'Unseen' News and Views
(UN News)* — On Tuesday [22 August 2022], UN Children’s Fund UNICEF warned that children in the Horn of Africa and the vast Sahel region “could die in devastating numbers” without urgent intervention and support. In the last five months, the number of people in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia without reliable access to safe water, has risen from 9.5 million to 16.2 million
– This is how the Muslims’ Holy Book – the Quran refers to the most precious element of life.
Over 2 billion people live in water-stressed countries, which is expected to be exacerbated in some regions as a result of climate change and population growth. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS.
Religions aside, also UNESCO underlines that “water is a unique and non-substitutable resource.”
Credit: World Food Programme (WFP)
The World Food Programme (WFP) warned last week that as many as 828 million people go to bed hungry every night while the number of those facing acute food insecurity has soared — from 135 million to 345 million — since 2019. A total of 50 million people in 45 countries are teetering on the edge of famine.
Forests are losing out to fossil fuels and foreign finance in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). On July 28, the country’s government auctioned 27 oil blocks and three gas blocks overlapping with some of the world’s most sensitive ecosystems, after signalling its intent in April.
In spite of their high preparedness and growing consciousness and activism and their indisputable right to decide upon their present and future, today’s youth voice is still far from being heard. Credit: Maged Srour/IPS
When asked “what about the people?,” the young Greek economist took a long sip of wine and answered with a visibly sarcastic smile “The people were their servants.”
(UN News)* — The World Health Organization (WHO) has provided emergency assistance, in an urgent response to the needs of communities affected by floods in Yemen, the UN agency said on Wednesday [17 August 2022].
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Dr Gary G. Kohls
On 9 Aug 1945 an all-Christian B-29 bomber crew took off from Tinian Island in the South Pacific, with the blessings of its Catholic and Protestant chaplains.
In the plane’s hold was the second of the only two nuclear bombs to ever be used against human targets in wartime. The primary target, Kokura, Japan, was clouded over, so the plane, named Bock’s Car, headed for the secondary target, Nagasaki.
St. Mary’s Cathedral, located in Nagasaki City’s Urakami River district, was a massive structure and a landmark easily visible from 31,000 feet above. The cathedral was one of the landmarks on which the Bock’s Car’s bombardier had been briefed for weeks before the mission.
12 August 2022 — Thousands of migrant workers lost their lives to make the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar possible. But the scale of the human rights abuse doesn’t end with these workers’ lives, nor does it end in Qatar.
A Vast River of Money
John Scales Avery
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the world spent 2.113 trillion US dollars on armaments in 2021.
Of this almost incomprehensible amount of money, the United States spent almost half the total, $801 billion.
Perhaps one reason for the disproportionately large US arms spending is that in the United States, the arms industry has been privatized, which is not the case in China or Russia. In the US, selling weapons and death is a business. It is a business, on which capitalist investors can make enormous profits, selling weapons and selling war.
The United States is by far the largest exporter of weapons in the world. The US sells weapons through NATO. It also sells weapons to dictatorships like Saudi Arabia, and these same weapons have produced a humanitarian catastrophes such as starvation in Yemen. Small arms exported to Africa deepen and prolong local conflicts.
Food and energy prices have increased to their highest levels in decades. And 62 new food billionaires have been created. Credit: Bigstock.
Like the legend of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the modern ones are a mix of combined causes: inequality; speculation; indebtedness, and the crushing impacts of climate emergency.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 