(UN News)* — The UN human rights office said on Saturday [16 July 2022] it was deeply concerned by worsening violence in and around the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince and rising abuse at the hands of heavily armed gangs, against vulnerable local communities.
The alert comes just hours after UN humanitarians said they were ready to provide all the assistance they could to communities caught in the crossfire of gang violence, once they can gain safe access to those impacted.
A recent upsurge in fighting between rival gangs in the Cité Soleil neighbourhood of the capital, has led to the deaths of 99 people with 135 injured according to data reported by the UN humanitarian affairs coordination office (OCHA) in Haiti.
MADRID, Jul 14 2022 (IPS)* – While the world’s big private business pours billions of dollars in producing automatic machines and assuring their optimal functioning, barely no money has been invested in the hundreds of millions of human workers, who are left shockingly unprotected, treated like cheap robots, or even worse.
Teenage girls harvest tomatoes on a farm in the state of Sinaloa, in northern Mexico. Credit: Courtesy of Instituto Sinaloense para la Educación de los Adultos (Sinaloa Institute for Adult Education)
For example, of all domestic workers worldwide -overwhelmingly women- up to 94% lack access to the full range of protections, covering medical care, sickness, unemployment, old age, employment injury, family, maternity, invalidity and survivors’ benefits.
Let’s look at NATO’s reaction to Russia’s ill-considered and international law-violating military action in Ukraine.
From a conflict-analytical point of view, it is reasonable to say that Russia is responsible for the war but that NATO with it reckless expansion against all promises given to Russia and a series of expert warnings is responsible for the underlying conflict.
It can safely be concluded that the Western/NATO response has moved beyond the proportionality principle, beyond rationality and a realistic image of the world and its own role in it:
NATO leaders express limitless hatred of everything Russia; historically hard and time-unlimited economic sanctions have been imposed – using the illegal method of collective punishment; weapons for an estimated US$ 60-100 billion will be pumped into Ukraine to defeat Russia there.
NATO has added US$ 350 billion in military expenditures since the US-instigated regime change in Kiev in 2014 and, since then, prepared Ukraine for a role in NATO. The 2% goals is now a floor, not a ceiling.
12 years of Tory rule have devastated the UK economy. But none of the leadership candidates want to change course.
The Conservative Party is set to elect a new leader | Composite by James Battershill/openDemocracy/Alamy stock photo
12 July 2022 (openDemocracy)* — The campaign to replace Boris Johnson as UK prime minister kicked into full gear this week. First out of the blocks was former chancellor Rishi Sunak, who is currently the bookies’ favourite to win the race.
(UN News)* — In addition to tackling COVID and the monkeypox outbreak, the UN health agency has also been keeping a close eye on the puzzling spread of hepatitis in previously healthy children, which has left dozens needing lifesaving liver transplants.
According to a new update on Wednesday [13 July 2022] from the World Health Organization (WHO), 35 countries in five regions of the world have now reported more than 1,010 probable cases of unexplained severe acute hepatitis, or liver inflammation, in youngsters, since the outbreak was first detected on 5 April.
(UN News)* — Rising COVID-19 cases are not only putting further pressure on already stretched health systems and workers but also triggering an “increasing trend of deaths”, World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told journalists at the regular weekly press briefing on Tuesday [12 July 2022].
Unsplash/Yoav Aziz | An uptick in COVID-19 cases in New York prompts people on a busy street to don protective masks.
The writer is Director, Population Division of the United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
School Opens in Weapons Free Zone East of UNMISS”. Credit: UN Photo/Amanda Voisard
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 11 2022 (IPS)* – What does a young girl from Juba, in South Sudan, an 8-year-old boy living in the slums of Mumbai, in India, a young mother from the south of Lima, in Peru, and an 83-year-old man enjoying retirement in the suburbs of Stockholm, in Sweden, have in common?
War was always madness, always immoral, always the cause of unspeakable suffering, economic waste and widespread destruction, and always a source of poverty, hate, barbarism and endless cycles of revenge and counter-revenge. A Freely Downloadable Book
Why Does War Persist?
John Scales Avery
War was always madness, always immoral, always the cause of unspeakable suffering, economic waste and widespread destruction, and always a source of poverty, hate, barbarism and endless cycles of revenge and counter-revenge.
It has always been a crime for soldiers to kill people, just as it is a crime for murderers in civil society to kill people. No flag ha ever been wide enough to cover up atrocities.
But today, the development of all-destroying modern weapons has put war completely beyond the bounds of sanity and elementary humanity.
NATO is the US dominated global war machine whose policy is ‘Full Spectrum Dominance.’ Contrary to its claims, NATO is not a defensive organization but an instrument for US world domination to prevent all challenges to its hegemony. It should have been disbanded in 1991 after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact but instead expanded into fifteen new countries.
Mairead Maguire
Patrick Murphy’s 18 June column in the Irish News entitled ‘Pope’s Comments May Help Avert Global Conflict’ is courageous and challenging.
Courageous in that Ireland (and most of Europe) are caught up in Russia phobia and war propaganda being peddled by our main stream media and military industrial complex.
Murphy quoted Pope Francis as saying that the war was ‘perhaps somehow either provoked or not prevented’. I think this statement hints towards the elephant in the room (NATO/US endless expansion).
MEXICO CITY, Jul 8 2022 (IPS)* – Eduardo Reyes, originally from Puebla in central Mexico, was offered a 40-hour workweek contract by his recruiter and his employer in the United States, but ended up performing hundreds of hours of unpaid work that was not authorized because his visa had expired, unbeknownst to him. | En español
Mexican workers harvest produce on a farm in the western U.S. state of California. The number of temporary agricultural workers from Mexico has increased in recent years in the United States and with it, human rights violations. CREDIT: Courtesy of Linnaea Mallette
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 