13/12/2016
By Uri Avnery*
10/12/2016
A DARK wave is submerging democracies all over the Western world.
Uri Avnery
It started in Britain, a land we always saw as the mother of democracy, the homeland of a particularly sensible people. It voted in a plebiscite to leave the European Union, that landmark of human progress which arose out of the terrible ruins of World War II.
Why? No particular reason. Just for the heck of it.
Then came the US elections. The incredible happened: A nobody came from nowhere and was elected. A person devoid of any political experience, a bully, a habitual liar, an entertainer. Now he is the most powerful statesman on the planet, the “Leader of the free World”.
And now it is happening all over Europe. The far-far-right is making gains almost everywhere and threatens to get voted into power. Moderate Presidents and Prime Ministers resign or get kicked out. With the notable exception of Germany and Austria, which seem to have learned their lesson, fascism and populism are gaining ground all around.
Why, for God’s sake?
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13/12/2016
By Catherine Shakdam*
11 Dec, 2016 (RT) – Just when you thought the MENA region could not churn out any more crises… This time two giants are locking horns over conflicting geopolitical ambitions, or rather, Saudi Arabia might have overstepped one boundary too many against Egypt.
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13/12/2016
Damascus, Syria, December 9, 2016 – I’m writing to you from war-torn Syria where the suffering of the people is beyond comprehension, heart-breaking.
The war in and on Syria has been started in spring 2011 – the underlying conflicts much much earlier.
What our media have shown us is snipers, bombings, killings, ruins, dead bodies and press conferences with Western politicians.
But did you “see” the underlying conflicts?
Get an understanding of what the problems standing between the parties are?
Did you get the impression that weapons is the only thing “they” understand?
Did you feel hopeless about it all? Confused? Depressed because of all the human suffering?
That peace is impossible?
If so it’s because we are missing a huge part of the picture. We need something else.
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13/12/2016
By Johan Galtung*
12 December 2016 – TRANSCEND Media Service – Quite a lot is happening. NYT (11 Dec 2016): President-Elect Trump made Carrier keep 1,000 factory jobs in Indianapolis, not “trading” to Mexico; and canceled the Boeing contract for a new Air Force One.
Johan Galtung
Three Trump Upper Class challenges: Solidarity with the working class; a foreign policy based less on war and more on negotiation; and a new tax code (USA has the longest in the world, feeding highly paid law firms with loopholes). Trump wants jobs, and infrastructure.
There are also non-events: no Trump apologies to the groups he offended grotesquely in the campaign: non-whites, women, immigrants particularly Mexicans. And the old campaigner Trump is still alive.
Trumps’s focus on USA-Russia cooperation from the American to the Bolshevik revolutions, and now on the coming century, is brilliant and intellectual in an anti-intellectual USA. While US media and their copycats all over are still fighting the election for Clinton.
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13/12/2016
La Técnica, Guatemala9 December 2016 (UNHCR)* – Nine-year-old Carlos and four-year-old Susana sit on the banks of the Usumacinta River in Guatemala with their father, Geronimo Vasquez,* looking over the water to Mexico, where they plan to travel without papers in the evening.
Fleeing gang violence in El Salvador and Honduras, children risk abuse, smugglers and drug cartels in a desperate trek in search of safety. — A group of young Hondurans board a boat on the banks of the Usumacinta River in the town of La Técnica, Guatemala, to cross to Mexico. © UNHCR/Tito Herrera
Working in his native El Salvador as a police officer, Vasquez got into a shootout in which a street gang member was killed. In revenge, gang members sprayed his house with gunfire as his family cowered inside.
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13/12/2016
As the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) prepares to mark the 70th anniversary of its work for the world’s most vulnerable children, the agency on 9 December 2016 issued a stark warning that despite significant progress, too many children are still being left behind, with nearly 535 million of them living in harsh conditions, lacking access to decent health, education and protection services.
In Jérémie, Haiti, children play at the Église Chrétienne Nan Lindy. Hundreds of people have sought temporary shelter at the church after countless homes were destroyed by Hurricane Matthew. Photo: UNICEF/UN035877/LeMoyne
“UNICEF was established to bring help and hope to children whose lives and futures are endangered by conflict and deprivation, and this enormous figure – representing the individual lives of half a billion children – is a sharp reminder that our mission is becoming more urgent every day,” said UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake in a news release ahead the anniversary on 11 December.
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13/12/2016
Although countries across the Middle East and North Africa have made major strides in protecting children’s rights and wellbeing since the inception of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) 70 years ago, conflict risks reversing these gains for 157 million children in the region.
Newly displaced civilians stop at a check point in Qayyara, south of Mosul, Iraq, on October 31, 2016. Photo: UNICEF/Alessio Romenzi
“Looking back on 70 years of UNICEF’s work for children is a source of great pride. Every country in the region has ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, less children die before the age of five, and school enrolment rates have improved,” said Geert Cappelaere, UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, in a news release issued on 12 December 2016.
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13/12/2016
With Yemen’s health system near collapse, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on 12 December 2016 warned that nearly 2.2 million children are acutely malnourished and require urgent care, while at least 462,000 are suffering from Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) – a near 200 per cent increase since 2014.
A baby is screened for malnutrition at the UNICEF-supported Al-Jomhouri Hospital in Sa’ada, Yemen. Photo: UNICEF/Ma’ad Al-Zekri
The Hodeida, Sa’ada, Taizz, Hajjah and Lahej governorates put together experience the highest SAM cases in the country. In some areas of Sa’ada, eight out of 10 children are chronically malnourished. Additionally, 1.7 million children suffer from Moderate Acute Malnutrition.
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13/12/2016
12 December 2016 – Sworn in today as the ninth and next United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres pledged to reposition development at the centre of the Organization’s work and ensure that the UN can change to effectively meet the myriad challenges facing the international community.
António Guterres, UN Secretary-General-designate, takes the oath of office for his five-year term, which begins on 1 January 2017. The oath was administered by Peter Thomson, President of the 71st session of the General Assembly. UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe
“The United Nations needs to be nimble, efficient and effective. It must focus more on delivery and less on process; more on people and less on bureaucracy,” said Guterres after taking the oath of office at a ceremony before the 193-member UN General Assembly.
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13/12/2016
By Leonardo Boff*
12 December 2016 – Each thing and each person has many facets. As I have said, each point of view is the view from a point. Everyone occupies a point on this planet and in the society of which we are a part.
Leonardo Boff
And from that point, each sees such reality as can be seen from that point. That is why we cannot treat any point of view as absolute, as if it were the only one. This is the origin of fundamentalism and discrimination.
That thought is worth keeping in mind with respect to the many points of view that are being expressed about the saga of Fidel Castro. No point can encompass all the views.
Something else must be considered. Each human possesses his share of light and his share of darkness. Spoken in the dialect of the new anthropology: each human being is sapiens and simultaneously demens.
Thus, each human is a carrier of intelligence and of a sense of life. That is his sapiens moment. And he simultaneously displays deviations and contradictions. That is his demens moment.
Both always appear together. That is not a defect in our being. Is an objective fact of our human reality that must always be taken into account.
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