24/03/2014
Exactly 15 years ago, on March 24, NATO began its 78-day bombing of Yugoslavia. The alliance bypassed the UN under a “humanitarian” pretext, launching aggression that claimed hundreds of civilian lives and caused a much larger catastrophe than it averted.
Author Clockwise from upper left: Tomislav Jagušt, User:Snake bgd, User:Zeke, Senior Airman Mitch Fuqua (U.S. Air Force) | Wikimedia Commons
Years on, Serbia still bears deep scars of the NATO bombings which, as the alliance put it, were aimed at “preventing instability spreading” in Kosovo. Questions remain on the very legality of the offense, which caused casualties and mass destruction in the Balkan republic.
Codenamed ‘Operation Allied Force,’ it was the largest attack ever undertaken by the alliance. It was also the first time that NATO used military force without the approval of the UN Security Council and against a sovereign nation that did not pose a real threat to any member of the alliance.
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23/03/2014
Stockholm — India’s arms imports are now almost 3 times as high as those of the second and third largest arms importers—China and Pakistan—according to new data on international arms transfers published on 17 March 2014 by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Overall, the volume of international transfers of major conventional weapons grew by 14 per cent between 2004–08 and 2009–13.
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An Arjun MBT being test driven on the bump track at the Central Vehicles Research and Development Establishment (CVRDE), at Avadi, Chennai | Source: Image, taken from Ajai Shukla’s blog at ajaishukla.blogspot.com | Author: Ajai Shukla, uploaded by User:Sniperz11| Wikimedia Commons
The volume of Indian imports of major weapons rose by 111 per cent between 2004–08 and 2009–13, and its share of the volume of international arms imports increased from 7 to 14 per cent. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s imports of major arms increased by 119 per cent.
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23/03/2014
The number of people living in households without any income from work has doubled in Greece, Ireland and Spain, and risen by 20% or more in Estonia, Italy, Latvia, Portugal, Slovenia and the U.S., warns a new OECD report, adding that young people are at greater risk of poverty than before the crisis: the share of 18-25 year-olds in households with incomes below half the national median has climbed in most countries – by 5 percentage points in Estonia, Spain and Turkey, by 4 points in Ireland and the U.K., and by 3 points in Greece and Italy.
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This shows death rates in metropolitan areas of the United States according to inequality of income and the average per capita income. This chart was created by Patrick Hayes using data from J. Lynch G.A. Kaplan, et al., “Income inequality and Mortality in Metropolitan Areas of the United States ,” American Journal of Public Health 88 (1998): 1,074-80 | Public Domain
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22/03/2014
Seeking to increase awareness among young people about climate change and mobilize them as champions for action, the United Nations marked on 23 March 2014 this year’s World Meteorological Day with a call for more young people – especially women – to become meteorologists, a profession which makes a vital contribution to the safety and well-being of society.*
Ice weather in Geneva, Switzerland. Photo: WMO/Elena Manaenkova
“Weather and Climate: Engaging Youth” is this year’s theme for the Day, and the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) noted that today’s youth will benefit from the dramatic advances being made in the ability to understand and forecast the Earth’s weather and climate. “Most will live into the second half of this century and experience the increasing impacts of climate change.”
“Atmosphere and ocean temperatures continue to increase, ice caps and glaciers around the world are steadily declining, sea level is rising and a number of extreme weather and climate events are becoming more frequent and/or more intense,” said WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud.
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22/03/2014
New York, 22 March 2014 – Some 768 million people do not have access to an improved source of water, and 2.5 billion do not have access to appropriate sanitation. says the 2014 World Water Development Report, released by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and UN Water. The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) estimates that around 70 per cent of the world’s water resources are used for agriculture and warns that by 2025 two-thirds of the population could struggle to get access to this resource.
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Drinking clean water. Photo: World Bank/Arne Hoel | Source” UN
The report further reveals that places where people do not have adequate access to water largely coincide with those where people have no electric power.
It goes on to describe the various ways in which water and energy relate to each other, explaining, for example, that energy is needed for the collection, transportation and treatment of water, and that at the same time, water is required in the production and extraction of fossil fuels. Likewise, droughts make energy shortages worse, while lack of electricity reduces farmers’ ability to irrigate their fields.
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22/03/2014
The United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process on 22 March 2014 voiced grave concern at the Israeli Government’s reported plans to advance over 2,300 settlement units, many of them deep inside the West Bank.
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A settler woman walks past an Israeli soldier standing guard in East Jerusalem. Photo: IRIN/Andreas Hackl
“This development is particularly unhelpful against the backdrop of a volatile situation on the ground and as US-led peace negotiations have reached a critical stage,” Robert Serry said in a statement issued in Jerusalem, the UN reported. He reiterated that settlements are illegal under international law and cannot be reconciled with Israel’s stated intention to pursue a two-State solution.
Senior UN officials have repeatedly stated that settlement plans threaten renewed hopes for Israeli-Palestinian peace, and have stressed the need to avoid actions that negatively impact ongoing peace talks.
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21/03/2014
Over 13 million hectares of forest are destroyed each year and deforestation accounts for 12 to 20% of the global greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming, warned the United Nations on occasion of the International Day of Forests, observed on 21 March 2014. Around 1.6 billion people – including more than 2,000 indigenous cultures – depend on forests for their livelihood.*
Grace works on a voluntary basis to support efforts to protect the forest. She provides both material support to Kenya Forest Service rangers. Photo: UNFF/Riccardo Gangle
Forests cover one-third of all land area, and are home to 80 per cent of terrestrial biodiversity. They are crucial for addressing a multitude of sustainable development imperatives, from poverty eradication to food security, from mitigating and adapting to climate change to reducing disaster risk.” Forests also help combat climate change as they store more carbon than is in the atmosphere.
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HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 