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UN Food Systems Summit: Here Is Why We Are Boycotting It

July 26, 2021 Elizabeth Mpfou and Edgardo Garcia, La Via Campesina. , , ,
Yet, the organised peasant and indigenous movements from Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas that collectively represent most of the world’s small-scale food producers have called for a total boycott of this summit. In April this year, scores of scientists, researchers, faculty members, and educators who work in agriculture and food systems, also issued an open call to boycott the event. To understand why social movements and scientists are staying out of a UN-sponsored summit, it is important to know how the world’s food system works today.

Haiti’s White Rulers Have Spoken On Haiti’s Political Future

July 13, 2021 Black Alliance For Peace. , , ,
The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) condemns the arrogance and illegality of United Nations Special Envoy for Haiti Helen La Lime’s July 8 statement that Haitian Prime Minister Claude Joseph will be the new president, just one day after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.

Report Calls For Reparations For Victims Of Racist Police Violence

July 13, 2021 Marjorie Cohn, Truthout. , , ,
On June 28, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet released a stunning 23-page report accompanied by a 95-page conference room paper for the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) documenting systemic racism and human rights violations by police forces against Africans and people of African descent throughout the world. The report considered more than 340 interviews and more than 100 written submissions from civil society organizations. Bachelet grounded her analysis in “the long-overdue need to confront the legacies of enslavement, the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans and colonialism and to seek reparatory justice.” She took aim at “misconceptions that the abolition of slavery, the end of the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans and colonialism” and subsequent reforms have eliminated “the racially discriminatory structures built by those practices and created equal societies.”

Women Everywhere In The World Are Squeezed Into A Tight Corner

July 10, 2021 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. , , ,
In 1995, the delegates elected Chen Muhua (1921-2011) as the president of the UN World Conference on Women. In 1938, Chen went to Yan’an to join the communist revolution, studying at Kàngda and helping to build the economic resilience of the base areas. After 1949, Chen worked in the Communist Party (rising to be an alternate Politburo member), in the Chinese state (becoming the governor of the People’s Bank of China), and in the women’s movement (leading the All-China Women’s Federation). At the Beijing Conference, Chen made a strong plea for the emancipation of women. ‘It is evident that women are crying out for an improvement in their status. The times demand it. Humanity aspires to it’.

Launch: ‘Group Of Friends In Defense Of The United Nations Charter’

July 9, 2021 Joselyn Ariza, MFA Venezuela. , , ,
We, representatives of Algeria, Angola, Belarus, Bolivia, Cambodia, China, Cuba, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Iran, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Nicaragua, the State of Palestine, Russia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Syria, and Venezuela to the United Nations, are pleased to announce the official launch and establishment of the “Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations”. We seize this opportunity to reaffirm that the Charter of the United Nations and its purposes and principles remain timeless, universal, and that they are all indispensable for preserving and promoting international peace and security, the rule of law, economic development and social progress, as well as all human rights for all.

Terrifying UN Draft Climate Report Urges Total Transformation

June 27, 2021 William Rivers Pitt, Truthout. , , ,
The western states have been stuck in a blast furnace of hot weather as spring transitions to summer. Record-breaking heat, drought and extreme stress to power grids have almost half the country in deep distress. The last couple of days have seen a small reprieve, but that’s about to end. “The National Weather Service is warning of a ‘Record-Breaking and Dangerous Heatwave’ hitting this weekend and early next week,” reports Brian Kahn for Gizmodo. “Weather models are also coalescing around blistering heat. If the forecasts come to fruition, we’re not just talking about a few daily records falling here and there. We’re talking about a heat wave for the ages that could absolutely destroy all-time records from Washington to California as well as parts of Canada.”

Weaponizing Science In Global Food Policy

June 26, 2021 By Maywa Montenegro, Matthew Canfield, and Alastair Iles, Inter Press Service. , , ,
Santa Cruz, CA - In July, the United Nations will convene “Science Days”, a high-profile event in preparation for the UN Food Systems Summit later this year. Over the course of two days, the world will be treated to a parade of Zoom sessions aimed at “highlighting the centrality of science, technology and innovation for food systems transformation.” Nobody disputes the need for urgent action to transform the food system. But the UNFSS has been criticized by human rights experts for its top-down and non-transparent organization. Indigenous peoples, peasants, and civil society groups around the world know their hard-won rights are under attack. Many are protesting the summit’s legitimacy and organizing counter-mobilizations.

Leaked IPCC Draft Climate Report ‘Reads Like A 4,000-Page Indictment’ Of Humanity’s Failure

June 26, 2021 Andrea Germanos, Common Dreams. , , ,
Agence France-Presse reported Monday on the contents of a leaked draft of a United Nations intergovernmental climate panel report which warned that devastating effects of a warming world are set to hit far sooner than previously thought, with impacts including an additional tens of millions of people facing hunger by 2050. "This is a warning of existential risk. Of survival. Of collapse," said climate movement Extinction Rebellion in response to AFP's reporting on what the draft contained. The draft Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) document warns of sweeping impacts on weather events, food, ecosystems, and disease—changes expected even if global temperature rise is kept under the Paris climate agreement's second threshold of 2°Celsius.

United Nations Climate Talks Slowed

June 21, 2021 Bob Berwyn, Inside Climate News. , , ,
The international goal to limit global warming seemed far away this week, as the most recent round of United Nations climate negotiations ended with concerns about a lack of progress on key issues like climate financing for developing countries and a global framework for a carbon market, seen as a key tool to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The dearth of results will make it even harder to reach the target of preventing the average global temperature from rising much more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), with time slipping away, said Saleemul Huq, director of the International Center for Climate Change and Development. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the parent treaty of the 2015 Paris Agreement, isn’t moving fast enough “and it is no longer the only venue where the decisions matter,” Huq said.

World’s Nuclear Arms On High Operational Alert And Ready To Strike

June 20, 2021 Thalif Deen, Inter Press Service News Agency. , ,
United Nations - The world’s nine nuclear armed states have downsized their military arsenals, but made up for their loss by increasing the number of weapons on high operational alert, according to a new report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). As a result, the world is increasingly within striking distance of nuclear weapons—either by accident or by design. The most vulnerable region is Asia, which is home to four of the world’s nine nuclear powers, namely, India, Pakistan, China and North Korea, the rest being the US, UK, France, Russia and Israel. The study says the nine countries collectively possessed an estimated 13,080 nuclear weapons at the start of 2021. This was a decrease from the 13, 400 that SIPRI estimated these states possessed at the beginning of 2020, since some of these weapons have gone into “retirement”.

NATO Proclamation At Annual Summit Threatens The Peace

June 19, 2021 John Quigley, Covert Action Magazine. , , ,
The NATO proclamation—promoted at its annual summit this week—that a cyber attack could trigger Article 5 of the NATO treaty heightens the risk of military confrontation with Russia or China. So does a new stipulation—announced at the summit—that space attacks could trigger Article 5. Russia has already been accused of testing space-based anti-satellite weapons, which could be adopted as a justification now for war. Article 5 says that the NATO alliance regards an attack on one of its members as an attack on all of them. That is supposed to come into play only in case of an armed attack, since that is the only kind of attack under the UN Charter that warrants responsive use of force. If one expands the concept of armed attack in violation of the UN Charter, one opens a broader path to the use of force.

Ethiopia: Tribalism Versus National Consciousness

June 17, 2021 Ann Garrison, Black Agenda Report. , , ,
Nearly 554,000 people are sleeping on the streets in the US -- 40% of them are Black. Of 2.3 million US prisoners, 34% are Black. However, the 06/01 quarterly report of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect  (GlobalR2P) says that the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is the only human rights crisis in the Western hemisphere that warrants the attention of international law established by the United Nations. Those are just a few reasons to take its alarms about the ongoing human rights crisis in Tigray, Ethiopia, with a grain of salt or a hot pepper salad of skepticism. A coalition of twelve NGOs, including GlobalR2P, has submitted a Joint NGO Call for a UN Human Rights Council resolution on the ongoing human rights crisis in Tigray, Ethiopia , for consideration at the 47th Session of the UN Human Rights Council , which will take place in Geneva between June 21 and July 15.

New Climate Prediction: Likely To Reach 1.5C In The Next Five Years

May 30, 2021 World Meteorological Organization. , ,
Geneva - There is about a 40% chance of the annual average global temperature temporarily reaching 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level in at least one of the next five years – and these odds are increasing with time, according to a new climate update issued by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). There is a 90% likelihood of at least one year between 2021-2025 becoming the warmest on record, which would dislodge 2016 from the top ranking, according to the Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update, produced by the United Kingdom’s Met Office, the WMO lead centre for such predictions. Over 2021-2025, high-latitude regions and the Sahel are likely to be wetter and there is an increased chance of more tropical cyclones in the Atlantic compared to the recent past (defined as the 1981-2010 average).

Youth Launch ‘Stronger Campaign’ For UN Biodiversity Day

May 25, 2021 Alison Kentish, Inter Press Service News Agency. , , ,
International Day for Biological Diversity is observed on May 22 under the theme ‘we’re part of the solution.’ A network of youth groups is informing policymakers that young people are tired of the same old rhetoric and platitudes.

Biden Administration Blocking UN Cease-Fire Statement As Israel Bombs Gaza

May 12, 2021 Jake Johnson, Commondreams. , , ,
The Biden administration is reportedly blocking the release of a United Nations Security Council statement calling for an immediate cease-fire as Israel continues its devastating assault on the occupied Gaza Strip, killing dozens of Palestinians and injuring hundreds more. According to Reuters, which cited anonymous diplomats and sources familiar with the Biden administration's strategy, the United States is "delaying" the U.N. Security Council's "efforts to issue a public statement on escalating tensions between Israel and the Palestinians because it could be harmful to behind-the-scenes efforts to end the violence." One source told the outlet that the U.S. is "actively engaged in diplomacy behind the scenes with all parties to achieve a cease-fire," but the official did not specify how a U.N. Security Council joint statement—which must be agreed to by consensus—would undermine those talks.
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