'Unseen' News and Views – By Baher Kamal & The Like
Families from Falluja, Iraq, continue to flee from the city as fighting continues. Credit: ©UNHCR/Anmar Qusay
The warning has been heralded by the authoritative voice of Mogens Lykketoft, current president of the United Nations General Assembly, who on World Refugee Day on June 20, reacted to the just announced new record number of people displaced from their homes due to conflict and persecution.
**Two destroyed tanks in front of a mosque in Azaz, Syria. | Author: Christiaan Triebert | Source: Flickr: Azaz, Syria | Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. | Wikimdia Commons
Earlier this June, media reports broke news that Paris invested its Special Forces in northern Syria to assist the Kurds in their efforts against ISIL – all part, Paris said, of a broader counter-terrorism operation in the region.
In an address made to the Public Senat TV, France Defense Minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian confirmed that Paris was “providing support through weapons supplies, air presence and advice.”
Children from rural areas and disempowered homes are ideal targets for trafficking in India and elsewhere. Credit: Neeta Lal/IPS
With nearly half the world’s 259 million widows living poverty, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon 23 June 2016 urged greater efforts to “make them more visible in our societies” and ensure they are a vital part of the UN Sustainable Development Agenda’s pledge to ‘leave no one behind.’
Ivorian widows run a small restaurant in Yopougon with the help of the non-governmental organization, Les Compagnes de Ruth. UN Photo/Ky Chung
“Widows are often stigmatized by their families and communities. Many suffer discrimination based on age and gender. Some have lived lives marked by physical and sexual abuse,” noted Ban in his message for International Widows’ Day.
23 Jun3 2016 – TRANSCEND Media Service – Take the candidate debate about nomination and election, focused on Trump’s buffoonery and Sanders’ ineligibility. Hillary?–on using a private account.
Johan Galtung
Few words wasted on her foreign policy of massive belligerence, warfare. In the tradition, Zoltan Grossman[i] documents: 151 military interventions from Wounded Knee in 1890; and in spite of the war fatigue expressed by Trump, Cruz, Sanders–even by Obama.
And US reality? John Pilger[ii]: “Nuclear warhead spending alone rose higher under Obama than under any American president”.
The Wall Street Journal (30 May 2016) had a full page on the new Navy railgun projectiles with ultra-speed that can penetrate any armor.
No peacefare; no sign of conciling trauma, of solving conflicts.
23 June 2016 – The recent “stuttering momentum” in delivering humanitarian aid to Syria’s besieged and hard-to-reach populations must be significantly expanded in the second half of 2016, the United Nations humanitarian chief told the Security Council today, warning that progress made to date was only “a trickle” of the country’s overwhelming needs.
Unicef distributing water and hygiene items to Yazidi IDPs who crossed from Syria into Kurdistan, Iraq. Photo: UNICEF
Artisanal fisheries are being hit by subsidised, foreign vessels. Credit: Christopher Pala/IPS
Belhabib had studied fisheries science in her native Algeria, so she was initially asked to oversee the Algeria component.
23 June 2016 – The number of people suffering from drug use disorders has increased disproportionally for the first time in six years in 2014, while the number of people who used at least one drug stayed at five per cent of the adult population, according to the annual report prepared by the United Nations.
Drug dependence treatment in Myanmar. Photo: UNODC
The World Drug Report 2016, which examines the health impact of using opiates, cocaine, cannabis, amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) and new psychoactive substances (NPS), was released today by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), ahead of the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking on 26 June.
As of June 2016, 4.6 million people are severely food insecure in the Lake Chad basin, of which 65 per cent are located in Northeast Nigeria, especially in the Borno and Yobe States. Photo: FAO/Patrick David
Countries in the Latin America region should carry out a strategic reorientation of their labour market policies in order to increase productivity and address rising unemployment resulting from an economic slowdown, a new report by the United Nations International Labour Organization (ILO) on 23 June 2016 urged.
A woman attends her post in a market in zone 3, Guatemala City, Guatemala. Photo: World Bank/Maria Fleischmann | Source: UN News Centre
The report, What works: Active labour market policies in Latin America and the Caribbean warns that the achievements made in the region since the 2000s, in terms of social inclusion and work quality, have stalled and are even beginning to reverse, which can lead to a dangerous “structural stagnation” in labour markets that could, in turn, generate an increase in inequality and informality and erosion in the middle class.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 