MADRID, Aug 3 2022 (IPS)* – Human beings have proved to be capable of producing innumerable practical inventions while much too often making the worst use of them. Take the case, per example, of how criminal groups heavily rely on digital platforms to trap and enslave their victims also for extracting and selling their organs.
Venezuelan migrant Manuela Molina (not her real name) was promised a decent job in Trinidad, but minutes after her arrival she was forced into a van and taken to a secret location. Credit: IOM Port of Spai
Yes, technology now dominates most of human activities and, surprisingly enough, it is now presented as the perfect life-saving solution for the smallest and poorest households worldwide. Simply, it has replaced the precious human knowledge, which has been acquired over thousands of years.
In April 1965, U.S. President Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) explained why he was escalating US involvement in Vietnam. With an Orwellian touch, LBJ titled the speech “Peace without Conquest”as he announced the beginning of US air attacks on Vietnam. He explained that,
“We must fight if we are to live in a world where every country can shape its own destiny and only in such a world will our own freedom be secure… we have made a national pledge to help South Vietnam defend its independence and I intend to keep that promise. To dishonor that pledge, to abandon the small and brave nation to its enemies and the terror must follow would be an unforgivable wrong.”
Johnson further explained,
“We are also there to strengthen world order… To leave Vietnam to its fate would shake the confidence of all these people in the value of an American commitment and in the value of America’s words.”
(UN News)* — The World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Tuesday [2 August 2022] that the Greater Horn of Africa is experiencing one of the worst hunger crises of the last 70 years.
More than 37 million people are facing acute hunger, with approximately seven million children under the age of five acutely malnourished in the region.
While finding food and safe water is the absolute priority, WHO said that ensuring a strong health emergency response is needed to avert preventable disease and deaths.
Frontex Aerial Surveillance Facilitates Return to Abuse in Libya.
Reconstruction of the July 30, 2021, interception facilitated by Frontex drone. In addition to the track of the Frontex drone, the map shows the track of Seabird (a Sea-Watch airplane) that witnessed the interception. It also shows the NGO vessel Sea Watch 3 in the vicinity. There is no vessel tracking data for the Libyan Coast Guard patrol boat Ras Jadir or the intercepted vessel. Map courtesy of Border Forensics.
1 August 2022 (Human Rights Watch)*— “We didn’t know it was the Libyans until the boat got close enough and we could see the flag. At that point we started to scream and cry. One man tried to jump into the sea and we had to stop him. We fought off as much as we could to not be taken back, but we couldn’t do anything about it,” Dawit told us.
In 2019, Italian Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio accused France of using currency arrangements to “exploit” its former African colonies, “impoverishing Africa” and causing refugees to “leave and then die in the sea or arrive on our coasts”.
Anis Chowdhury
Neo-colonial CFA
As France ratified the Bretton Woods Agreement on 26 December 1945, it established the Colonies Françaises d’Afrique (CFA) franc zone, enabling France to update pre-war colonial monetary arrangements.
The ostensible intent of the ‘Franc of the French Colonies of Africa’ (FCFA) was to cushion France’s colonies from the drastic French franc (FF) devaluation required to peg its value to the US dollar, as agreed at Bretton Woods.
Overfishing, seabed mining, corporate greed: let’s take back control of our marine environment for the common good.
A protest by Ocean Rebellion against deep-sea mining, Rotterdam, February 2022 | Zuma Press Inc / Alamy Stock Photo
29 July 2022 (openDemocracy)* — For most of human history, the oceans have been seen as a global commons, the benefits and resources of which belong to us all in equal measure.
But our seas – and the marine environment as a whole – are being ravaged by exploitation for corporate profit. The result is a social, economic and ecological crisis that threatens the very life support system of the Earth.
(By FAO)* — “The turning point came when my husband and I participated in the FAO training together. That’s where my motivation to become a beekeeper came from,” says Fatoumata Kandé, a farmer and mother from the village of Sare Bidji in the Kolda region of southern Senegal.
“Beekeeping in Senegal has traditionally been considered a man’s job. The training helped me understand that I too can contribute and make a difference.”
As a member of the local cooperative, Coopérative Agroalimentaire de la Casamance – Miel (CAC/Miel), Fatoumata’s husband, 52-year-old Mamadiang Mballo, has practised beekeeping for over 15 years.
MADRID, Jul 29 2022 (IPS)* – Strangely enough, two major scientific findings, both announced in July, did not attribute the current dangerous world’s disasters to the proxy war unfolding in Ukraine.
Due to its structure, methane traps more heat in the atmosphere per molecule than carbon dioxide (CO2) making it 80 times more harmful than CO2 during the 20 years after it is released into the atmosphere.. Credit: Bigstock
One of them, launched by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), focuses on the dangers of what it calls: “secret methane leaks.” Methane is a colourless, odourless gas, responsible for more than 25% of the global warming the Earth is experiencing today.
(UN News)* — The UN Committee against Torture on Friday [29 July 2022] concluded its current session by releasing findings on Botswana, Nicaragua, the State of Palestine and the United Arab Emirates.
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Unsplash/Nathan Wright | People who have endured the ordeal of torture have an enforceable right to fair and adequate compensation.
From 2019 to 2021, Pukaldi Saswanto did not touch land for 30 months whilst working on a fishing vessel. Originally from Bengkulu, a coastal province in Sumatra, Indonesia, Pukaldi had signed up with a recruitment agency to be a fisher based on a friend’s recommendation.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 