02/02/2016
By Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary General*
1 February 2016 (UN News Centre) – In Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, 2016 has begun much as 2015 ended — with unacceptable levels of violence and a polarized public discourse. That polarization showed itself in the halls of the United Nations last week when I pointed out a simple truth: History proves that people will always resist occupation.
On the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, Israel, Muslims leave the Dome of the Rock after Friday prayers. Police presence is always tight and young males are not allowed or have their ID’s seized going in. Photo: Edward Parsons/IRIN
Some sought to shoot the messenger — twisting my words into a misguided justification for violence. The stabbings, vehicle rammings and other attacks by Palestinians targeting Israeli civilians are reprehensible. So, too, are the incitement of violence and the glorification of killers.
Nothing excuses terrorism. I condemn it categorically.
read more »
Posted in Climate Crisis |
Leave a Comment »
02/02/2016
As more than 800 young leaders gather in New York for the annual United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Youth Forum, UN officials on 1 February 2016 launched a new initiative to tackle youth unemployment, making it clear that success in fighting poverty and inequality will largely depend on them being a driving force.
.
Youth in Peru. Photo: UNFPA/Leslie Searles
“The challenges we face may seem overwhelming and out of reach for us to solve. But that is not true. Each and every one of us can be an agent of change, no matter our age or means,” said Oh Joon, the President of ECOSOC, at the opening of the two-day event at UN Headquarters.
read more »
Posted in Climate Crisis |
Leave a Comment »
02/02/2016
By Jan Oberg – Transnational Foundation for Peace & Future Research*
1 February 2016
Jan Oberg
The nuclear age is an age of terror
Nuclear weapons are the ultimate weapons of terror. You can’t use them without killing millions of innocent people.
Targetting innocent people, people who are not part of a conflict, is a central defining characteristics of terrorism.
That’s why the world’s governments decades ago decided to work for general and complete disarmament – i.e. for nuclear abolition – in the spirit too of Alfred Nobel.
As a matter of fact, the first UN General Assembly resolution of January 24, 1946 established a Security Council tasked with achieving ‘the elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons and all other weapons adaptable to mass destruction.’
70 years ago!!
read more »
Posted in Market Lords, Middle East, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords |
Leave a Comment »
02/02/2016
1 February 2016 (ICAN)* – The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) informed that on 26 January 2016 the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists kept the “Doomsday clock” at three minutes to midnight, the closest it has been since the height of the Cold War in 1983. Despite the successful Paris Agreement on Climate, the current nuclear arsenals and their modernisation programmes increase the risk of nuclear war.
Bombs No More Melbourne | ICAN campaigners in Melbourne held a Bombs No More action, encouraging passers-by to “disarm a nuclear bomb” by transforming it into something peaceful | Source: ICAN
The Bulletin’s Science and Security Board notes that decisive action on nuclear weapons is urgently needed.
read more »
Posted in Market Lords, Middle East, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords |
Leave a Comment »
01/02/2016
By Baher Kamal*
CAIRO, 1 February 2016 (IPS) – Despite the enormous challenges facing Africa now, the leaders of its 1.2 billion plus inhabitants have decided to spotlight the issue of Human Rights With a Particular Focus on the Rights of Women in their 26th summit held in Addis Ababa on 21-31 January this year. Why?
Mahawa Kaba Wheeler, Director of Women, Gender and Development at the African Union Commission. Photo: Courtesy of the African Union Commission
In an interview to IPS, Mahawa Kaba Wheeler, Director of Women, Gender and Development at the African Union Commission (AUC), explains that time has come to act to alleviate the multitude of barriers to gender equality.
read more »
Posted in Africa, Market Lords, Middle East, The Peoples |
3 Comments »
01/02/2016
OXFORD, 28 January 2016 (IRIN) – A new Danish law that will allow police to search asylum seekers arriving in the country and confiscate any cash or valuables worth more than 10,000 kroner ($1,460) has been widely condemned by refugee and human rights groups. But it is only the latest among a raft of new laws introduced by EU member states in the past six months aimed at deterring asylum seekers from lodging claims on their territory.
Photo: Gordon Welters/UNHCR | The mood when thousands of refugees arrived at Munich central train station in September 2015 was considerably more welcoming than it is now
They go beyond making it more difficult to cross borders. The explicit intention is often to make conditions for those fleeing war and persecution as unwelcoming as possible in the hope that they will seek safety elsewhere.
read more »
Posted in Africa, Asia, Market Lords, Middle East, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords |
Leave a Comment »
01/02/2016
By Uri Avnery*
30 January 2016
HAMELIN, a small town in Germany (not so far from where I was born), was infested with rats. In their despair, the burghers called upon a rat-catcher and promised him a thousand guilders for liberating them from this plague.
Uri Avnery
The rat-catcher took his pipe and played such a sweet melody that all the rats came out of their holes and joined him. He marched them to the Weser river, where they all drowned.
Once freed from this plague, the burghers saw no reason to pay. So the piper took out his pipe again and produced an even sweeter melody. The enchanted children of the town gathered around him and he marched them straight down to the river, where they all drowned.
Binyamin Netanyahu is our pied piper. Enchanted by his melodies, the people of Israel are marching behind him towards the river.
Those burghers who are aware of what is happening are looking on. They don’t know what to do. How to save the children?
read more »
Posted in Market Lords, Middle East, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords |
Leave a Comment »
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 