Food security caught in the crossfire as people reel from gang violence alongside rising prices, climate shocks and the Ukraine-crisis ripple effect.
Christina fled her home under gunfire but made it to safety in Tabarre, Port-au-Prince, where she receives hot meals from WFP. Photo: WFP/Theresa Piorr
(WFP)* —When Christina woke up after hearing gunshots at 5am on a Monday in May, she decided to hide under her bed to try and keep herself and her unborn baby safe. “I lay flat on my stomach even though I was pregnant,” she says.
“I spent all day hiding under my bed. They spent all day shooting.”
The new chancellor has been employing Mark Fullbrook for three years – and intends to secure the top job.
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Nadhim Zahawi outside 10 Downing Street | Han Yan / Xinhua / Alamy Stock Photo
7 July 2022 (openDemocracy)* — The political ‘playbook’ deployed by the controversial strategy firm Crosby Textor Fullbrook Partners (CTF) to get Boris Johnson into 10 Downing Street three years ago is being used again to turn the newly appointed chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi, into the UK’s next prime minister.
8 July 2022 (Human Rights Watch)* — The European Court of Human Rights issued a historic ruling on July 7 concerning Greece’s illegal and life-threatening practice of pushing boats of asylum seekers back to Turkey.
(UN News)* — The annual UN report on Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC), released on Monday [11 July 2022], details the devastating impact that various forms of conflict had on children around the world in 2021.
The dangers outlined in the report range from conflict escalation, military coups, and takeovers, protracted and new conflicts, as well as violations of international law.
Cross-border conflict and intercommunal violence also impacted the protection of children, especially in the Lake Chad Basin and Central Sahel regions.
The report highlights almost 24,000 verified grave violations against children, an average of some 65 violations every day.
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 11 2022 (IPS)* – India and China, two Asian nuclear powers who are also longstanding rivals embroiled in the geo-politics of the Indian Ocean region, have remained two of the world’s most populous nations accounting for over a billion people each.
Credit: Freepik
But as the world’s population reaches the 8.0 billion mark, come November, India is projected to surpass China. The current numbers stand at 1.44 billion people in China and 1.39 billion in India. But the numbers are expected to change as India races ahead of China.
MADRID, Jul 8 2022 (IPS)* – While women and girls have been so far enjoying some of their due rights in Western high-income countries, the overwhelming majority of teenagers and adult women in the impoverished regions of the current world’s population of 8 billions continue to suffer all kinds of inequalities.
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“When nearly a third of all women in developing countries are becoming mothers during adolescence, it is clear the world is failing adolescent girls,” said UNFPA Executive Director Dr. Natalia Kanem. Credit: Michael Duff/UNFPA
Such a harsh reality does not only impact their basic human rights, like equal treatment, same rights as men in decision-making, working conditions, payment, property, healthcare, staggering poverty and a very long etcetera. Not only…
MADRID, Jul 7 2022 (IPS)* – Far-right Brazilian president, Jair Messias Bolsonaro, was quoted a year ago or so as saying to a small group of indigenous people that they “now look a bit more like humans.”
Since the middle of the 20th century, the world has experienced unprecedented population growth. The world’s population more than tripled in size between 1950 and 2020.. Credit: Fahim Siddiqi/IPS
Tragically, a vast majority of this year’s record world population of 8 millions is harshly neglected and seen as just disturbing numbers, if ever treated as such humans.
The future world order, already in progress, will be formed by strong sovereign states. The ship has sailed. There’s no turning back.
Pepe Escobar
Let’s cut to the chase and roll in the Putin Top Ten of the New Era, announced by the Russian President live at the St. Petersburg forum for both the Global North and South.
The era of the unipolar world is over.
The rupture with the West is irreversible and definitive. No pressure from the West will change it.
Russia has renewed with its sovereignty. Reinforcement of political and economic sovereignty is an absolute priority.
The EU has completely lost its political sovereignty. The current crisis shows the EU is not ready to play the role of an independent, sovereign actor. It’s just en ensemble of American vassals deprived of any politico-military sovereignty.
Sovereignty cannot be partial. Either you’re a sovereign or a colony.
Hunger in the poorest nations will be on the conscience of the West and euro-democracy.
CARACAS, Jul 7 2022 (IPS)* – Economic sanctions against countries whose behavior is reproached by the West operate as punishment although they fail in their declared political objectives, and in cases such as Venezuela the contrast is clearly on display in the windows of high-end stores that sell imported goods. | En español
The “bodegones” are Venezuela’s new commercial boom. They sell imported products, mostly from the United States despite the sanctions, and have spread into middle and lower-middle class neighborhoods in Caracas and other cities, to attract consumers who receive remittances of foreign currency from the millions of Venezuelans who have migrated in recent years. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez/IPS
If Europe has any insight, it will separate itself from these U.S. foreign policy debacles, writes Jeffrey D. Sachs.
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President Joe Biden delivering “stand with Ukraine” remarks on May 3 at the Lockheed Martin facility in Troy, Alabama. (White House, Adam Schultz)
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The war in Ukraine is the culmination of a 30-year project of the American neoconservative movement. The Biden Administration is packed with the same neocons who championed the US wars of choice in Serbia (1999), Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003), Syria (2011), Libya (2011), and who did so much to provoke Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The neocon track record is one of unmitigated disaster, yet Biden has staffed his team with neocons.