25/01/2013
Bamako/Dakar, (IRIN*) – Many more northern Malians are likely to face severe food shortages in the coming days and weeks if markets remain blocked by border and road closures, and humanitarian access remains limited, warn food security agencies.
Photo: Katarina Hoije/IRIN. Diabaly residents return home
The border with Algeria is officially closed as a result of the conflict that broke out on 11 January between Malian and French forces and Islamist groups that were occupying the north. As a result, the amount of food coming through has halved, according to the UN World Food Programme’s (WFP) Vulnerability and Analysis Mapping Unit.
Algeria supplies almost all markets in Kidal Region in northeastern Mali with rice, couscous, oil and milk – the staple diet of northern Malians. While some trucks can get through, traders are reluctant to travel because of strict border controls and fear of further aerial bombardment, says the WFP analysis.
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24/01/2013
“French military and Malian government forces are restricting access to conflict areas for members of the media, making covering the situation a major challenge”
Northern Mali conflict | Author: Orionist | Wikimedia Commons
By Peter Townson*, 23/01/2013 – As violence continues in Mali, the national and international media are finding it increasingly difficult to provide quality coverage of the situation.
The primary reason behind the challenges is the fact that journalists are being forced to stay in the capital city of Bamako, and are not being allowed to travel freely throughout the country.
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24/01/2013
By Hiba Zayadin, (IFEX)* – 23 January 2013 – When promises of increased media freedoms followed President Hosni Mubarak’s downfall in early 2011, a wave of new satellite channels and newspapers flooded the media scene in Egypt.
Wall art in France depicting President Mohamed Morsi
Abode of Chaos/flickr | IFEX
It seemed back then that most red lines had dissolved; Egyptians were free to express their political views and criticisms without fear of retribution.
A few months after the revolution, however, it became apparent that the rights of journalists were not to be safeguarded, as criminal defamation made its way into the new constitution.
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23/01/2013
By Oxfam International – An explosion in extreme wealth and income is exacerbating inequality and hindering the world’s ability to tackle poverty, Oxfam warned in a briefing* published on 19 January 2013 ahead of the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Image: OXFAM
The $240 billion net income in 2012 of the richest 100 billionaires would be enough to make extreme poverty history four times over, according Oxfam’s report ‘The cost of inequality: how wealth and income extremes hurt us all.’
It is calling on world leaders to curb today’s income extremes and commit to reducing inequality to at least 1990 levels.
The richest one per cent has increased its income by 60 per cent in the last 20 years with the financial crisis accelerating rather than slowing the process.
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23/01/2013
More than 300 banks, pension funds, insurance companies and asset managers in 30 countries with substantial investments in nuclear arms producers. Our study Don’t Bank on the Bomb provides details of financial transactions with 20 companies that are heavily involved in the manufacture, maintenance and modernization of US, British, French and Indian nuclear forces, according to a new study*.
Don’t Bank on the Bomb | ICAN
“We are appealing to financial institutions to stop investing in the nuclear arms industry, as any use of nuclear weapons would violate international law and have catastrophic humanitarian consequences,” says the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).
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23/01/2013
By Russia Today (RT*), 23 January 2013 — Britain will move to exit the EU if significant reforms are not made to the structure of the union, said UK Prime Minister David Cameron. He warned the organization was heading for a degree of integration “outside the UK’s comfort zone.”
**David Cameron | Credit: United Kingdom Home Office
Cameron stressed the solution was to hold an “in-out referendum” on Britain’s membership of the body, but only after the EU had had a chance to remedy the financial crisis.
“I don’t believe that to make a decision at this moment is the right way forward, either for Britain or for Europe as a whole,” said Cameron, assuring that he would hold the referendum in 2017 should he be re-elected in 2015.
“I say to the British people: this will be your decision. And when that choice comes, you will have an important choice to make about our country’s destiny,” stated the British Prime Minister. He added that “if we don’t address these challenges, the danger is that Europe will fail and the British people will drift towards the exit.”
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23/01/2013
Moscow, January 23 (RIA Novosti*) – Moscow will continue to retaliate for any unfriendly measures implemented by Washington, but hopes to develop improved relations with the United States and will coordinate its actions in the international arena, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday.
**Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov © RIA Novosti. Grigoriy Sysoev
“Of course we will retaliate for unfriendly acts, but at the core of our position is the development of Russian-American links in all fields, including in the international arena,” he said at a press conference on Russian Foreign Policy in 2012 in Moscow.
Relations with America retained their key role in maintaining security in the Euro-Atlantic area as a whole and “for support of global stability” in 2012, he said.
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23/01/2013
Consumers, food retailers and governments can take simple actions to dramatically reduce some 1.3 million tons of food waste every year, according to a new campaign launched on 23 January 2013 by the United Nations and its partners.
One-third of all food produced worldwide is lost or wasted. Credit: FAO
Launched by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and partners, the campaign – ‘Think, Eat, Save. Reduce Your Foodprint’ – seeks to accelerate action to eliminate wasteful practices and help countries share successful initiatives on these issues. It specifically targets food wasted by consumers, retailers and the hospitality industry.
“In a world of seven billion people, set to grow to nine billion by 2050, wasting food makes no sense – economically, environmentally and ethically,” said UNEP’s Executive Director, Achim Steiner.
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23/01/2013
Geneva (ILO News*), 23 January 2013 – The number of middle-class workers in the developing world has risen sharply over the past decade, potentially creating a much-needed boost to future growth and consumption in these economies.
Global Employment Trends 2013
New figures in the ILO’s Global Employment Trends 2013 show that 42 per cent of workers in developing countries – nearly 1.1 billion workers – are now “middle-class,” living with their families on more than US$4* per person per day. The rise is particularly marked in East Asia.
Since 2001, an additional 400 million workers have joined the ranks of the middle- class, with their incomes sufficient for their families to consume between US$4 and $13 a day per person.
This is a doubling of the number of workers in the emerging middle class. A further 186 million workers are now living on more than $13 a day.
By 2017, the ILO estimates that an additional 390 million workers in the developing world could be middle-class.
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23/01/2013
By Bill Van Auken, WSWS*, 23 January 2013 – The French intervention in Mali, followed by the bloody siege in Algeria, represents a turning point in what has emerged as a new imperialist scramble for Africa. With these events, following on the heels of the US-NATO war for regime-change in Libya and the Washington-backed sectarian civil war in Syria, mankind is witnessing a convulsive drive by the major powers to re-divide the world, its territories, markets and resources.
Map of Africa | Author: Martin23230 | Wikimedia Commons
There is every reason to believe that this campaign to re-colonize much of the planet will be even bloodier and more oppressive than the original colonization of Africa.
As in the Libyan war, France has taken the lead in unleashing fighter bombers and deploying its dogs of war, the French Foreign Legion, in Mali.
However, the other major imperialist powers have made it clear that they will not remain on the sidelines.
Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron vowed that the UK will “work with others to close down the ungoverned space” in northwest Africa “with all the means that we have.” Terming the developments in Mali and neighboring countries a “global threat,” Cameron declared they would “require a response that is about years, even decades, rather than months.”
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HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 