Archive for January 3rd, 2016

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03/01/2016

Peace and #safepassage for refugees in 2016

Human Wrongs Watch

 By Aaron Gray-Block*

1 January, 2016 (Greenpeace) – A short distance outside the village of Molyvos on the Greek Island of Lesbos there is a rubbish dump of life jackets, discarded now but forever witness to the hope and suffering of those who fled war, poverty and oppression this year.

Peace sign made from discarded refugee lifejackets, Lesvos 1 Jan, 2016 © Romain Toublant / MSF / Greenpeace

Credit: Greenpeace
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Almost 500,000 people crossed the Aegean Sea to Lesbos, many of them Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans. The dump site stands as a statue, a silent reminder of the risks and that so many more still hold out hope of a safe crossing.

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Posted in Africa, Asia, Market Lords, Middle East, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords | Leave a Comment »

03/01/2016

Opportune Moment to Discuss Water (In)Security in Brazil

Human Wrongs Watch

By Johanna Sjödin*

Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) – An ecological disaster hit Brazil during the first week of November this year. The Fundão dam in the Doce River, which collects wastewater from an iron mine owned by BHP Billiton/Vale, burst and released 40-62 million m3 of polluted water.
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 Source: SIWI

High levels of arsenic and other persistent pollutants now threaten food chains in the river ecosystem.

Two weeks later the pollution reached the sea where the coastal zone fauna also was damaged. 12 people have died and another eleven are still missing.

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Posted in Climate Crisis | Leave a Comment »

03/01/2016

A Bribery Case

Human Wrongs Watch

By Uri Avnery*

2 January 2016

WHEN THE State of Israel was founded, the new foreign minister, Moshe Sharett, did something that seemed quite natural. He sold his private apartment.

397px-UriAvnery

Uri Avnery

In his new function, he was accorded an official residence. A modest one, needless to say.

Sharett thought that it was unseemly for a public official to retain a private apartment when he was living at the public expense.

He did not keep the money he received for his private apartment. Rather, he donated it to several human rights associations – the very same that are now under fierce government attack and labeled “leftists”, a label only slightly less negative than “treasonous”.

Today, such an act would be considered insane. Why, the present Prime Minister lives in an official residence and keeps two more houses, one of which is a luxury villa in a colony of the very rich.

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Posted in Market Lords, Middle East, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords | Leave a Comment »

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