(UN News)* — Children account for around half of the almost two million Gazans who have been forced to leave their homes and search for shelter elsewhere in the Strip, since Israel’s current military operation began. The UN children’s agency, UNICEF, estimates that around 17,000 have been orphaned.
GENEVA, 9 February 2024 (UNICEF)* –- “Three hundred days ago, a wave of atrocities were unleashed upon the children of Sudan.
“Here is some of what happened in those 300 days:
“First: the world’s largest displacement of children has been seen in Sudan. Four million children have been displaced. That’s 13,000 children every single day for 300 days. Safety, gone. Worldly possessions, gone. Friends and family members separated or lost. Hope, fading.
(UN News)* —The United Nations on Wednesday [] urged countries not to forget millions of people caught up in the war between rival militaries in Sudan, calling for $4.1 billion to help stave off famine and assist those who have fled into neighbouring countries.“
Half of Sudan’s population, 25 million people, needs humanitarian assistance,” Martin Griffiths, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, told journalists in Geneva.
(UN News)* — The UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide on Friday [] expressed profound horror at the ongoing situation in the Middle East, reiterating the call for a humanitarian ceasefire and protection of civilians.
UN Photo/Manuel Elías | Alice Wairimu Nderitu, UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide.
Alice Wairimu Nderitu also underscored the need to intensify diplomatic efforts to bring the crisis to an end.
“Civilians should never pay the price of a conflict for which they bear no responsibility,” she said in a statement.
“Their most basic rights must be protected and preserved, and their humanitarian needs must be met,” she added.
Wednesday marked the fourth month of the brutal war in Gaza.
(UN News)* — The unprecedented population density in Rafah in southern Gaza makes it nearly impossible to protect civilians in the event of ground attacks, the UN humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, warned on Friday [9 February 2024].
More than half of Gaza’s population of over two million is now crammed into the city, which is located on the border with Egypt and originally home to some 250,000 people.
Congestion has reached a point where normal routes are blocked by tents set up by families seeking any flat, clean space available, OCHAsaid.
Garbage mounting, basics lacking
In the past three months, Rafah has produced the equivalent of a year’s worth of garbage, according to municipal authorities.
PANAMA CITY, Feb 8 2024 (IPS)* – At the bar that Sandra manages in Panama City’s central financial district, the variety offered on the menu has shrunk due to delays in ship traffic through the Panama Canal, one of the world’s major shipping routes. | En español
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A ship passes through the Pedro Miguel lock on its way to the Miraflores system to cross the Panama Canal. The infrastructure faces water shortages due to drought in the country, which limits the pace of maritime cargo transport through the bioceanic route that moves six percent of the world’s maritime trade. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS
“We are out of stock of some of our foreign beers, because the shipment didn’t arrive. I hope it will get here one of these days,” the Panamanian bar-keeper told IPS, as she pointed to a half-empty refrigerator in the bar nestled between skyscrapers.
“Sanctions,” as imposed by the US, is a sanctimonious word for economic warfare and outright theft, and Venezuela is a textbook case.
Anya Parampil’s book tells the story of US hybrid warfare on Venezuela and of the tectonic social and economic shifts reshaping the world today.
As Anya Parampil demonstrates in Corporate Coup: Venezuela and the End of US Empire, sanctions were part of a multi-pronged regime change war that included diplomatic aggression, economic terrorism, covert operations, and information warfare.
(UN News)* —Israel’s reported attempt to create a “buffer zone” with Gaza could constitute a war crime, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk warned on Thursday [8 February 2024].
The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) are reportedly destroying all buildings in the Gaza Strip that are within one kilometre of the Israel-Gaza fence and “clearing the area” to achieve this objective, he said in a statement.
Mr. Türk stressed to the Israeli authorities that the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the occupying Power from destroying property belonging to private persons except where absolutely necessary by military operations.
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 9 2024 (IPS)* – As the UN continues its never-ending saga on the reform of the Security Council (UNSC), one of the political anomalies that keeps cropping up is the absence of Africa, among the five permanent members (P5)—a privilege bestowed only on the US, UK, France, China and the Russian Federation.
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Credit: United Nations
The African continent, which has been shut out, consists of 55 states with a total population of over 1.4 billion people.
— With the world’s eyes fixed on Gaza, Israeli forces have over the past four months unleashed a brutal wave of violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, carrying out unlawful killings, including by using lethal force without necessity or disproportionately during protests and arrest raids, and denying medical assistance to those injured, said Amnesty International.
The organization investigated four emblematic cases where Israeli forces used unlawful lethal force– three incidents in October and one in November – which resulted in the unlawful killing of 20 Palestinians, including seven children.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 