HUMAN WRONGS WATCH

Human Wrongs Watch

By Timothy Alexander Guzman – TRANSCEND Media Service* – Libya has been steadily deteriorating politically and economically since the US-NATO invasion of 2011. The South African based News24 reported that a battle had erupted between rebel forces that ousted President Muammar Gaddafi and Islamist militants in the eastern city of Benghazi.

Part of a group of six (italian built) Palmaria heavy howitzers of the Gaddafi forces, destroyed by French airplanes at the west-southern outskirts of Benghazi, Libya, in Opération Harmattan on March 19, 2011 | Author : Bernd.Brincken | Wikimedia Commons

Khalifa Haftar (who helped the West remove Gaddafi) and his ‘National Army’ were seeking to “Purge” Libya of suspected terrorists. There were witnesses and even a reporter from the Agence-France Presse (AFP) who actually saw what happened at the scene.

“The witnesses said a group led by Khalifa Haftar, a former rebel chief in the 2011 uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi, was backed by warplanes that pounded a barracks occupied by the Islamist “February 17 Brigade” militia” the report said. “Militiamen responded by opening up with anti-aircraft fire.” Both groups also battled in the Sidi Fradj area in the south of Benghazi.

Human Wrongs Watch

The world must do more to unleash Africa’s full potential in agriculture, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on 25 May 2014 said, while also urging the continent’s leaders and development partners to combat growing social and economic inequalities.

A woman farmer in Ganta, Liberia. Photo: UNMIL/Christophe Herwig

“Greater equity presents a common challenge to the continent as a whole and can help foster peace and stability,” Ban Ki-moon said in his message to mark Africa Day, which commemorates the founding in 1963 of the Organization of African Unity, now known as the African Union (AU).

Highlighting this year’s theme for Africa Day, which focuses on agriculture and food security, Ban noted that two out of three people on the continent are employed by the agricultural sector even as hunger persists in various countries.

With an average annual GDP increase of 4.8 per cent between 2000 and 2010, up from 2.1 per cent in the previous decade, Africa has seven out of the top 10 fastest growing economies in the world.

The agriculture sector, in particular, has progressed considerably, with the intensification of staple food production.