staff out of Afghanistan. But what of Afghan citizens and their future?

    US President Joe Biden remained largely unmoved by the Taliban’s advance and the worsening humanitarian crisis. In an August 14 statement, he said:

    “an endless American presence in the middle of another country’s civil conflict was not acceptable to me.”

    And yet, the US and its allies — including Australia — went to Afghanistan 20 years ago on the premise of removing the Taliban and protecting women’s rights. However, most Afghans do not believe they have experienced peace in their lifetimes.

    Now that the Taliban has reasserted complete control over the country, the achievements of the past 20 years, especially those made to protect women’s rights and equality, are at risk if the international community once again abandons Afghanistan.

    Women and girls are pleading for help. We hope the world will listen.The Conversation

    Azadah Raz Mohammad, PhD student, The University of Melbourne and Dr Jenna Sapiano, Australia Research Council postdoctoral research associate and lecturer, Monash Gender Peace & Security Centre, Monash University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • UN experts call for end to police brutality worldwide

    UN Special Rapporteurs Nils Melzer, Special Rapporteur on Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; Morris Tidball-Binz, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, and Clement Nyaletsossi Voulé, Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of…

    This post was originally published on Human Rights at Home Blog.

  • Is It Time To Create A UN Political Body For Climate Change?

    The recent changing weather patterns worldwide– including the devastation caused by forest fires in 13 states in the US and Siberia, heavy rains and severe flooding in central China and Germany, severe droughts in Iran and Madagascar and a drought that has ravaged southern Angola– have once again put the spotlight of climate change which has taken added significance at the United Nations. Adam Day, Director of Programmes at United Nations University Centre for Policy Research, told IPS there have been proposals for a range of initiatives to address issues related to future existential risks like climate change, and to represent the needs of future generations more directly in the multilateral system.

    The post Is It Time To Create A UN Political Body For Climate Change? appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • International calls grow to free Papuan activist Victor Yeimo’s over health

    Asia Pacific Report newsdesk

    International pressure is mounting on Indonesia to free West Papuan activist Victor Yeimo, the international spokesperson for the peaceful civilian West Papua National Committee (KNPB), as concern grows over his worsening state of health.

    Following the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders Mary Lawlor’s declaration on twitter two days ago that Yeimo was at risk of being infected with covid-19, the Australia West Papua Association (AWPA) has written to Foreign Minister Marise Payne saying there was concern over his deteriorating health.

    “He is losing weight and has been coughing blood for the past few days,” spokesman Joe Collins said in the letter today.

    Amnesty International Indonesia has also raised concerns about Yeimo and about the arrest of 14 Cendrawasih University (Unicen) students who on Tuesday called for his release from Mako Brimob prison in the Papuan capital Jayapura.

    Suara Papua reports that the KNPB on Monday urged the Papua regional police and the Papua chief public prosecutor to immediately release Yeimo because there was no legal basis for his detention and his health had been deteriorating since his arrest on May 9.

    “For the sake of humanity and the authority of the Indonesian state, immediately release Victor Yeimo and all Papuan independence activists who have been arrested without [legal] grounds, evidence or witnesses,” said KNPB chairperson Agus Kossay in a media statement.

    “The Papuan people are not the perpetrators of racism.”

    ‘Disturbing reports’
    Lawlor’s twitter post the following day said: “I am hearing disturbing reports that human rights defender from #WestPapua, Victor Yeimo, is suffering from deteriorating health in prison. I’m concerned because his pre-existing health conditions put him at grave risk of #COVID-19.”

    Yeimo faces a number of charges, including treason, because of his peaceful role in the anti-racism protests on 19 August 2019.

    He is accused of violating Articles 106 and 110 of the Criminal Code on treason and conspiracy to commit treason.

    Many analysts on West Papuan affairs consider these charges to be trumped up.

    Amnesty International Indonesia deputy director Wirya Adiwena said that the students protesting for Yeimo should be protected — not arrested and treated like criminals.

    “Like Victor, these Uncen students are only using their right to exercise freedom of expression, assembly and association, to peacefully speak their minds,” said Adiwena.

    Against human rights
    The jailing of peaceful activists because they had taken part in a demonstration was against their rights under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states,
    Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek receive and impart information and ideas though any media and regardless of frontiers (Article 19).

    Article 20(1) states that everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.

    Lawyer and human rights activist Veronica Koman also called for the release of Yeimo.

    “Victor Yeimo will not be safe if he remains behind [the bars] of a colonial prison. Colonialism will continue to demand political sacrifices,” wrote Koman on her Facebook.

    Collins of AWPA said his movement was greatly concerned that by denying Yeimo proper adequate medical care, the Indonesian authorities were putting his him at “grave risk of death or other irreversible damage to his health”.

    The AWPA called on Minister Payne “to use your good offices with the Indonesian government to call for the immediate and unconditional release of Victor Yeimo and all political prisoners”.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Narrow window to halt climate change catastrophe, says Pacific Forum chief

    RNZ Pacific

    The world is on the brink of a climate catastrophe, with just a narrow window for action to reverse global processes predicted to cause devastating effects in the Pacific and world-wide, says the leader of the 18-nation Pacific Islands Forum.

    Forum Secretary-General Henry Puna said a major UN scientific report released on Monday backed what the Blue Pacific continent already knew — that the planet was in the throes of a human-induced climate crisis.

    The report from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) described a “code red” warning for humanity.

    Puna said a major concern was sea level change; the report said a rise of 2 metres by the end of this century, and a disastrous rise of 5 metres rise by 2150 could not be ruled out.

    The report also found that extreme sea level events that previously occurred once in 100 years could happen every year by the end of this century.

    To put this into perspective, these outcomes were predicted to result in the loss of millions of lives, homes and livelihoods across the Pacific and the world.

    The IPCC said extreme heatwaves, droughts, flooding and other environmental instability were also likely to increase in frequency and severity.

    Governments cannot ignore voices
    Puna said governments, big business and the major emitters of the world could no longer ignore the voices of those already enduring the unfolding existential crisis.

    “They can no longer choose rhetoric over action. There are simply no more excuses to be had. Our actions today will have consequences now and into the future for all of us to bear.”

    The 2019 Pacific Islands Forum Kainaki Lua Declaration remained a clarion call for urgent climate action, he said.

    The call urged the UN to do more to persuade industrial powers to cut their carbon emissions to reduce contributing to climate change.

    However, Puna said the factors affecting climate change could be turned around if people acted now.

    “The 6th IPCC Assessment Report shows us that the science is clear. We know the scale of the climate crisis we are facing. We also have the solutions to avoid the worst of climate change impacts.

    “What we need now is political leadership and momentum to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees.”

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • UN urges Australia to release dangerously ill refugee who has ‘given up on living’ after eight years

    UN human rights committee says Kaveh, who lies emaciated in a Melbourne hospital, should be moved to community detention

    A dangerously ill refugee held within Australia’s immigration detention regime for eight years has secured an interim order from the United Nations human rights committee urging the Australian government to release him into the community.

    Kaveh, a refugee from a Middle Eastern country, is currently in a Melbourne hospital, emaciated and suffering a range of complex physical and mental health issues. Standing at 176cm tall, he weighs just 47kg.

    Related: Afghan refugee may lose permanent residency in Australia – for supplying identity document

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Protest Rally To Commemorate 2018 Dahyan School Bus Massacre

    Yemeni and other Arab and international community organisations have on Tuesday held a protest rally denouncing the crimes committed by the Saudi-led coalition against the Yemeni people.

    The rally, which was held in in front of the United Nations building in New York City, came to mark the anniversary of the Dahyan student bus massacre that was committed by the US-backed Saudi aggression’s airstrikes in 2018, killing 40 children in Saada province.

    The participants called the rally of “For the grievances of the children of Yemen”, and said they considered the Dahyan student bus crime in Saada and other massacres by the aggression coalition in various Yemeni province as contradicting international humanitarian norms, charters and laws that criminalise targeting civilians.

    The post Protest Rally To Commemorate 2018 Dahyan School Bus Massacre appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.