'Unseen' News and Views
Geneva/Dubai (WMO)* 30 November 2023 – 2023 has shattered climate records, accompanied by extreme weather which has left a trail of devastation and despair, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
(UN News)* — Amid hopes of a deal to extend the pause in fighting in Gaza between Israel and Hamas on Wednesday [], the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) reported that humanitarian assistance had reached its shelters in northern Gaza for first time since war erupted last month.
(UN News)* — As the pause in fighting in Gaza appeared to enter a fifth day on Tuesday [], UN humanitarians warned that aid deliveries needed to multiply immediately to save the lives of the injured and stem the risk of a deadly disease outbreak that has left doctors “terrified”.
Priorities include transporting fuel to the north of the war-torn enclave, so that it can be used to power hospitals, provide clean water and maintain other vital civilian infrastructure.
Such services have been massively impacted by weeks of Israeli bombardment in response to Hamas’s 7 October massacres in southern Israel that left some 1,200 dead and around 240 taken hostage.
– In recent decades, failure to sustain economic progress has been blamed on a supposed middle-income country (MIC) trap. Such blaming obscures as much as it supposedly explains.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
The ‘middle-income trap’ fable began as a World Bank story about why upper MICs in Latin America failed to become high-income countries (HICs) after pursuing policies required or prescribed by the Bretton Woods institutions.
Bretton Woods’ Frankenstein
The 1944 Bretton Woods rules-based international monetary system ended in August 1971 when President Richard Nixon unilaterally repudiated US obligations. This happened after the US Treasury had borrowed heavily from the rest of the world from the 1960s.
The US government’s ‘exorbitant privilege’ of ‘spending well beyond its means’ has continued despite the resulting international monetary ‘non-system’.
Aden, 23 November 2023 (IOM)* – Navigating their journey against the backdrop of Yemen’s ninth year of conflict, migrants face unprecedented challenges. In this fragile environment, over 93,000 individuals arrived in Yemen between January and October 2023.
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Samara tenderly holds her newborn, a symbol of hope amid the multitude of challenges she has faced throughout her migration journey. Photo: IOM/Rami Ibrahim 2023
Among them, optimistic souls like Samara seek opportunities in the Gulf, unaware of the perils that lie ahead. Compounded by limited access to essential services, their vulnerability to abuses, including gender-based violence and exploitation, is exacerbated.
As a young girl growing up in Ethiopia, Samara*’s life took a harrowing turn when her parents got divorced. Samara and her sister were placed under the care of their father and abusive stepmother after her mother moved to another village.
On 3 July 2023, MSF team onboard of Geo Barents conducted 4 different rescues in the Maltese SAR zone. In total, 196 survivors were rescued, including 47 unaccompanied minors, 16 women, and 1 baby. In the first rescue, our team was guided by aerial support from Pilotes Volontaires during the active search for this boat, which lasted more than 1.5 hours. While the last 3 rescues were all coordinated through the Italian MRCC. The Italian authorities have assigned us Marina di Carrara as a place of #safety to disembark the survivors.© MSF/MICHELA RIZZOTTI
By Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine Director, Middle East and North Africa Division | Human Rights Watch*
Surge in Israeli Killings, Administrative Detention and Settler Violence
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(IOM)* Torkham, Spin Boldak, 21 November 2023 – The International Organization for Migration (IOM) and humanitarian partners are delivering a range of critical aid at border crossing points between Pakistan and Afghanistan in response to the hundreds of thousands of forcibly returned Afghans.
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Nearly 375,000 Afghans have left Pakistan in the past two months primarily through the Torkham and Spin Boldak border crossings, according to IOM’s latest figures.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 