ROME, 11 July 2016 (IPS) – The question is simple and the answer, short: does eating more mean being better nourished?… Not necessarily!
By providing an opportunity for high-level policy dialogue, TICAD has become a major global platform through which Asian and African nations, as well as international stakeholders, can collaborate to promote Africa’s development. Credit: UN Photo/Tim McKulka
On this, top United Nations agencies dealing with food and health have set a clear definition: food security implies access by all people at all times to the food needed for a healthy life, while nutrition security means not only access to adequate diet, but also to essential health services, safe water and sanitation, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO).
But simple as it is, this equation is too often neglected. Why?
As many observers around the world have pointed out, the United States is no longer a true democracy. It is an oligarchy. The US government ignores the safety, wishes and needs of the majority of its citizens, and instead makes decisions which will bring profit to enormous corporations, or satisfy the wishes of powerful lobbies.
John Scales Avery
Governmental secrecy occurs in many nations, but in the United States it has assumed huge proportions.
As Edward Snowden’s revelations have shown, the number of people with security clearance (i.e. the number involved in secret operations in the US) is now as large as the entire population of Norway.
Furthermore, trade deals. which threaten both the global environment and the jobs of millions of American citizens, have been negotiated in secret. If people have no knowledge of what their government is doing, how can they exert the control that the word democracy implies?
It is ironic that the United States justifies aggressive wars for regime change by saying that it is “bringing democracy” to various countries. In fact, its own government is not a democracy.
11 July 2016 – Releasing its report, “Female Infanticide Worldwide”, the first ever global study on the issue, Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) stated that female infanticide for son preference due to variety of reasons is a worldwide phenomenon with 1.5 million female foetuses being aborted every year.
Chinese anti infanticide tract from 1800 | Source: Original publication: 1800 | Author: Unknown | public domain | Wikimedia Commons: “This file has been identified as being free of known restrictions under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights.”
Lund, Sweden,11 July 2016 (TFF–Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research) – Russia and NATO have offensive capacities and MIMACs (Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complex) but NATO’s is a much larger potential threat to Russia than the other way around.
Jan Oberg
Why does an alliance with such an overwhelming superiority shout and scream and see ghosts on the horizon when, in reality, there are none?
Why does it seem to be intellectually unable to see things from the side of its opponent? Is the show of strength in reality a sign of weakness?
A threat consists of two main things: An intention to do something negative to you + a capability to actually carry it through – thus I + C.
Whenever NATO S-G Stoltenberg – a person who has gone through a serious personality change – speaks, he says nice things like: NATO does not seek confrontation and none of its moves are directed at Russia. NATO countries just have to protect themselves against Russia which they see as a threat.
Typically the talk is about an actor, a country, a leader – not about issues or trends that challenge the Alliance and certainly not that its own war adventures have weakened it in moral and legitimacy terms.
Alfaz, Spain, 11 July 2016 – TRANSCEND Media Service– Spain got stuck again. The party numbers in a parliament with 350 seats produced no majority 20 December 2015 or 26 July 2016. The arithmetic did not work out. The numbers were wrong.
Johan Galtung
Or, could the Rule be wrong? The Rule is majority support for a government to be viable.
Actually, for this to work at all the number of seats in the parliament should be uneven, like 351.
That aside, let us look at numbers and rules in the light of the number, N, of political parties–programs = position-packages–competing.
N=1 has a name, dictatorship. Democracy starts at N=2. There could be factions inside that single party; like in the CPC, Communist Party of China, or the LDP, Liberal Democratic Party, in Japan.
But N>1 gives people in general a choice, not only members of factions inside one governing party. A major difference. Long live N>1!
CARACAS, 11 July 2016 (IPS) – Latin America’s teenage girls are a crucial force for change and for promoting sustainable development, if the region invests in their rights and the correction of unequal opportunities, according to Luiza Carvalho, the regional head of UN Women.
Two Mexican teenage girls at their school. Investing in education for teenage girls in Latin America is regarded as the way forward for them to become future drivers of sustainable develpment in their societies. Credit: UNFPA LAC
“An empowered adolescent will know her rights and will stand up for them; she has tools for success and is a driving froce for positive change in her community,” Carvalho told IPS in an interview from the regional headquarters of UN Women in Panama City.
11 July 2016 (UN Women)* – World Population Day on 11 July focuses on the importance and urgency of population issues. This year’s theme “Investing in teenage girls,” calls for action to address the enormous challenges faced by teenage girls across the world.
Photo: UN Women/Karin Schermbrucker
Of the 700 million women alive today who were married as children, more than one in three were married before they turned 15.[1]
As young brides, girls have to forgo their youth and adolescence years, as they take on family responsibilities. They are unable to negotiate safe sex practices and vulnerable to early pregnancy, contracting HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.
UNITED NATIONS, New York, 11 July 2016 (UNFPA)*– Today is World Population Day, a day that calls attention on urgent population issues. This World Population Day spotlights the need to invest in teenage girls.
Despite strides the world has made towards gender equality, teenage girls remain extremely vulnerable. Too many girls continue to see their rights abridged and prospects diminished by discrimination, exploitation and poverty.
The United Nations on 10 July 2016 planned to raise awareness of the needs of women and girls in emergencies on World Population Day 2015 with campaigns including an outdoor event in the Kazakh capital of Almaty and a panel discussion in the Thai capital of Bangkok on this year’s theme ‘vulnerable populations in emergencies.’
Syrian refugees fleeing the fighting near the Syrian city of Kobani wait in a holding area before boarding buses in Turkey (September 2014). Photo: UNHCR /I. Prickett
“Not since the end of the Second World War have so many people been forced from their homes across the planet,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in his message on the Day, which is observed on July 11 as a day to focus attention on the urgency and importance of population issues.
11 July 2016 – Leaders and communities must focus on and stand up for the rights of teenage girls, particularly those who are poor, out of school, exploited, or subjected to harmful traditional practices, the United Nations has said, marking World Population Day with a call to bolster the success of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by investing in better opportunities for teen girls.
Students laugh as they leave school in Bangladesh. Photo: Scott Wallace/World Bank | Source: UN News Centre
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 