'Unseen' News and Views
In 2023, 380 women and young people were murdered in Honduras. Photo: Ingrid Prestetun/NRC
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20 September 2024 — Honduras is facing an invisible crisis. In 2023 it was the least funded in the world. Almost 30 per cent of its population is in need of humanitarian aid and an increased number of Hondurans are forced to move and seek refuge outside the country’s borders.
20 September 2024 — The United Kingdom Labour Party is about to meet for its annual conference. Now that Labour is in government, with their leader Keir Starmer as prime minister, it should act to strengthen social security, and tackle poverty and inequality. The first concrete step should be immediately ending the cruel “two-child limit” policy.
Children play in a park on a housing estate in Redcar, Teesside, May 17, 2023. © 2023 Joanne Coates/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The “two-child limit” is an arbitrary social security policy introduced by the Conservative government in 2017, in its austerity-motivated shake-up of social security.
It cuts off child-related social security support to low-income households after the second child. Larger families are left with fewer resources as their need increases.
– The United Nations, over the last year, has been relentlessly promoting the upcoming Summit of the Future – scheduled for September 22-23—as a landmark event.
And rightly so.
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But, surprisingly, the provisional list of speakers, released early this week, reflects notable absentees for a high-level summit– the five permanent members (P5) of the Security Council — whose representatives do not include any head of state (HS) or head of government (HG).
(UN News)* — Last October’s terror attacks by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups on Israeli communities marked a devastating day for children, and the suffering has continued unabated, a senior UNICEF official said on Thursday [].
(UN News)* — The United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday [] voted overwhelmingly to adopt a resolution that demands that Israel “brings to an end without delay its unlawful presence” in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Joseph Loree, who lives in the oil-rich Lokichar area of Turkana in northern Kenya, keeps a few goats due to frequent droughts. Governments in the Global South are spending billions of dollars subsidising industries harming the climate, such as the one in Lokichar. Credit: Maina Waruru/IPS
Washington’s military interventions are not just wars on people — they’re also wars on the planet’s climate.
U.S. combat soldier in the rubble at one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces in Baghdad, 24 Apr 2003. (U.S. Air Force, Cherie A. Thurlby, National Archivers, Public domain)
13 Sep 2024 – This week marks 23 years since George W. Bush declared a U.S.-led “war on terror” and the people of Afghanistan and Iraq are still suffering its consequences.
(UN News)* — Some of the world’s poorest countries spend more on debt repayments than health, education and infrastructure combined, severely hampering their chances of developing their economies.
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“The international financial architecture, crafted in 1945 after the Second World War, is undergoing a stress test of historic proportions – and it is failing that test”, argues UN Secretary-General António Guterres in a 2023 policy brief.
NEW YORK, 16 September 2024 (UNICEF)* – UNICEF has launched an appeal for US$58.8 million to address the rising mpox crisis across six African countries where children are most affected.
16 September 2024 (Norwegian Refugee Council)* — New data has revealed the scale of aid obstruction, and the consequential drastic fall in aid entering Gaza.
This is driving a humanitarian disaster, with the entire population of Gaza facing hunger and disease, and almost half a million at risk of starvation.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 