Archive for October 25th, 2016

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25/10/2016

Big Powers Set to Grab High Level UN Posts

Human Wrongs Watch

By Thalif Deen*

UNITED NATIONS (IPS) – When Antonio Guterres, the former Prime Minister of Portugal, takes office as the new UN Secretary General on January 1, his top management team is likely to be dominated by nominees from the five big powers, namely the US, Britain, France, China and Russia (P5).

800px-un_general_assembly_hall

**United Nations General Assembly hall in New York City.| Author: Patrick Gruban, cropped and downsampled by Pine | Originally posted to Flickr as UN General Assembly | Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

As befits tradition, the current management team of mostly Under-Secretaries-Generals (USGs) will submit their resignations – providing Guterres with a clean state before he takes over.

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Posted in Latin America & Caribbean, Market Lords, Middle East, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords | Leave a Comment »

25/10/2016

Longer, But Less Meaningful Lives?

Human Wrongs Watch

By Johan Galtung*

24 October 2016 – TRANSCEND Media Service – The last one hundred years life expectancy has increased by about 25%-from near 80 to near 100-in some countries.  But, instead of increasing playful childhood, education, work and retirement by 25%, the age of retirement has moved much less than the age at death.

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Johan Galtung

That deprives masses of older people with experience and wisdom of productive work, of being useful, meeting others constructively; reducing them to being playful–bridge or golf as case may be–and just keeping alive.

Homo sapiens as homo ludens not homo faber.

Longer, but emptier lives.

A crime against humanity if there ever was any. However, with two clear remedies: continue working self-employed with pension as salary, or find meaning in dedication to something beyond oneself, some cause, volunteer work.

That should be planned well in advance before entering a “career” that peaks before, or at, retirement; the rest being downhill even steeply.

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

25/10/2016

After Hurricane, 800,000 Haitians in Dire Need of Immediate Food Aid

Human Wrongs Watch

24 October 2016 – An assessment conducted by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP), together with the Haitian Government and its National Coordination for Food Security (CNSA), has determined that in the wake of Hurricane Matthew some 1.4 million people are in need of food assistance, 800,000 of whom are in a dire situation.

A man works to clear downed trees from his property near the western town of Leoganne, after Hurricane Matthew made landfall in Haiti. He lost his crops and livestock. Photo: UN/MINUSTAH/Logan Abassi

The emergency survey was conducted one week after the Category 4 storm, which devastated supplies and crops across the island.

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Posted in Climate Crisis, Latin America & Caribbean, Market Lords, Mother Earth | Leave a Comment »

25/10/2016

Carbon Dioxide Concentrations Surge to New Records in 2016

Human Wrongs Watch

24 October 2016 – Globally averaged concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere surged again to new records in 2016, and, based on readings of the longest-established greenhouse gas monitoring station at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, the United Nations weather agency predicts that carbon dioxide concentrations will not dip below pre-2015 levels for many generations.

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Photo: UNEP

“The year 2015 ushered in a new era of optimism and climate action with the Paris climate change agreement. But it will also make history as marking a new era of climate change reality with record high greenhouse gas concentrations,” said World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.

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

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