Tag Archives | Tricontinental Newsletter

On 5 October, the United Nations Human Rights Council passed a historic, non-legally binding resolution that ‘recognises the right to a safe, clean, healthy, and sustainable environment as a human right that is important for the enjoyment of human rights’.

Indian peasants and agricultural workers remain in the midst of a country-wide agitation sparked by the proposal of three farm bills that were then signed into law by the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party government in September 2020.

There is nothing more obscene than the existence of hunger, the terrible indignity of working hard but being without the means for sustenance.

Each year in September, the heads of governments come to the United Nations Headquarters in New York City to inaugurate a new session of the General Assembly.

On 13 July 2021, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) adopted a landmark resolution on the prevalence of racism and for the creation of an independent mechanism made up of three experts to investigate the root cause of deeply embedded racism and intolerance.

On Wednesday, 8 September, party workers of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), India’s ruling political party, attacked three buildings in the Melarmath area of Agartala (Tripura). These attacks targeted the offices of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the communist newspaper Daily Deshar Katha, and two private media houses Pratibadi Kalam and PN-24.

A few days ago, I spoke to a senior official at the World Health Organisation (WHO). I asked her if she knew how many people lived their lives on our planet without shoes.

On 26 August, two deadly attacks on the perimeter of Kabul’s international airport killed over a hundred people, including a dozen U.S. soldiers. The bombings struck people desperate to enter the airport and flee Afghanistan. Not long afterwards, the Islamic State of Khorasan (IS-K) took credit for the attack.

Speaking on the impact of the climate crisis on First People, Gavin Singleton from the Yirrganydji traditional owners explained that ‘From changing weather patterns to shifts in natural ecosystems, climate change is a clear and present threat to our people and our culture’.

On Sunday, 15 August, Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani fled his country for Uzbekistan. He left behind a capital city, Kabul, which had already fallen into the hands of the advancing Taliban forces.

The turn to digital education has emboldened mega-corporations to enclose the commons of public education, making it harder and harder for the masses of children to have access to any education at all. Big business sees the opportunity clearly.

During this bleak period, in late February 2021, China’s president Xi Jinping announced that–counter to this general global downturn–China had eradicated extreme poverty. What does this announcement mean?

On 23 July 2021, a full-page appeal appeared in the New York Times calling on United States President Joe Biden to withdraw the vindictive U.S. blockade against Cuba.

Four days after Moïse’s assassination, Cuba experienced a set of protests from people expressing their frustration with shortages of goods and a recent spike of COVID-19 infections.

The principal causes of conflict on the continent, SIPRI summarises, are: ‘state weakness, corruption, ineffective delivery of basic services, competition over natural resources, inequality, and a sense of marginalisation’.

Between 30 June and 2 July 2021, the United Nations and other multilateral organisations held the Generation Equality Forum in Paris (France).

In 1869, at the age of fifteen, José Martí and his young friends published a magazine in Cuba called La Patria Libre (‘The Free Homeland’), which adopted a strong position against Spanish imperialism. The first and only issue of the magazine carried Martí’s poem, ‘Abdala’.

Two hundred years ago, on 24 June 1821, the forces of Simón Bolívar trounced the Spanish royalists at the Battle of Carabobo, a few hundred kilometres west of Caracas, Venezuela.

The impact of this food price rise will grievously hit developing countries, most of whom are major importers of food staples. 

In 1974, the UN urged the world to celebrate that day on 5 June with the slogan ‘Only One Earth’; this year, the theme is ‘Ecosystem Restoration’, emphasising how the capitalist system has eroded the earth’s capacity to sustain life.