Archive for January, 2020

04/01/2020

Brazil Complicit in Attacks on Venezuela Military Base: O Globo

Human Wrongs Watch

2 January 2020 (teleSUR)* — Brazil’s far-right government was well informed of the plans to attack to Venezuelan military outposts and was in direct communication with opposition lawmaker Juan Guaido prior to the incident, according to a report published Tuesday by Brazil’s right-wing media O Globo.

Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro has supported opposition lawmaker Juan Guaido in many attempts to destabilize Venezuela's government.Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro has supported opposition lawmaker Juan Guaido in many attempts to destabilize Venezuela’s government. | Photo: EFE (Photo posted here from teleSUR).

read more »

04/01/2020

Mediterranean Arrivals Reach 110,699 in 2019; Deaths Reach 1,283. World Deaths Fall

Human Wrongs Watch

Geneva, 3 December 2020 (IOM)*The International Organization for Migration on 3 December 2020 reported 110,669 migrants and refugees entered Europe by sea during the year just ended, marking the sixth straight year that at least 100,000 arrivals were recorded on three Mediterranean Sea Routes. The total is only slightly below the 116,273 men, women and children who crossed the Mediterranean in this fashion in 2018, a decline of about five per cent.

capture2.jpg

read more »

04/01/2020

UN Chief Calls for De-Escalation across Gulf Region after Killing of Top Iranian General in US Airstrike

Human Wrongs Watch

3 January 2020 (UN News)* — The UN Secretary-General António Guterres has expressed deep concern over the latest escalation in tension across the Gulf region, following the killing of a top Iranian General in Iraq, in an airstrike carried out by the United States.

Tarek Khouri | The Swords of Qādisiyyah, which mark the entrance to the Great Celebrations square in Baghdad, Iraq.
.
03/01/2020

Reflections for a New Year

By Roberto Savio*

3 January 2020 (Other News)* — In a world shaken by so many problems, it is difficult to look at 2020 and not make some kind of holistic analysis. While enormous progress has been made on many fronts, it is clear that the tide has turned and we are now entering – or have already entered – a new low point in the history of humankind..

image001

Roberto Savio

Today, we face an unprecedented existential threat brought about by the climate crisis. According to scientists, we have until 2030 to stop climate change, after which human conditions will be under several threats.

Yet, we have just had a world conference in Madrid on climate change, which ended in nothing.

Not only that, but since the beginning of the last decade, there has been a singular change of the relations of politicians with climate.

read more »

03/01/2020

Global Wave of Debt Is Largest, Fastest in 50 Years

WASHINGTON (World Bank)* — Debt in emerging and developing economies (EMDEs) climbed to a record US$55 trillion in 2018, marking an eight-year surge that has been the largest, fastest, and most broad-based in nearly five decades, according to a new World Bank Group study that urges policymakers to act promptly to strengthen their economic policies and make them less vulnerable to financial shocks.

Global-Waves-of-Debt.jpg

read more »

03/01/2020

2020: A Test Year for Europe’s Much-Vaunted Green Deal

European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen (L) and President of the European Council Charles Michel (R) give a press conference at the end of an European Council summit in Brussels on 13 December 2019. [EPA/OLIVIER HOSLET]

03/01/2020

Investing in Health Workers Yields ‘Triple Dividend’, World Health Organizaion Chief

Human Wrongs Watch

2 January 2020 (UN News)*At the start of the new year and new decade, the head of the United Nations health agency thanked “the brave health workers” around the globe and asked that the world do better in supporting them.

World Bank/Salahaldeen Nadir | Nurse training in Hamashkoreeb, Sudan. (file)

“They are doing life-saving work every day, including during holidays when the rest of us are with our loved ones at home”, said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), in his video message for the new year.

read more »

02/01/2020

Dear NATO Member

Human Wrongs Watch

By Dr. Naresh Jotwani – TRANSCEND Media Service*

naresh-jotwani-e1573641907537

Dr. Naresh Jotwani

Dear NATO Member,

Much is achieved in “civilized life” by deceiving others in a calculated manner. When “others” are simple-minded people, this strategy works very well. Indeed, this is a time-tested strategy of gaining “competitive edge” in the stress-filled and never-ending chase for “the good life”.

In fact this tactic forms the very basis of “civilized life”. In a society, if everybody said what they meant, and meant what they said, the society would have to be dubbed “primitive”, would it not?

But the tactic has its limits.

read more »

02/01/2020

Paying the School Fees, One Butterfly at a Time

2 January 2020 (UN Environment)* — Once upon a time, there was a tropical forest that stretched all the way from Somalia to Mozambique. Today, there isn’t much left. In Kenya all that’s left of the forest is 42,000 hectares on the coast called the Arabuko Sokoke Forest.

female_butterfly_hunters.jpg

Photo by UN-REDD Programme
02/01/2020

Sub-Saharan Africa Faces Grave hunger Challenges in 2020 – World Food Programme

Human Wrongs Watch

1 January 2020 (UN News)*At the dawn of the next decade, a new World Food Programme (WFP) forecast of global hunger hotspots has revealed that escalating hunger will challenge sub-Saharan Africa in the first half of 2020.

WFP/Simon Pierre Diouf | In Mali, recurrent floods and droughts have made life difficult for farmers.