The overwrought fear of China and Russia is sold to a Western public through manipulation of the facts.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) pose during their meeting in Beijing, on February 4, 2022. (Photo: Alexei Druzhinin/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images)
23 Aug 2022 – The world is on the edge of nuclear catastrophe in no small part because of the failure of Western political leaders to be forthright about the causes of the escalating global conflicts.
MADRID, Aug 30 2022 (IPS)* – Shortly before the 25 August approval by the Spanish Parliament of the government’s plan to save energy, the country’s right and far-right opposition parties revived their debate about an earlier suggestion of not wearing neckties in the Spanish Congress and Senate and other official institutions.
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“Wildfires – well known for their disastrous consequences in southern Europe – are now occurring as far north as Scandinavia”. Credit: Unsplash/Fabian Jones.
The suggestion was made by Pedro Sanchez, President of the Spanish government, as a way to help save energy.
The idea was that neckties increase the feeling of warmth, now that the country has to face two great problems: energy shortage and unprecedented heatwaves that increase the consumption of electricity and other energy sources.
28 August 2022 (UN News)* — After successfully reclaiming her people’s territory in Northern Argentina, Celestina Ábalos turned to tourism to share and promote her indigenous culture. UN entrepreneurship training during the COVID-19 pandemic helped her business to grow.
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Ivar Velasquez | Indigenous Argentinian tourism entrepreneur Hero photo alt text Celestina Ábalos stands outside her home.
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Indigenous entrepreneur Celestina Ábalos runs a tourism business in the UNESCO World Heritage site of Quebrada de Humahuaca in Jujuy province, northern Argentina, sharing her community’s culture and knowledge of medicinal herbs..“I am a child of Pachamama, Mother Earth. Earth is everything to us. It is life. We cannot conceive of ourselves without her. My community dates back 14,000 years. On behalf of 60 families, I led a 20-year fight for the right to land, education and freedom.
(UN News)* — There have been one million COVID-19 deaths so far this year – a “tragic milestone” that must lead to more people being vaccinated against the disease, World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus reported on Thursday {25 August 2022}.
“We cannot say we are learning to live with COVID-19 when one million people have died with COVID-19 this year alone, when we are two-and-a-half years into the pandemic and have all the tools necessary to prevent these deaths,” said Tedros, speaking during his regular briefing from Geneva.
MADRID, Aug 25 2022 (IPS)* – There is a prevailing doctrine among the right and far-right political parties who are still in the opposition and are most likely to jump to power in those countries where they are not already ruling. It is the doctrine of “the worse things go, the better for us.”
As of 2019, the total value of the annual world shipping trade had reached more than 14 trillion US Dollars. Credit: Bigstock
Their markets-influenced neo-liberal thinking implies that their already existing or about-to-be governments will have the golden chance of overriding the present and past rights’ achievements in fields like social public services including health, education, pensions, and migration policies, let alone the fight against gender violence.
SAN SALVADOR, Aug 23 2022 (IPS)* – Getting sick is one of the worst fears facing Jorge, a Salvadoran living in the United States, because without access to health insurance or public health programs, he knows he will not be able to afford the high cost of hospital care. | En español
Millions of immigrants in the United States benefited from the program known as Obamacare, but Medicaid, for low-income people, reduced benefits only to migrants with legal status in the country. CREDIT: Telesur TV
“It scares me to think about what would happen if I got sick, the medical services here are very expensive,” Jorge told IPS by video call.
(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
Children in Sahel are also facing water insecurity. This crisis has led to the proliferation of severe malnutrition and increased the risk of serious water-borne diseases.
MADRID, Aug 22 2022 (IPS)* – 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 UNESCOunderlines that “water is a unique and non-substitutable resource.”
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 22 2022 (IPS)* – The ominous warnings keep coming non-stop: some of the world’s developing nations, mostly in Africa and Asia, are heading towards mass hunger and starvation.
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.
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.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 