MADRID, May 30 2022 (IPS)*– The excesses committed by rich people can be deadly–and in fact they are. Be it about food, energy or overall waste, such excesses have been depleting the world’s natural resources and pushing both current and future generations towards the edge of a predictable abyss.
“The world’s richest countries are providing healthier environments for children within their borders, yet are disproportionately contributing to the destruction of the global environment”. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS
Anxiety about the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) toward the Russian border is one of the causes of the current war in Ukraine.
Vijay Prashad
But this is not the only attempt at expansion by NATO, a treaty organization created in 1949 by the United States to project its military and political power over Europe.
In 2001, NATO conducted an “out of area” military operation in Afghanistan, which lasted 20 years, and in 2011, NATO—at the urging of France—bombed Libya and overthrew its government.
NATO military operations in Afghanistan and Libya were the prelude to discussions of a “Global NATO,” a project to use the NATO military alliance beyond its own charter obligations from the South China Sea to the Caribbean Sea.
NATO’s war in Libya was its first major military operation in Africa, but it was not the first European military footprint on the continent.
After centuries of European colonial wars in Africa, new states emerged in the aftermath of World War II to assert their sovereignty. Many of these states—from Ghana to Tanzania—refused to allow the European military forces to reenter the continent, which is why these European powers had to resort to assassinations and military coups to anoint pro-Western governments in the region.
How long can billionaires continue to amass wealth while the world’s poorest struggle to buy food?
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Just a couple of space-loving billionaires! | Twin up by openDemocracy via Britta Pedersen/dpa-Zentralbild/dpa-pool/dpa/Alamy and Geopix/Alamy. All rights reserved
28 May 2022 (openDemocracy)* — While it has long been blatantly obvious that the global economic model is not working for all, the rate of accumulation of wealth by a small minority is now breathtaking – if not totally obscene.
With the situation only being worsened by the economic impact of the Ukraine War – which has come on top of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic – could we be headed for mass revolts sparked by a desperate need for change?
“Biodiversity is life. Biodiversity weaves the web of life. It is not corporate ‘intellectual property’. It is not a financial asset of those whose greed drives biodiversity extinction and loss.” — Dr Vandana Shiva
To celebrate World Biodiversity Day, Navdanya International presents Biodiversity Is Health.
We break down how all levels of biodiversity have a direct and tangible tie to human health.
MADRID, May 26 2022 (IPS)* – So busy as they are with strengthening military alliances and devoting billions of taxpayers’ money to double their war budgets and subsidise fossil fuels, European Governments seem not to care about the reiterated alerts that their continent faces a serious risk: the reduced availability -and the more polluted– drinking water.
It is estimated that more than one third of the European Union will be under “high water stress” by the 2070. Credit: Bigstock
Two specialised bodies –the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), and the European branch of the World Health Organization (WHO)– have warned that plans to make water access possible in the face of climate pressures “are absent” in the pan-European region.
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, May 24 2022 (IPS)* – A class war is being waged in the name of fighting inflation. All too many central bankers are raising interest rates at the expense of working people’s families, supposedly to check price increases.
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Workers’ share of national income, 1970-2015
Forced to cope with rising credit costs, people are spending less, thus slowing the economy. But it does not have to be so. There are much less onerous alternative approaches to tackle inflation and other contemporary economic ills.
Geneva, 25 May 2022 (UNEP)* – Paint reformulation is entirely possible, and the industry can produce paint without added lead. However, a lack of technical knowledge; a lack of awareness of the health and environmental hazard of lead and where to source lead-free alternatives, as well as a shortage of lead paint laws in the countries where they are based mean many small manufacturers around the world are still producing hazardous lead paint.
May 2022 (FAO)* — Step inside a tea merchant’s shop in China with its metal canisters lining the walls or scroll through the range offered by any of the country’s popular online shopping platforms and you’ll be able to choose among green teas, black teas or in-between, semi-fermented teas. But as an ancient industry turns its eyes to the future, another choice you might soon be able to make is low carbon teas.
MADRID, May 24 2022 (IPS)* – The message is clear: three-quarters of the world’s population will be affected by drought by 2050. Does it sound too far in time? Well, your kids might be among the billions of humans living on a desertified planet.
Droughts represent 15% of natural disasters but took the largest human toll, approximately 650,000 deaths from 1970-2019, Credit: Guillermo Flores/IPS
But it is not about only them. Also you are already affected. In fact, around 1.700 billion of drylands, home to two billion people, are already covering 41% of the planet’s land surface.
Moreover, an additional 1 billion dryland hectares are now under threat.
Instead of buying into the World Economic Forum’s dystopian “Great Reset,” we can build an alternative system with a mandate to serve the people.
This is part two to a May 5, 2022 article called “A Monetary Reset Where the Rich Don’t Own Everything,” the gist of which was that national and global debt levels are unsustainably high. We need a “reset,” but of what sort?
Ellen Brown
The “Great Reset” of the World Economic Forum (WEF) would leave the people as non-owner tenants in a feudalistic technocracy.
The reset of the Eurasian Economic Union would allow participating nations to opt out of the Western capitalist system altogether, but what of the Western countries that are left? That is the question addressed here.
Our Forefathers Had Some Innovative Solutions
Fortunately for the United States, our national debt is in U.S. dollars. As former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan once observed, “The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do that. So there is zero probability of default.”
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 