TRIPOLI, 27 February 2015 (IRIN)* – The roundabouts in the Libyan capital of Tripoli have long been a place for Egyptians to find work. Every day, carpenters, builders, plumbers and decorators sit and wait, each man carrying the tools of his trade to make it easier for prospective employers.
.
**Photo: Mohamed Ben Khalifa/IRIN | Egyptian workers held in a detention centre for illegal immigrants near Misrata on board a bus to Tunisia, from where they will be flown home.
Nowadays there are no Egyptians. Last week the Islamic State (IS) in Libya released a video showing the beheading of 20 Egyptian Coptic Christians and a Ghanaian. Since then, over 25,000 Egyptians have returned, according to the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, while hundreds of detained irregular migrants have been released from jail.
Egyptians have reported an uptick in attacks – at one roundabout, a Libyan man was shot dead for trying to prevent a group of men harassing Egyptian workers. But for some, the prospect of returning to a life in poverty in their home country makes staying on in Libya’s war-zone a risk they are willing to take.
27 February 2015 (RT)* – Winston Churchill once said, “I feel lonely without a war.” He also badly missed the loss of empire. Churchill’s successor – the ‘Empire of Chaos’ – now faces the same quandary. Some wars – as in Ukraine, by proxy – are not going so well.
**BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) | Author: Cflm001 (talk) | Wikimedia Commons
And the loss of empire increasingly manifests itself in myriad moves by selected players aiming towards a multipolar world.
So no wonder US ‘Think Tankland’ is going bonkers, releasing wacky CIA-tinted “forecasts” where Russia is bound to disintegrate, and China is turning into a communist dictatorship. So much (imperial) wishful thinking, so little time to prolong hegemony.
The acronym that all these “forecasts” dare not reveal is BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). BRICS is worse than the plague as far as the ‘Masters of the Universe’ that really control the current – rigged – world system are concerned. True, the BRICS are facing multiple problems.
BELGRADE, 26 February 2015 (IRIN)* – In his latest column, recovering aid worker Paul Currion asks whether the debate over the use of drones misses a fundamental point: Does their very nature compromise humanitarian principles?
**Photo: Paul Currion/IRIN | The use of drones for civilian and humanitarian purposes is increasing
Drones! They’re everywhere. There’s probably a drone over your house right now, especially if you’re:
a. planning an act of terrorism;
b. chatting with your mum on Skype about an act of terrorism on the news;
c. wondering whether drone strikes themselves are in fact a state-sanctioned act of terrorism.
Of course it’s grossly unfair to paint all drones with the same brush, and also impractical because you’d need a very big brush. Drones are being tested by humanitarian organisations for a range of activities such as needs assessment, aid delivery, and buzzing Bhutanese farmers.
27 February 2015 (Transparency International)*— Systemic corruption in the health sector in West Africa hurt the response to the Ebola epidemic that has already killed more than 9,500 men, women and children. Poor risk monitoring in managing the aid funds has also led to claims of corruption and mismanagement. This must stop.
Source: Transparency International
Transparency International has called on the governments of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea and the United Nations to conduct and publish a comprehensive audit of all Ebola emergency funds.
In conjunction with this, governments and aid providers must ensure that health sector services are strengthened and the appropriate corruption risk assessments are implemented and monitored.
The aid audit must include the money donated by citizens of the affected countries, many of whom are desperately poor and gave what little they could in the hopes of helping in this crisis.
There are no circumstances in which using children for sex is acceptable. HIV Specialist for UNICEF East Asia and Pacific Shirley Mark Prabhu says: “The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has been signed by all countries in this region, is very clear on this point. There is no such thing as a child prostitute. Any child under the age of 18 is a victim of sexual exploitation. It violates their rights to health, education and a childhood.”
BANGKOK, Thailand, 26 February 2015– Saeng* was forced into prostitution at the age of 14. After falling out with his** parents and running away from home, he found himself on the street with no money.
Desperate and too young to understand the risks involved, he ended up in the sex industry, exploited by adults. Bars wouldn’t allow him to work on the premises because he was underage, so he sold sex on the streets.
“I didn’t know much about HIV.”“I fought with my Dad because I wanted to be a kathoey and he couldn’t understand,” recalls Saeng, who is now 18. The Thai term he uses is colloquial for a range of transgender identities.
“I went to stay with a friend who sold sex in the bars around Nana district. I would hook up with foreigners who paid me 500 baht (US$15) for sex. If I got enough customers, I could spend the night in a hotel. Otherwise, I would sleep on the streets.
WINSTON CHURCHILL famously said that democracy is the worst political system, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
Uri Avnery
Anyone involved with political life knows that that is British understatement.
Churchill also said that the best argument against democracy is a five minute talk with an average voter. How true.
I have witnessed 20 election campaigns for the Knesset. In five of them I was a candidate, in three of them I was elected.
As a child I also witnessed three election campaigns in the dying days of the Weimar republic, and one (the last more or less democratic one) after the Nazi ascent to power.
(The Germans at that time were very good at graphic propaganda, both political and commercial. After more than 80 years, I still remember some of their election posters.)
Elections are a time of great excitement. The streets are plastered with propaganda, politicians talk themselves hoarse, sometimes violent clashes break out.
Nairobi, 26 February 2015 – A transition to modern district energy systems could contribute to 60 per cent of required energy sector emissions reductions by 2050, and reduce primary energy consumption by up to 50 per cent, according to a new report launched on 25 February 2015 by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in collaboration with the Copenhagen Centre on Energy Efficiency (C2E2), ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, and UN-Habitat.
Source: UNEP
With cities accounting for 70 per cent of global energy use and for 40-50 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, District Energy in Cities: Unlocking the Potential of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, reveals how local authorities and national governments can develop energy-efficient, climate-resilient and affordable district energy systems as one of the most cost-effective and efficient solutions for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and primary energy demand, and for helping to keep global temperature rise to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
26 February 2015 (OXFAM)* — at current rates it could take more than 100 years to complete essential building of homes, schools and health facilities in Gaza unless the Israeli blockade is lifted, Oxfam warned today as new figures show the amount of vital construction materials entering Gaza dropped last month.*
Source: OXFAM
Less that 0.25 percent of the truckloads of essential construction materials needed have entered Gaza in the past three months. Six months since the end of the conflict, the situation in Gaza is becoming increasingly desperate. Oxfam is calling for an urgent end to the blockade of Gaza, which has now been in place for nearly eight years.
After losing their father and their home during the most recent conflict, two young girls in Gaza struggle to come to terms with the past and look to a brighter future.
In the State of Palestine, children continue to recover from the violence that engulfed Gaza during July and August 2014. Download this video
GAZA, State of Palestine, 26 February 2015 – It has been six months since a precarious truce ended another devastating bout of violence in Gaza. For children like Samar and Rosol Barakat, the scars left by 51 days of hostilities last summer are as raw as ever.
During the conflict, the two girls, their parents and three other siblings fled their flat under heavy shelling. The family took refuge in a United Nations–run school. One night, the classroom in which they slept was hit by an artillery shell. Their father was killed, and their mother seriously injured. Both girls were wounded by shrapnel.
A World Health Organization-led treaty that aims to achieve a tobacco-free world has dramatically curbed tobacco use worldwide since its entry into force 10 years ago on 27 February 2015, but “the war on tobacco is far from over” with the tobacco industry still spending billions to promote products that are expected to kill some 8 million people each year by 2030, the United Nations health agency said.
A man smokes on the side of the road as a bus passes in Nepal. Photo: World Bank/Aisha Faquir | Source: UN
The WHO Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) entered into force on February 27, 2005, enacting a set of universal standards stating the dangers of tobacco and limiting its use in all forms worldwide.
The treaty is the first international treaty negotiated under the WHO’s auspices, and has become one of the fastest endorsed by the United Nations to date, with 180 Parties, covering 90 per cent of the world’s population.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 