EarthAction

7 Days in the Life of Avaaz...

Colombian Deputy Minister receives Avaaz petition delivery last week :)

We may have won our campaign to stop Colombia’s massive deforestation!

The team and members brought a million-strong petition (and several cute kids) to a key minister this week, and got 42 election candidates signed on to our 5-point forest pledge! After satellite pictures we obtained showed massive deforestation in Colombia, the President flew over the land we were campaigning for, and it looks like we’re going to win! Here's an update (in Spanish) from Ana Sofia.

Who wouldn't want to protect this?

We might help win the largest ocean reserve in the Atlantic!

Last week we met with the key official pushing this ocean-saving plan at the Ministry of Environment in Brazil. As we entered the room, they were looking at the final draft of the project and the official told us: “We need Avaaz to win this! When are you launching this campaign?!” The minister actually wanted our help to win over the rest of the Cabinet and the President! Video update from Diego (in Portuguese) here.

Our fake far-right leader on his fake tour of southern Italy got over 100 media hits!

We worked our hearts out to stop a far-right win in Italy!

With a fascist-led coalition close to winning the election on Sunday, we were flat-out for a month -- reaching millions of voters in close races over email, on Facebook, and in the media, asking them to cooperate across a splintered opposition, and vote for the candidate most likely to defeat the far-right. Our polling showed our impact, and Avaaz was constantly attacked in the right-wing press (e.g. here and here) and our Senior Campaigner Luca got threatening phone calls.

The election largely turned on the South, so last week we also staged a hilarious fake tour of the South by the far-right leader -- who once said Southerners smelled worse than dogs -- that generated over 100 media articles! Examples here, here and here, and here’s an update from Luca (in Italian). The media likes to hype the fascists, but the result was a clean sweep of the south and the far-right coalition is FAR short of the majority we feared!

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The 99 Best Things That Happened in 2017

Photo Credit: Reuters/Kevin Coombs

If you’re feeling despair about the fate of humanity in the 21st century, you might want to reconsider.

In 2017, it felt like the global media picked up all of the problems, and none of the solutions. To fix that, here are 99 of the best stories from this year that you probably missed.

An incredible year for global health

1. This year, the World Health Organisation unveiled a new vaccine that’s cheap and effective enough to end cholera, one of humanity’s greatest ever killers. New York Times

2. Cancer deaths have dropped by 25% in the United States since 1991, saving more than 2 million lives. Breast cancer deaths have fallen by 39%, saving the lives of 322,600 women. Time

3. Zika all but disappeared in 2017. Cases plummeted in Latin America and the Caribbean, and most people in those places are now immune. Science Mag

4. A new report showed that the world’s assault on tropical diseases is working. A massive, five year international effort has saved millions of lives, and countries are now signing up for more. STAT

5. Soft drink sales in the United States dropped for the 12th year in a row, thanks to consumer education and new sugar taxes aimed at stemming obesity and diabetes. Reuters

6. Trachoma, the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness, was eliminated as a public health problem in Oman and Morocco, and Mexico became the first country in the Americas to eliminate it. NBC

7. Meet Sanduk Ruit and Geoff Tabin, two eye doctors responsible for helping restore sight to 4 million people in two dozen countries, including North Korea and Ethiopia. CBS

8. Premature deaths for the world’s four biggest noncommunicable diseases­ — cardiovascular, cancer, diabetes and chronic respiratory — have declined by 16% since 2000. World Bank

9. Global abortion rates have fallen from around 40 procedures per 1,000 women in the early 1990s, to 35 procedures per 1,000 women today. In the United States, abortion rates have reached their lowest level since 1973. Vox

10. In July, UNAIDS, revealed that for the first time in history, half of all people on the planet with HIV are now getting treatment, and that AIDS deaths have dropped by half since 2005. Science Mag

From Quartz.com

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International Campaign To Abolish Nuclear Weapons Wins 2017 Nobel Peace Prize

Beatrice Fihn, Executive Director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) receives a bottle of champagne from her husband Will Fihm Ramsay (R) next to Daniel Hogsta, coordinator, while they celebrate after ICAN won the Nobel Peace Prize 2017, in Geneva, Switzerland. Photo by Denis Balibouse/Reuters

Fihn said she could not believe the award was real until the official announcement, and thought the call, made minutes before the ceremony, was a “prank.”

For Fihn, the award is a statement on “unacceptable” nuclear reliance.

“We can’t threaten to indiscriminately slaughter hundreds of thousands of civilians in the name of security. That’s not how you build security,” she said.

The 2017 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).

The Nobel Committee said the organization, which is made up of non-governmental organizations from more than 100 countries, is being honored for its work “to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons.”

ICAN’s immediate goal is to support and implement the 2017 United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which was adopted this summer. It’s the first treaty negotiated for nuclear disarmament in 20 years, the organization said.

The world’s nuclear powers, including the United States and Russia — who lead the nuclear stockpile race with around 6,700 and 7,000 nuclear weapons respectively — opposed the talks, citing a disregard for “the realities of the international security environment.”

“We do not intend to sign, ratify or ever become party to it,” U.S., UK and French representatives to the UN said in a statement earlier this year.

To go into effect, the UN’s treaty needs 50 countries to ratify the deal. So far, 53 countries have signed onto the deal, but only three — Guyana, the Vatican and Thailand — have ratified it.

Beatrice Fihn, executive director of ICAN, expressed shock at receiving the award when she received the news from Oslo.

“What an honor. I feel like I have to collect myself for a couple of seconds,” she said during the initial phone call.

By Jennifer Hijazi, October 6, 2017, PBS News

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Call For December 10 Human Rights Day/ Syria Actions

PEACE & PLANET NETWORK

We are all the victims of state and non-state terrorism. Ending such calamities as the Paris and Beirut massacres requires a struggle against the forces of destruction emanating from the Middle East and from the imperial wars of the US, NATO and allied states.

The U.S. and its allies are fighting wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Pakistan, Ukraine and Somalia. Worse, in Syria and Ukraine and Eastern Europe, the two major nuclear weapons states, the U.S. and Russia, are fighting on opposite sides of the conflicts. There, U.S. nuclear-armed allies, Britain, France and Israel, are also involved. An accidental or intentional military incident, could send the world spiraling into a disastrous nuclear confrontation. The bombing attacks on neutral hospitals remind us that in the chaos of war such mistakes are all too common.

US allies Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have fueled the wars in Syria and Iraq with foreign fighters, weapons, funding and porous borders. Without this massive and fundamental support ISIS and the other jihadist fundamentalists could not carry on.

To add to the potential conflicts, the U.S. and China, another nuclear-armed nation, are facing off against each other in the seas bordering China and other Asian nations. Here again potentially dangerous military incidents could trigger war as China responds to the U.S. bases, military alliances and military “exercises” to reinforce its regional dominance, with disputed claims to 80% of the South China Sea and rival military exercises.

The Obama administration has recently announced that U.S. troops will remain in Afghanistan, are being reintroduced into Iraq and will be introduced into Syria, thus further escalating the conflicts. The recent introduction of Russian forces into Syria, invited by and supporting Assad, challenges Obama’s goal of regime change, but further contributes to the violence the people of Syria have to face.

Many Middle Eastern and European states now face a crisis of accepting millions of refugees, most of whose flights can be traced to the devastation of their communities by the region’s wars. The vast majority of these refugees come from countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya.

December 10^th is International Human Rights Day. The human rights of the refugees and those who still remain in areas of violent conflict are daily being violated.

December 1 is World AIDS Day

 

    In 1988, the World Health Organization established World Aids Day to raise awareness about HIV and to commemorate the lives that have been lost to HIV. December 1 is a day for global citizens to unite in the fight against HIV. It is a day to support those living with HIV by fighting common misconceptions about the virus that contribute to the stigmatization of HIV positive persons. The World Health Organization estimates that 39 million people’s lives have been taken by HIV since the start of the epidemic in the early 1980’s. Today, over 35 million people are living with HIV/AIDS with the majority residing in developing countries. Prevention is key to combating the HIV epidemic, and awareness along with education are crucial to prevention efforts. 

    HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus, which is a virus transmitted through bodily fluids that attacks the immune system. When left untreated, HIV severely damages the immune system, leading to AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome) in the final stage of HIV. Thankfully, antiretroviral treatments can control HIV so that HIV positive persons can live healthy, uncompromised lives and reduce the risk of transmitting the virus to others. The number of HIV positive people receiving antiretroviral treatment has increased by 5.6 million since 2010 to 12.9 million people in 2013. However, most people living with or at risk for HIV don’t have access to prevention, care, and treatment due to poverty, stigma, and lack of government funding. Despite the progress achieved in combating HIV/AIDS thus far, it is still the fastest growing health threat to development today.  

    In light of World Aids Day, I invite you to raise HIV awareness by wearing the symbolic red ribbon in solidarity with those living with HIV/AIDS. I urge you to further educate yourself about HIV/AIDS in an effort to destigmatize HIV and debunk common misconceptions. You can find out more about the red ribbon here, and more about HIV/AIDS here.

    Let’s combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic once and for all.

Paris Pledges Falling Short

The 21st United Nations sponsored Conference of the Parties (COP21) will be held in Paris this December. The goal of COP21 is to produce the first meaningful, legally binding international climate treaty since the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. 

Paris may be our last collective chance to enact meaningful climate action to prevent a 2ºCelsius (3.6ºF) rise in global temperatures within this century. Scientists warn that passing the 2ºCelsius tipping point may result in persistent, unpredictable, and extreme weather that will be disastrous for much of life on Earth.

In advance of COP21, countries have agreed to make greenhouse gas reduction pledges, called Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC). These pledges will guide the negotiations. Each nation’s contribution is to be determined by national circumstance. No firm standards were set regarding pledges. We should all be concerned that, to date, most countries have made weak pledges that exploit this ambiguity.

The Citizens’ 2015 Global Climate Agreement Campaign has been organized to keep citizens, environmental leaders, and policymakers around the world engaged and informed about the status of country pledges and other issues related to the success of COP21. The Campaign has set the following standards we believe country COP21 pledges should reach: 

1. As called upon by the UN, all countries should use their 1990 level of carbon emissions as a baseline from which to measure and pledge future reductions.

2. Industrialized countries should pledge to reduce their emissions by 25% by 2025 with further reductions in five-year increments, i.e., 40% by 2030, etc. 

3. Less-industrialized countries should pledge to reduce their emissions by at least 15% by the year 2025 with further reductions in five-year increments, i.e., 25% by 2030, etc.

World Refugee Crisis Continues

US-Mexico border in San Diego. (Creative Commons, Bruno Sanchez-Andrade Nuño)

Last Friday, June 20 marked yet another World Refugee Day, a day meant to draw our attention to the growing number of refugees, asylum seekers, and internally displaced individuals and families.  This year the numbers have gone up from 45.2 million at the end of 2012, to 51.2 million at the end of 2013. 

Last year’s World Refugee Day was just days after the G8 Summit, where global giants focused primarily on the crisis in Syria and how to address the growing tensions between Syrian rebels and the Assad regime.  The refugee crisis in Syria has only grown in the last year, with roughly 1.5 million who had fled the country at this time last year and a striking increase by the end of last year, which created 2.5 million more refugees and 6.5 million displaced within the country.

The crisis of displaced persons is, however, not specific to Syria and we must also consider an issue closer to home.  Since October 2013, nearly 47,000 unaccompanied children have crossed the US-Mexico border, reports The Nation, with nearly 21,000 from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, and over 17,000 from Mexico. 

 With the number of unaccompanied children crossing the border expected to reach nearly130,000 next year, it’s time we think about what World Refugee Day really means—finding a solution to this humanitarian crisis.  

Long Way to go on Iran Nuclear Deal

The U.N. nuclear chief said on Friday there was "still a long way to go" to resolve a decade-old dispute over Iran's nuclear program, a note of caution days after Tehran curbed its atomic activity under an interim deal with world powers.

Yukiya Amano, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, made the comment as he won broad backing from the IAEA's 35-nation board for the U.N. body's expanded role in Iran to check that it complies with the accord over the next six months.

Many governments said they would help pay the estimated $8 million the IAEA needs to inspect Iranian nuclear sites under the deal, which took effect on Monday, diplomats who attended the closed-door meeting said.

The IAEA will nearly double the number of people it already has working on Iran. Amano said the interim agreement - under which Iran will get relief from some economic sanctions - was an "important step forward towards achieving a comprehensive solution" to the nuclear dispute.

But, he added: "there is still a long way to go".

Article courtesy of Reuters. Learn more here.

Photo: IAEA/Dean Calma

 

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Child deaths from malaria fall 51% since 2000

Child deaths from malaria fall 51% since 2000, WHO report says.

The number of children under the age of 5 dying from malaria dropped by 51% from 2000 to 2012, says the annual report on malaria from the World Health Organization. WHO expects the death rate will continue to fall, which bodes well for helping countries meet health-related Millennium Development Goals. Still, lack of funding and the emergence of drug-resistant malaria concern health officials. 

Learn more: The Guardian (London), Al Jazeera, BBC, Los Angeles Times 

Photo by Maggie Hallahan

Is this Tibet's big chance?

Tibetans who refuse to fly the Chinese flag above their homes risk being beaten or shot in the latest attempt to break their spirits. China's ongoing policies systematically suppress the Tibetan language, force people from their homes, and strictly control the Tibetans' movement and religion. But now is the best moment in ages to bring hope to Tibet's proud, but desperate people.

China’s leaders are mounting an intense campaign to draw a veil over their rights abuses and persuade governments to vote them onto the UN Human Rights Council. So if enough of us shine a light on what’s going on in Tibet, we can get China to back away from its hard-line policy to be sure of getting the 97 votes it needs.

Let’s show the Tibetan people that the world hasn’t forgotten them. China is feeling the heat as 13 governments just called them out on human rights in Tibet.

Proud Tibetans are struggling against China's brutal rule and long for change, but they can’t do it alone. No one can create changes that big alone.

Sign to stand with Tibet, then share this with everyone.

Photo: Eddie Mulholland, The Telegraph