UN human rights expert: ‘Migrant-bashing has dangerously become the norm’ in Europe

18 February 2016 (UN) – As the European Union summit starts in Brussels, a United Nations expert on the human rights of migrants warned today that it has become impossible in Europe to have a meaningful discussion about migrant’s rights, diversity, and integration. “Europe has always been a strong advocate of human rights in Europe […]

Native Americans awarded $48 million to move from disappearing Louisiana island – First climate refugees in the lower 48 states

By Terri Hansen5 February 2016 (Indian Country) – It has taken well over a decade of advocating on behalf of his tribe to keep his scattered community intact as their island on Louisiana’s Gulf coast disappears under Gulf of Mexico waters, but now Chief Albert Naquin of the Isle de Jean Charles Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw […]

Europe’s restrictive measures draw UN concern as refugee and migrant influx continues – Number of children fleeing to Europe escalating

12 February 2016 (UN) – With the number of refugees and migrants arriving in Europe showing no signs of easing in 2016, the United Nations refugee agency today reiterated its concern over increasing restrictive measures on the part of European Member States, stressing that greater support mechanisms must be urgently implemented to protect the fundamental […]

The climate-change refugee crisis is only just beginning – ‘I’m dead if I stay, so it doesn’t matter if I die on the way’

By Peter Schwartzstein31 January 2016 (Quartz) – The Amhara Plateau is no one’s idea of a gloomy landscape. Rich fields blossom as far as the eye can see; bountiful rivers zigzag through the region’s rolling hills. It isn’t hard to see why local Orthodox Christians believe the Ark of the Covenant was floated down the […]

Will the Fourth Industrial Revolution improve the state of the world? World Economic Forum meeting ends

By Judith Magyar22 January 2016 (SAP Community Network) – Emerging technologies such as 3D printing and genetic engineering offer a lot of promise, but can also be double-edged swords. They can help make our lives easier, safer and healthier, but there is also potential to build weapons or dangerously modify organisms. Developments like these raise […]

Second largest lake in Bolivia dries up – ‘There’s no future here’

By Carlos Valdez, with additional reporting by Frank Bajak21 January 2016 UNTAVI, Bolivia (AP) – Overturned fishing skiffs lie abandoned on the shores of what was Bolivia’s second-largest lake. Beetles dine on bird carcasses and gulls fight for scraps under a glaring sun in what marshes remain. Lake Poopo was officially declared evaporated last month. […]

Helping tomorrow’s climate refugees by engaging today: A dispatch from Bangladesh – ‘What will happen to the rest of the world tomorrow is already happening there today’

By Timmons Roberts13 January 2016 (Brookings) – I spent the past week in Bangladesh, visiting the countryside on a fascinating and heartening trip from the country’s massive capital, Dhaka, to the south, a region being hammered by climate change. I came to give some speeches and took the opportunity to see for myself how foreign […]

Chairman of World Economic Forum warns refugee crisis could be precursor to something much bigger – ‘Imagine 1 billion inhabitants, imagine they all move north’

[cf. More displaced people and refugees now than at any other time in recorded history – ‘The global north must be prepared that the entire global south is on the move’] By Joe Weisenthal18 January 2016 (Bloomberg News) – As the crash in commodities prices spreads economic woe across the developing world, Europe could face […]

Refugee arrivals in Europe top one million in 2015 – Highest migration flow since World War II

GREECE, 22 December 2015 (IOM) – IOM confirmed yesterday (21 December 2015) that over a million irregular migrants and refugees arrived in Europe in 2015, mostly from Syria, Africa, and South Asia. Through the weekend, IOM’s Displacement Tracking Matrix – Flow Monitoring System counted 999,745 irregular arrivals across the Mediterranean, including migrants journeying by both […]

Video: Torres Strait Islanders on ‘the trauma of climate change in the land of our ancestors’

8 December 2015 (The Guardian) – In the second of a series of films for Guardian Australia, two health workers who live in the Torres Strait Islands explain the impact of climate change on the local people and the trauma and uncertainty of king tides and annual flooding. But relocation would bring its own challenges […]

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