Save the Cambodian Rainforest - stop buying rosewood furniture!

This was my intervention at the United Nations on the illegal export of Cambodian rainforest timber to the USA and Europe. This is till going on even now and we have to try and stop this trade continuing.

Bolsonaro of South America is fuelling the burning of the South American forests.

President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, South America, is fuelling the burning of the South American forests. How can we stop him doing this? He is putting the whole of humanity at risk at a time when this virus is at large. The wildlife can't escape a lot of the endangered species will be wiped out. Many tribes are endangered as they are living in harmony with the animals. There are many things we haven't even discovered in that unexplored part of the universe. It is very exciting in this crammed world that there is a part that not everyone has discovered!We look forward to those places we have not been to and we may discover things that are yet unknown!

Picture of Amazon Indians by Hans Schwarzkopf

The Uighur women

I heard on the BBC world service at 12.45 last night that the Uighur women were routinely having to have their children aborted if they were pregnant. This seems to have been a policy designed by the Government to destroy the tribe of the Uighur race and the Secretary General of the UN said that it was a crime against humanity to carry out these draconian measures.
Had this gone out at a time when there were more listeners, there would have been a major outcry at these horrifying details and our government would have reacted to this!
It is all those places which you don't hear much about, like Kashmir and Sudan, where women are being persecuted and raped.
There is so much wrong in the World as we say "The Healing of the Nations" is needed - which is the title of our Conference at the beginning of August.  

Simon Reeve was on BBC 2 on the 20th of May last night and you felt that he was very adamant that Climate change was happening as they were waiting for the rains to come.
There were places the animals needed water for the water holes and some species only breed when there is enough water in the surrounding area.
There are those Islands in the Pacific Ocean that have been submersed and disappeared completely and the inhabitants have nowhere to live. If it had happened to one of us the whole world would have heard about it. Hopefully he will be heard and the world will take notice.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Sophie and Sudan

I was moved by an article I saw written about Sophie Wessex, wife of Prince Edward, who has travelled to Juba in South Sudan. Not since Princess Diana visited Angola has a Royal wife visited a war zone which is a really very dangerous and she named a rape center, in that new country.
Christina Lamb was accompanying her on this trip as the work she is doing on sexual violence - she has met victims of this neglected war crime. Christina reported that since she became aware that 20,000 women were raped by the Serb forces in the Yugoslav war, but there have been no convictions: This issue has become her mission for life.

Image by David Peterson from Pixabay

Release Princess Basma for Eid!

We hear with horror our dear friend HRH Princess Basma with her daughter is imprisoned in Saudi Arabia.
She is a great friend and supporter of The Next Century Foundation, and was able to help enable the Media Awards to take place, which was a great event, she always rang me at the start of Ramadam and gave me her best wishes. I met her when we were in London.and we stopped and she bought me a coffee, with her daughter a couple of times. This seems a travesty for a peace loving individual. Why has this been done?
Princess Basma with her daughter are still there, this is not just a detention but a Prison which at her age sounds like a one up man ship from the cousin! Will she survive the incarceration. Please do join me and ask for her release! It is going to be Eid this weekend so a gesture of peace do let her be released!

Where are we going? What's happening?

The world is a very different place from week to week we are told one thing by Boris and that changes from day to day. It was Mothers day recently and I am lucky enough to have three children and heard from each of them, one in a London flat in isolation with his partner, one in Berlin with a dog called Mish Mish, and one in Dubai with three children of his own, schools having closed over there so they were at home and they had lessons to do from Monday; they are lucky enough to have a large garden with a swimming pool in it! The Climate is changing as they have had rain unusually today. They have been there for 20 years. A lovely place to stay in, the other grandparents are there with them, and as there are no flights home they have decided to stay. I hear this morning, things are difficult in Britain, we are getting mixed messages from the Government!

What would my mother, whom the children called Granny Owl, say were she alive - as someone totally computer illiterate she would be bemused! as I am!

I feel that we have left an uncertain future for the world as we know it. Perhaps people will stop rushing about and get to know the people next door and will slow down. There is a song to go with this. I am sure whatever music you enjoy will be the last thing to go! Today we hear that Boris and the Foreign Secretary have it as well. I listened today to "Thought for today," and we can hear a Dawn Chorus which couldn't be heard before as there was too much noise in the world! Maybe some will be seduced into realising that there is more to the world outside that they thought; maybe we'll all learn something more from this experience than we thought! When you see David Attenborough's Blue Planet and see the amount of Plastics left in the Oceans you think what have we done to this very fragile planet and is it all going to be too late! For many of the small islands yes it is too late.
Or is it?