World

Aug. 23, 2019 – democraciaAbierta has seen a PowerPoint presentation that shows that Bolsonaro’s government intends to use hate speech to isolate minorities of the Amazon. Español Português Leaked documents show that Jair Bolsonaro’s government intends to use the Brazilian president’s hate speech to isolate minorities living in the Amazon region. The PowerPoint slides, which […]

Aug. 22, 2019 – Responding to the news of the wildfires that have been raging in the Amazon rainforest for several weeks, Kumi Naidoo, Secretary General of Amnesty International said: “The responsibility to stop the wildfires that have been raging in the Amazon rainforest for several weeks now lies squarely with President Bolsonaro and his […]

AUGUST 22, 2019—Luca Pigozzi, a medical doctor with Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) on the search and rescue ship the Ocean Viking in the central Mediterranean, gave the following statement today: “It’s been now 13 days that 356 vulnerable people are stranded onboard the Ocean Viking. Every day we see the situation deteriorate. There […]

New York, August 21, 2019 – The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds today to the United States’ proposed departure from the Flores Settlement, a landmark 1997 agreement which established minimum standards for the care, custody, and release of all children in immigration detention. The Flores Settlement Agreement was reached following over a decade of litigation brought by children […]

GENEVA August 21, 2019 –  States have an important role to play in promoting religious tolerance and cultural diversity by promoting and protecting human rights, including freedom of religion or belief, say a group of UN independent experts*. The experts urged States to step up their efforts to combat intolerance, discrimination and violence against people […]

Beirut, August 21, 2019 – Saudi-led coalition naval forces have carried out at least five deadly attacks on Yemeni fishing boats since 2018, Human Rights Watch said today. Coalition warships and helicopters have been involved in attacks that killed at least 47 Yemeni fishermen, including seven children, and the detention of more than 100 others, […]

Sydney, August 19, 2019 – Australia’s parliament should scrap a new rule that allows nursing homes to overmedicate and restrain older people, a group of organizations working for older people’s rights in Australia said today. On August 20, 2019 in Sydney, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights will hold a hearing on human rights […]

ITHACA, N.Y. Aug. 14, 2019 – As methane concentrations increase in the Earth’s atmosphere, chemical fingerprints point to a probable source: shale oil and gas, according to new Cornell University research published in Biogeosciences, a journal of the European Geosciences Union. The research suggests that this methane has less carbon-13 relative to carbon-12 (denoting the […]

LAWRENCE, Aug. 14, 2019 – Climate change is a problem facing countries around the world, but media coverage of the topic differs from one nation to the next. A new study from the University of Kansas shows the way media frame climate change coverage can be predicted by several national factors, yet none tend to […]

EAST LANSING, Mich. Aug. 12, 2019 – Transnational environmental crime – wildlife trafficking, illegal logging, dumping hazardous waste and more – takes an estimated $91 to $259 billion bite out of the global economy and has strong ties to organized crime finance, says a new study from Michigan State University and published in Nature Sustainability. […]

Shiro Armstrong, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University August 13, 2019 – President Trump’s “America First” agenda is rapidly trashing the global economic system and the rules and norms the US has championed throughout in the post war era. Mr Trump has been singling out particular countries, including China and Mexico, for punitive […]

Aug. 13, 2019 – The greater frequency of droughts, combined with underlying economic, social, and environmental risks means that dry spells have an increasingly destructive impact on vulnerable populations, and particularly on children in the developing world. In a new study by researchers from IIASA and the USA, the team set out to map at-risk […]

August 13, 2019 – UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is today calling on European governments to allow the immediate disembarkation of 507 people recently rescued on the Central Mediterranean who remain stranded at sea. Many are reportedly survivors of appalling abuses in Libya and are from refugee-producing countries. They are in need of humanitarian assistance […]

August 11, 2019, Aden, Yemen — The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is alarmed by confirmed reports of Saudi-led airstrikes in Aden. After days of intense fighting in the city, the United Arab Emirates backed Southern Transitional Council was able to take control of the city. But reports this morning that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia […]

Aug. 8, 2019 – Washington, DC, Aug. 8, 2019 — A United Nations (UN) report on climate change has for the first time cited strong land rights for Indigenous Peoples and local communities as a solution to the climate crisis. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Climate Change and Land, released […]

GENEVA, Aug 8, 2019 – Land is already under growing human pressure and climate change is adding to these pressures. At the same time, keeping global warming to well below 2ºC can be achieved only by reducing greenhouse gas emissions from all sectors including land and food, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said […]

GENEVA August 7, 2019 – In a statement to mark International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, UN human rights experts* are calling for a decade of action to protect and promote the use of indigenous languages, many of which are endangered: “Indigenous languages are necessary for the enjoyment of human rights, as well as […]