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South Africans must be reminded that the ancestors of almost all SA citizens arrived as migrants, refugees or colonial settlers at the southern tip of Africa and wiped out the Indigenous San / Bushman people in most provinces. Therefore respect given to refugees is respect given to their own heritage.

And the refugees must not place nor be given false hope in UNHCR, which is a failed almost 69 year old programme of the United Nations that has outlived its usefulness worldwide and must be retired. Especially the South-African office of UNHCR is among the most inefficient branch-offices of UNHCR globally with an endless and inexaustible number of bureaucratic excuses, why they don't help but rather eat the money they get by themselves, attend regional conferences and write bla-bla reports instead of providig pro-active help. And, if refugees do no longer buy the lies of UNHCR, then the UNHCR officials with their diplomatic passports calls in the police brutality to repulse the suffering and destitute people from their doorsteps. Shame on UNHCR and the South African government.

Refugees ‘angry’ and ‘traumatised’ after violent eviction

Hundreds of refugees sought shelter at Central Methodist Church after being evicted by law enforcement officials from their occupation outside the UN High Commissioner for Refugees offices in Cape Town on 30 October 2019. Photo: Sandisiwe Shoba

By Karabo Mafolo & Sandisiwe Shoba - MC - 31 October 2019

After spending a night sleeping on the hard pews and cold floor of the Central Methodist Church in Cape Town, hundreds of refugees who were violently evicted from the Waldorf arcade by police on Wednesday are still trying to determine what their next steps will be. For many the focus is on finding the seven children, one as young as seven months old, who they say went missing in the chaos on Wednesday.

Inside the Central Methodist Church in Cape Town on Thursday morning, blankets, bags and personal belongings of hundreds displaced people lined the walls. In the pews and on the floor, women and children who had made the space their beds for the night began to wake to face the day. Outside, men who slept outside the church because of the limited space inside covered themselves with the purple blankets donated the night before by Gift of the Givers.

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Disband All Irregular Paramilitary Forces, Cooperate With Independent Investigations ... AND PROSECUTE !

CIA-backed Afghan troops 'committed war crimes': report

Human Rights Watch based its report on dozens of witness and local resident accounts - Image copyright AFP/Getty

By BBC - 31. October 2019

Afghan strike forces backed by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have committed abuses "amounting to war crimes", according to a new report.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) alleges the troops "committed summary executions and other grave abuses without accountability".

These include extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances and attacks on healthcare facilities.

The BBC has contacted the Afghanistan's government for comment.

Both the UN and the New York Times have previously highlighted allegations of abuses by Afghan strike teams.

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Turkey: Hundreds arrested in crackdown on critics of military offensive in Syria

Wannabe Sultan Erdogan recruited the jobless youth into police-hordes that now harass the population like the brown-shirts in Hitler Germany.

Hundreds of people have been detained in Turkey for commenting or reporting on Turkey’s recent military offensive in northeast Syria and are facing absurd criminal charges as the government intensifies its crackdown on critical voices, said Amnesty International in a report published today.

As the tanks rolled across the Syrian border, the government took the opportunity to launch a domestic campaign to eradicate dissenting opinions from media, social media and the streets 

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Climate emissions from tropical forest damage 'underestimated by a factor of six'

Smoke billows during a fire in an area of the Amazon rainforest. Greenhouse gas emissions from changes in forests do not currently account for the CO2 that forests would have continued to soak up for decades had they not been cleared or damaged. Photograph: Bruno Kelly/Reuters

Scientists say policymakers must better account for climate impacts of damage to forests, and benefits of conserving them

By  - @readfearn - 

 

Greenhouse gas emissions caused by damage to tropical rainforests around the world are being underestimated by a factor of six, according to a new study.

Research led by the University of Queensland finds the climate impact of selective logging, outright clearing and fire in tropical rainforests between 2000 and 2013 was underestimated by 6.53bn tonnes of CO2.

The numbers are likely conservative, and also did not include emissions from other woodlands or the massive boreal forests in the high latitudes of the northern hemisphere.

Study co-author professor James Watson of the University of Queensland and the Wildlife Conservation Society said: “We have been treating forests as pretty one-dimensional, but we know degradation impacts carbon. The bottom line is that we knew the numbers would be big, but we were shocked at just how big.”

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China is Becoming a Blockchain-Powered Orwellian Dystopia

China - a dystopian nightmare.

By Shilpa Lama - 30. October 2019

China seems to be going all-in with the mission to integrate blockchain technology into the state machinery and the world probably shouldn’t ignore the possible ramifications. Especially not now — after President Xi Jinping’s open and substantiated endorsement of the technology a few days ago.

No doubt, the Chinese President’s speech was bullish for the still-nascent-but-promising technology and highlighted its potential in various walks of life. However, beneath the surface, there was enough substance to cause worry among the proponents of a free and democratic Chinese society.

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- Madrid offers to take over the Cimate Summit

Chile cancels Climate and Apec summits amid mass protests

Right-wing Sebastián Piñera, centre, said his government needed to concentrate on "re-establishing public order" Image copyright EPA

By BBC - 30. October 2019

Chile has pulled out of hosting two major international summits, including a UN climate change conference, as anti-government protests continue.

President Sebastián Piñera said the decision had caused him "pain" but his government needed "to prioritise re-establishing public order".

The COP25 climate summit was scheduled for 2 to 13 December, while the Apec trade forum was next month.

The UN said it was now looking at alternative venues.

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It is the first time that a chamber of the U.S. Congress has officially designated the 1915 slaughter of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians as a genocide.

The Armenian genocide memorial complex in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital. The House vote was bound to infuriate leaders in Turkey. Credit... Rodolfo Contreras/Alamy

By Catie Edmondson and Rick Gladstone (*) - NYT -  29. 

WASHINGTON — The House voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to formally recognize the Armenian genocide and denounce it as a matter of American foreign policy, a symbolic vindication for the Armenian diaspora made possible by a new torrent of bipartisan furor at Turkey.

The passage of the legislation, by a 405-to-11 vote, is the first time a chamber of Congress has officially designated the 1915 mass killings of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire as a genocide. Lawmakers had previously shirked from supporting such a resolution to preserve the United States’ relationship with Turkey, a NATO ally that has steadfastly denied that the atrocities amounted to genocide.

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WhatsApp Claims That an Israeli Tech Firm’s Spyware Targeted Human-Rights Activists and Journalists

According to a lawsuit announced on Tuesday, the Israeli spyware-maker NSO Group developed malware specifically to access WhatsApp communications. Photograph by Daniella Cheslow / AP

By  - TNY - 29. October 2019

This spring, a team of engineers at WhatsApp detected a series of suspicious calls on the messaging service’s networks, many of them emanating from phone numbers in Sweden, the Netherlands, Israel, and other countries. At first, WhatsApp wasn’t sure what was happening. Then the engineers, working with their counterparts at Facebook, which owns WhatsApp, realized that the voice and video calls were somehow infecting targeted phones with advanced spyware, using a penetration method that the company had never encountered before. Most disturbing to the investigators was that it appeared many of the targeted phones became infected whether the calls were answered or not—what’s known as a zero-click vulnerability.

The malware then instructed the targeted phones to upload their content to servers owned by Amazon Web Services and other companies, where the stolen data was stored and could be accessed by the intruders. After the malware was loaded on some of the targeted phones, the call logs were wiped. Victims who heard their phones ringing overnight found no evidence of the calls in the morning.

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Number of BAYER Lawsuits May Increase to 45,000

BAYER lawsuits are piling up.

Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola - 29. October 2019

Story at-a-glance

  • Since BAYER acquired Monsanto in 2018 for $63 billion, they’ve faced litigation that glyphosate-containing Roundup caused health problems, including cancer
  • Approximately 18,400 U.S. lawsuits from individuals alleging that glyphosate caused them to develop cancer have already been filed
  • BAYER expects the glyphosate/cancer lawsuits to increase, and analysts at JP Morgan suggested the number of glyphosate lawsuits may surpass 45,000
  • Internal Monsanto emails released during the glyphosate trials suggest Monsanto-affiliated scientists questioned the chemical’s safety
  • Germany announced it would be banning glyphosate by the end of 2023, with the phase-out starting even sooner

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Australia's Budj Bim gets global recognition

Budj Bim is the first site in Australia recognised specifically for its cultural significance to the Indigenous people.

Thousands of years ago, the indigneous Gunditjmara harnessed the natural environment to create a network of channels, weirs and pools to raise eel and fish that sustained them year round [Tracey Shelton/Al Jazeera]

By  - 29. October 2019

Budj Bim, Australia - When Denis Rose was a "young fella" he would often go fishing with his family in the area that now makes up the Budj Bim National Park in southeastern Australia.

"I can remember my father and my uncle using the fish traps," he said as he stood overlooking the vast network of streams and wetlands in the state of Victoria that was this year declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Rose is a descendant of the Indigenous Gunditjmara people.

For at least the last 6,600 years, through a sophisticated system of weirs, channels and fish traps they nurtured and harvested fish and eels in Budj Bim, engineering an aquaculture system that has now been recognised as one the oldest and most extensive in the world.

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EU to ban pesticide that is deemed harmful to humans and the environment

Pesticide spraying tractors can no longer be the future.

By Pippa Neill - EJ - 

A majority of EU governments have voted against renewing the license for the harmful pesticide Thiacloprid. 

Thiacloprid is an active substance that is used in plant protection to control harmful insects.

The pesticide is produced by one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, Bayer AG, a German multinational pharmaceutical and life sciences company.

383,000 people signed a petition by the international consumer group SumOfUs, demanding that the EU ban the pesticide.

It has been linked to cancer and reproductive issues in farm workers and has also shown to harm bees and other pollinators, it has already been banned in France in 2018 because of these reasons.

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Extent of human encroachment into world’s protected areas revealed

Forest transition in Cameroon. Credit: Mokhamad Edliadi/CIFOR

By Fred Lewsey - 28. October 2019

Largest study yet to compare protected with “matched” unprotected land finds “significantly higher” increases in human pressure – primarily through agriculture – in protected areas across the tropics.

Our study shows that agriculture is the driving force behind threats to protected areas, particularity in the tropics

Jonas Geldmann

A study of human activity within thousands of conservation spaces in over 150 countries suggests that – on average across the world – protected areas are not reducing the “anthropogenic pressure” on our most precious natural habitats.

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Russia-Africa ‘Shared Vision 2030’: Alternative to Neo-Colonial Pillage

Sochi Summit (RightClick/View to enlarge) Handout © Photo: Kremlin.ru

By Matthew Ehret - 28. October 2019

A long night of suffering has kept one of the richest continents on the globe in a state of virtual dark age for over a century. Although the age of science has given humanity the means to access the highest standards of living in world history, 2019 has seen 15 000 children die of preventable deaths every day (illness, starvation and murder) with half occurring in Sub Saharan Africa. In a world of advanced energy technology, only five of 54 African countries have access to 100% electrification and all are North African.

Africa’s dark situation was never due to simplistic terms like “corruption” or “incompetence”, nor was Africa ever “culturally incompatible” with western technology as some racists have taught in social science classes. The truth is that Africa was never given true independence as is popularly believed. Sure there was nominal independence, but the economic independence needed to become sovereign nations on the continent was never granted by the empire.

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‘This charge is 100% false’: Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal arrested months after reporting on Venezuelan opposition violence

Orwellian USA is no longer ruled by any rational form of justice or just law.

The Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal has been arrested on false charges after reporting on Venezuelan opposition violence outside the DC embassy. He describes the manufactured case as part of a wider campaign of political persecution.

By Ben Norton - 28.  Lee este artículo en español aquí.

Max Blumenthal, the editor of the news site The Grayzone, was arrested on the morning of October 25 on a fabricated charge related to the siege of the Venezuelan embassy in Washington, DC that took place between April and May.

A team of DC police officers appeared at Blumenthal’s door at just after 9 AM, demanding entry and threatening to break his door down. A number of officers had taken positions on the side of his home as though they were prepared for a SWAT-style raid.

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Origin of modern humans 'traced to Botswana'

Resisting the still ongoing genocide: The San / Bushman People of Southern Africa are the oldest of our all still living ancient relatives. 

By Helen Briggs -BBC - 28. October 2019

Scientists have pinpointed the homeland of all humans alive today to a region south of the Zambesi River.

The area is now dominated by salt pans, but was once home to an enormous lake, which may have been our ancestral heartland 200,000 years ago.

Our ancestors settled for 70,000 years, until the local climate changed, researchers have proposed.

They began to move on as fertile green corridors opened up, paving the way for future migrations out of Africa.

"It has been clear for some time that anatomically modern humans appeared in Africa roughly 200,000 years ago," said Prof Vanessa Hayes, a geneticist at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Australia.

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Rights groups accuse Tanzania's Magufuli over rising repression

In new reports, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch also say censorship is mounting in Tanzania.

Tanzanian journalist Erick Kabendera arrives at the Kisutu Residents Magistrate Court in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on August 19, 2019 [Emmanuel Herman/Reuters]

By  - 

Two international rights groups have accused the government of Tanzanian President John Magufuli of increasingly repressing political dissent.

Since Magufuli’s election in 2015, Tanzania has implemented laws that stifle independent journalism and severely restrict the activities of NGOs and opposition parties, Amnesty International  and Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in two separate reports released on Monday.

Civil society activism and public discussions on human rights-related issues have also been suppressed, while the authorities’ “regressive” policies have restricted the playing field for those seeking to challenge the ruling party, they added.

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