More than 100 civilians have reportedly been burnt to death in the city of Cizre in southeastern Turkey at the hands of the country’s armed forces. The chief of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Zeid Raad al-Hussein, has called for an independent investigation. The UN describes the actions as “extremely alarming” Zeid said
The Palestinian national flag has been banned from the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest. In the list of banned flags, there’s also the terrorist organisation ISIS. 46 European countries will take part in the 2016 edition, which final will be held on the 14th of May in Stockholm, Sweden. So, during the event, the flag of the Middle East
Survival International, a global movement for tribal peoples’ rights, has denounced mercury poisoning in Latin America in a letter to the UN Special Rapporteur for Health. The organisation highlights Venezuela, Peru and Brazil as countries that don’t comply with procedures to monitor the effects of mining on the environment. Mercury contamination, which commonly follows illegal
For those who already know him, DiCaprio has most probably prepared the speech he delivered on 22 April at United Nations headquarters in New York before the 175 delegates who signed the Paris Agreement reached in December more attentively than his Oscar acceptance speech. DiCaprio addressed the world leaders: “You are the last, best hope of Earth.
In a time characterised by cultural flattening and philosophical and creative aridity, books are the best way to comprehend reality. Literature has a huge power: conventional symbols give life to surprising results, able to generate powerful revolutions similar to those in science. As Franz Kafka once said, “A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us”.
Malawi’s President Peter Mutharika has declared a state of national disaster on 13 April. The country has been hit by a dreadful drought, which has been affecting Southern Africa for over a year. “According to our estimates, 2016 total maize production will drop by 12% compared to the previous year,” said the head of state. This
It is “the largest mass poisoning of a population in history,” the World Health Organisation had said back in 2010. Now, a Human Rights Watch survey has found that arsenic contaminated water in Bangladesh is still drunk by 20 million people, exposing them to one of the most toxic chemical elements known to humankind. Those
4 in 2014, 44 last year alone. The number of children used as suicide bombers by terrorist group Boko Haram – operating in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, and Niger – is dramatically increasing. The warning has been issued by a report of UNICEF, published 2 years from 14 April 2014, when 276 schoolgirls were abducted by terrorists
A new marine reserve aimed to protect the precious biodiversity of the Galapagos Islands. This is the latest decision made by Ecuador to safeguard the extraordinary wildlife populating the archipelago’s waters. 97 per cent of the Galapagos Islands had been already protected, being a World Heritage Site of UNESCO due to their importance in
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef with its multi-coloured biodiversity, Madagascar’s rainforests with their lemurs, Tanzania’s natural reserves, and Szechuan giant panda sanctuaries in China. These and many others natural and cultural treasures are at risk due to human-related economic activities. A report carried out by WWF shows that at least 114 out of 229 World Heritage
