Archive for 2019

09/11/2019

The Metamorphosis of the Deep State

Human Wrongs Watch

By Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service*

It gets funny, this shallow analysis of the deep state that is currently big news. There’s something ghoulish about it, perfectly timed for Halloween and masked jokers. What was once ridiculed by the CIA and its attendant lackeys in the media as the paranoia of “conspiracy theorists” is now openly admitted in reverent tones of patriotic fervor.  But with a twisted twist.

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Edward Curtin

The “Deep State” has been redefined as career bureaucrats doing their patriotic duty.

It was two years ago, early in the Trump administration, when The New Yorker and Salon, among many others, were asserting in no uncertain terms that there was no deep state in the United States, and so Trump had nothing to fear from that quarter since it was a figment of his paranoia.

Kit Knightly, writing in the Off-Guardian, brilliantly demolished this spurious propaganda at the time in a must read reminder of how tricksters play their games.

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09/11/2019

Arctic Climate Forum Predicts Another Warmer Winter

8 November 2019 (World Meteorological Organization)*Following a warmer than average summer, surface air temperatures during winter 2019-2020 are forecast to be above normal across most of the Arctic. according to the Arctic Climate Forum, which also issued forecasts for sea ice and precipitation.
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09/11/2019

New Solution for the Age-Old Locust Problem

Human Wrongs Watch

8 November 2019 (FAO)*They may be small, but they are mighty. Wreaking havoc on crops, locusts are one of the oldest migratory pests in the world and a serious threat to agricultural production and food security. If infestations are not detected early, massive plagues can develop that often take several years and hundreds of millions of dollars to bring under control.  A plague of Desert Locusts, one of the most dangerous locust species of all, can easily affect 20 percent of the Earth’s land, potentially damaging the livelihoods of one tenth of the world’s population.

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Locust infestations can take years to bring under control and affect the livelihoods and food security of millions. ©FAO/Yasuyoshi Chiba

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09/11/2019

How the US Regime ‘Justifies’ the Theft of Syria’s Oil

Human Wrongs Watch

By Eric Zuesse – TRANSCEND Media Service*

On 26 Oct, the New York Times headlined “Keep the Oil’: Trump Revives Charged Slogan for New Syria Troop Mission” and opened by saying that “in recent days, Mr. Trump has settled on Syria’s oil reserves as a new rationale for appearing to reverse course and deploy hundreds of additional troops to the war-ravaged country.”

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09/11/2019

Central America – Fertile Ground for Human Trafficking

Human Wrongs Watch

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SAN SALVADOR, Nov 8 2019 (IPS)*Central America is an impoverished region rife with gang violence and human trafficking – the third largest crime industry in the world – as a major source of migrants heading towards the United States.

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An older woman panhandles on a street in San Salvador. Criminal trafficking groups take advantage of vulnerable people, such as the destitute, to force them to beg. But in Central America, 80 percent of the victims of trafficking are women and girls, for purposes of sexual exploitation. Credit: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

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09/11/2019

60,000 Young Refugees and Migrants Who Arrived in Italy Alone Lack Support

Human Wrongs Watch

UN agencies on Friday [8 November 2019] highlighted the dire needs of thousands of unaccompanied and separated children who have arrived in Italy as refugees, lacking the proper support to transition through to adulthood. *

© UNICEF/Stefano De Luigi | Omar (17), far right on second row, and other unaccompanied migrant boys at an abandoned church in Sicily, Italy. Most of them were transferred without a choice to this very small village.

Between 2014 and 2018, around 60,000 of them arrived in Italy by sea, 90 per cent of whom were between the ages of 15 and 17, according to a new report issued by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

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08/11/2019

The Human Health Benefits of Conserving and Restoring Peatlands

Human Wrongs Watch

8 November 2019 (UN Environment)*It is well known that peatlands matter for livelihoods, carbon storage, flood mitigation, and water quality, but a recent study has shown that peatlands also matter for human health.

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Photo by CIFOR (posted here from UN Environment).

The study suggests that thousands of deaths could be prevented over the next three decades across Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore through improved land management to reduce the number and extent of peatland fires.

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08/11/2019

Nuns and Monks Break the Silence on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in Bhutan

Human Wrongs Watch

Thimphu, BHUTAN, 4 November 2019 (UNFPA)*  -– “There was a time when I would be menstruating and didn’t know what to do during those days… Now I do.” These candid reflections came from an unexpected source: a nun sitting cross-legged on the floor of an astrology college in the capital of Bhutan.

08/11/2019

The Life and Death of the Guajajara

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08/11/2019

Deforestation in Brazil Jumped by 80% in One Year: Study

About 14 percent took place in protected conservation areas and 7 percent in Indigenous territories, according to the report.

A fire burns a tract of the Amazon jungle in Agua Boa, Mato Grosso state, Brazil September 4, 2019.A fire burns a tract of the Amazon jungle in Agua Boa, Mato Grosso state, Brazil September 4, 2019. | Photo: Reuters (Photo posted here from teleSUR).

7 November 2019 (teleSUR)* — Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon region increased by 80 percent in September compared to the same month last year, according to a private study released on Wednesday stating that 802 square kilometers of forest was lost in the zone.

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