Archive for January, 2024

04/01/2024

Homeless Families Now a Growing Issue in Zimbabwe

Human Wrongs Watch

HARARE, Jan 4 2024 (IPS)* – It is do or die on the streets of Zimbabwe as homeless families battle for survival solely depending on begging. Such is the life of 69-year-old Gladys Mugabe, who lives with her disabled son in Harare Gardens, a well-known recreational park in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare.
Gladys Mugabe (69) lives with her disabled son in Harare Gardens, a well known recreational park in the Zimbabwean capital. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

Gladys Mugabe (69) lives with her disabled son in Harare Gardens, a well-known recreational park in the Zimbabwean capital. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

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04/01/2024

Israel: Gaza Workers Held Incommunicado for Weeks

Human Wrongs Watch

By Human Rights Watch*

Release Information on Detained Gaza Workers

202312mena_palestine_laborers_return_gaza.jpg

Palestinian workers from Gaza, whom Israeli authorities had detained after October 7, were released to Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing on November 3, 2023 after spending weeks in incommunicado detention. © 2023 Fatima Shbair/AP Photo

(Jerusalem) 3 January 2023 – Israeli authorities held thousands of workers from Gaza in incommunicado detention for several weeks following the October 7 attacks, subjecting at least some of them to inhumane and degrading conditions, Human Rights Watch said. Thousands more remain stranded in the occupied West Bank without valid legal status and vulnerable to arrest.

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04/01/2024

INTERVIEW: Artificial Intelligence Expert Warns of ‘Digital Colonization’ in Africa

Human Wrongs Watch

Artificial intelligence (AI) is ripe to help resolve certain major problems in Africa, from farming to the health sector, but Senegalese expert Seydina Moussa Ndiaye is warning of a new “colonization” of the continent by this new technology if foreign companies continue to feed on African data without involving local actors.

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The UN Global Digital Compact aims to bring together governments and industry to ensure that technology, like AI, works for all humanity.
UN Photo/Elma Okic | The UN Global Digital Compact aims to bring together governments and industry to ensure that technology, like AI, works for all humanity.

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03/01/2024

Stunning Atrocities in Gaza Funded by US Taxpayers

Human Wrongs Watch

By Ralph Nader | Common Dreams – TRANSCEND Media Service*

The US Congress is poised to send $14.3 billion to Israeli militarism—a “genocide tax.” The atrocities are being recorded by drones and by brave Palestinian journalists targeted by the Israeli army. Over 66 journalists have been slain.

Israel fired white phosphorous shells indiscriminately over densely populated areas of Gaza in what amounts to a war crime.  Human Rights Watch

26 Dec 2023 – The unstoppable Israeli U.S. armed military juggernaut continues its genocidal destruction of Gaza’s Palestinians. The onslaught includes blocking the provision of “food, water, medicine, electricity and fuel,” openly genocidal orders decreed by Netanyahu and his extreme, blood-thirsty ministers.

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03/01/2024

US Hypocrisy Over Russian and Israeli Killings

Human Wrongs Watch

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 2 2024 (IPS)* – When US President Joe Biden lambasted “the largest aerial assault,” which hit “a maternity hospital, a shopping mall and residential areas killing innocent people”, he was not talking of the devastating Israeli attacks on Gaza but criticizing the most recent Russian military assault on Ukraine.
 

Destruction in Gaza Strip. Credit: UNICEF/Hassan Islyeh

Biden obviously has one yardstick for the Russians and another for the Israelis –displaying sheer hypocrisy and political double standards.

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03/01/2024

Everyone Is Hungry in Gaza: United Nations

Human Wrongs Watch

(UN News)* — UN humanitarians repeated dire concerns for civilians caught up in the war in Gaza on Tuesday [], amid reports of continued Israeli bombardment of the southern towns of Deir al Balah, Khan Younis and Rafah, direct clashes on the ground and the firing of rockets overnight by Palestinian armed groups into Israel.

An eight-year-old child waits her turn to receive food in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.
© UNICEF/Abed Zagout | An eight-year-old child waits her turn to receive food in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.

The latest warnings from UN relief agency for Palestinians UNRWA and the UN World Food Programme, WFP, highlighted the threat of starvation and disease in heavily built-up areas, where tens of thousands of people have fled intense bombing campaigns in the enclave’s north and centre.

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01/01/2024

Lookahead to 2024: January to June

Human Wrongs Watch

(UN News)* — In 2024, the UN will once again be at the heart of international efforts to tackle the world’s most urgent challenges, from bolstering the global economy, to supporting climate action and keeping the peace in conflict hotspots. 

Children make a shape with their hands in the south Omo district of southern Ethiopia.

© UNICEF/Raphael Pouget | Children make a shape with their hands in the south Omo district of southern Ethiopia.

Whilst we can’t predict what will be making the headlines, we do know that the UN will make full use of its unique convening power, to bring together leaders and decision-makers in the hope of making the world a more peaceful, equitable and prosperous place for all.