'Unseen' News and Views
We’re spewing a torrent of waste and pollution that is affecting our environment, our economies, and our health, warns UN Secretary-General António Guterres. Credit: Athar Parvaiz/IPS
John Scales Avery
As documented in the Wikipedia timeline of U.S. wars, and in the Wikipedia list of wars involving the United States, the country has been more or less continuously at war ever since the American Revolutionary War of 1775-1783, which established the US as a nation.
Often several wars took place simultaneously. Many of North America’s early wars were aimed at eliminating the First People, the native inhabitants of the country, and were thus genocidal in nature.
In recent years, the United States has aimed at “full spectrum dominance”, military dominance over all other nations, global hegemony through military force, and the construction of an empire. We should remember that the threat or use of military force violates both the United Nations Charter and the Nuremberg Principles.
Somali refugees sit near a makeshift shelter after crossing the border into Ethiopia’s Somali region to escape recent clashes. © UNHCR/Nimo Ahmed Abdullahi
Since hostilities erupted last month in the city of Laascaanood, in the Sool region, Somalia, hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced within Somalia, and close to 100,000 are estimated to have crossed the border into Ethiopia to escape the violence.
The call for the U.S. to end military involvements is often made in order to advocate for new wars against more powerful countries. It appears that the only choices are forever wars or the end of the world.
Biden vs Xi Jinping
15 Mar 2023 – While the world’s attention is focused on the US proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, 900 US troops continue to occupy Syria, as they have since 2017 , and 2,000 remain stationed in Iraq, 20 years after the US attacked, overthrew its government, and hung its president. Around 500 have been in Somalia since Biden redeployed them in June 2022.
On March 8, the House and Senate Foreign Relations Committees voted for resolutions to repeal the 1991 and 2002 Authorizations of Military Force (AUMFs) against Iraq, but that was hardly a victory for the antiwar community because US troops remain with the acquiescence of the current Iraqi government, and even so, it’s not clear that the House and Senate will pass the resolutions.
UNITED NATIONS, New York, 21 March 2022 (UNFPA)* – In 2021, double disaster struck Haiti when Tropical Storm Grace hit the island nation just two days after it was rocked by a 7.2 magnitude earthquake.
As rain lashed the country’s already damaged infrastructure, midwife Jeffthanie Mathurin remembers contraceptive deliveries getting stuck on the roads – presenting a major challenge for women and girls.
“We noticed this catastrophe increased the risk of more women getting pregnant unintentionally,” she told UNFPA. “The poorest people in the country, such as rural women, face the worst consequences of climate change.”
Flagship UN report extolls win-win water partnerships to avert global crisis
© UNICEF/Omid Fazel | Clean water, basic toilets, and good hygiene practices are essential to the health of children in Afghanistan.
(UN NEWS)* — Water starts wars, puts out fires, and is key to human survival, but ensuring access for all hinges largely on improving cooperation, according to a new flagship UN report published on Tuesday [21 March 2023].
Launched ahead of the UN 2023 Water Conference, the new edition of the UN World Water Development Report focuses on twin themes of partnerships and cooperation. Published by the UN Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the report highlights collaborative ways actors can work together to overcome common challenges.
“There is an urgent need to establish strong international mechanisms to prevent the global water crisis from spiralling out of control,” said UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay. “Water is our common future, and it is essential to act together to share it equitably and manage it sustainably.”
“Drop by drop, this precious lifeblood is being poisoned by pollution and drained by vampiric overuse, with water demand expected to exceed supply by 40% by decade’s end” Credit: Bigstock.
And that groundwater already provides half of the volume of water withdrawn for domestic use by the global population, including the drinking water for the vast majority of the rural population who do not get their water delivered to them via public or private supply systems.
– Three-quarters of a century ago, the world adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, emphasising that all human beings are born equal in dignity and rights. The 2023 theme of its 75th anniversary focuses on the urgency of combating racism and racial discrimination.
More: nearly a quarter of a century ago, the world adopted in South Africa the Durban Declaration to combat racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, distrust, intolerance, and hate, globally.
Since then, these “contagious killers” not only continued unabated but are now more spread than ever in all societies, in particular in those under the dominance of the so-called ‘white supremacy.’
In Africa as in the rest of the world, US machinations undermine its goals and bring other nations together as they seek to protect themselves from a desperate empire.
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The US can’t seem to understand that the rest of the world, including Africa, doesn’t like to be pushed around. African nations’ refusal to reinforce US foreign policy in the UN General Assembly is a case in point.
During the Assembly’s February 16 vote on a resolution “deploring” Russia’s action in Ukraine, nearly half the nations who abstained were African, 15 of the 32 , although only 54 of the UN’s 193 member nations are African.
No African nations were on the list of nations introducing the resolution, and two of the seven who voted no—Eritrea and Mali—were African.
“Terrorism and violent extremism cannot and should not be associated with any religion, nationality, civilization, or ethnic group.”.
Hate speech – including online – has become one of the most common ways of spreading divisive rhetoric on a global scale, threatening peace around the world, says UN chief.
– Islamophobia is a ‘fear, prejudice and hatred of Muslims that leads to provocation, hostility and intolerance by means of threatening, harassment, abuse, incitement and intimidation of Muslims and non-Muslims, both in the online and offline world.’
Consequently, suspicion, discrimination and ‘outright hatred’ towards Muslims have risen to “epidemic proportions.”
These are not the words of this convinced secular journalist, but those of the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 