17 June 2016 (UN News Centre)* – Renowned photographer Giles Duley, who barely survived a 2011 explosion in Afghanistan in which he lost both legs and part of his left arm, now reports for the United Nations refugee agency, and feels that his lasting wounds have allowed him to better connect with people and capture their stories.
With fear etched on their faces, clearly still suffering from the trauma of a rough by boat across the Aegean, an Afghan family arrives in Lesvos, Greece (2015). Photo: UNHCR/Giles Duley
Most recently, Mr. Duley’s focus has been on the refugee situation in Europe; in October 2015, he began a project documenting their flight from conflict in the Middle East, starting from Lesvos, Greece, where an unprecedented number of people have arrived via tumultuous, and often deadly rides across the Mediterranean Sea.
NATO is supposed to be a defensive alliance, whose purpose is to “protect Europe from aggression”; but today it is aggressive tool of the United States. Today NATO is threatening to drive Europe into an all-destroying thermonuclear war with Russia.
**[NATO members intervention in Libya]: Part of a group of six (italian built) Palmaria heavy howitzers of the Gaddafi forces, destroyed by French Rafale airplanes at the west-southern outskirts of Benghazi, Libya, in Opération Harmattan on March 19, 2011. In the background other destroyed vehicles along the street that leads from Benghazi to Ajdabija. | Author: Bernd.Brincken | Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. | Wikimedia Commons
13 June 2016 (UNICEF)*– Alone on the move to Europe, their friendship started when seven Gambian boys met while waiting to travel by boat from Libya to Italy. Referencing their journey, the boys named their crew “Do it or die”.
World Economic Forum* – In 2015, when more than a million refugees and migrants arrived on European shores, the reaction in many countries quickly turned to tightening border controls and erecting fences. Public opinion became increasingly alarmed, with some irresponsible politicians stoking fears and adding to growing tensions.
Nearly 800 million people are chronically undernourished as a direct consequence of land degradation, declining soil, fertility, unsustainable water use, drought and biodiversity loss, requiring long-term solutions to help communities increase resilience to climate change, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on 17 June 2016 declared.
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Baobab tree in a degraded, arid landscape in Kenya’s Eastern province. Photo: World Bank/Flore de Preneuf | Source: UN News Centre
“The livelihoods and well-being of hundreds of millions of people are at stake,” the Secretary-General said in his message to mark the World Day to Combat Desertification, whose theme this year is ‘Protect Earth. Restore land. Engage people.’
ROME, 17 June 2016 (IPS) – Allow me a rare personal anecdote. In 1965 I met Lord [Alexander Frederick Douglas-] Home, who had just left the post of Prime Minister and we had a mutual sympathy. Lord Home invited me for lunch at the Chamber of Lords. Over an extremely delicious rump of Scottish lamb, I asked if I was allowed to ask a complex question.
Roberto Savio
I explained that I had started my professional career as a Kremlinologist, which had served me well in following British foreign policy.
One day London was looking to Europe as its compass, and another day, to Washington.
All this on the basis of small signals, difficult to detect.
Could his Lordship explain to me how to address this dualism?
Lord Home’s answer was that only a British citizen could understand the dualism, and therefore, I should try to be British for five minutes.
UNITED NATIONS, 17 June 2016 (IPS) – Only a small percentage of the world’s most vulnerable refugees will be resettled in 2017, according to new figures released by the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) this week.
What remains of a street in Aleppo, August 2014. Credit: Shelly Kittleson/IPS.
A group of 35 non-government organisations (NGOs) responded to the new figures by saying that a “dramatic increase” in resettlement numbers is “urgently needed”.
The UNCHR expects to be able to only resettle up to 170,000 refugees in 2017, out of 1.19 million refugees considered eligible for resettlement, a small fraction of the world’s 60 million displaced people.
TRANSCEND Media Service– 5 Jun 2016 – Trumpism! No magic, no mystique, no charisma, no aura of invincibility! Just an astute and calculated recognition of the nation’s many discontents, assumed causes, and an appealing public persona fuel Trump’s appeal.
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SOURCES OF VOTER DISCONTENT: “THE VICTIM SYNDROME”
MANY YEARS ago I received a phone call from the Prime Minister’s office. I was told that Yitzhak Rabin wanted to see me in private.
Uri Avnery
Rabin opened the door himself. He was alone in the residence. He led me to a comfortable seat, poured two generous glasses of whisky for me and himself and started without further ado – he abhorred small talk – “Uri, have you decided to destroy all the doves in the Labor Party?”
My news magazine, Haolam Hazeh, was conducting a campaign against corruption and had accused two prominent Labor leaders, the new president of the Central Bank and the Minister for Housing.
Both were indeed members of the moderate wing of the party.
I explained to Rabin that in the fight against corruption I could make no exceptions for politicians who were close to my political outlook. Corruption was a cause in itself.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 