'Unseen' News and Views
UNITED NATIONS, New York, 19 June 2022 (UNFPA)* – As militants boasted about how they would divide the girls among themselves, Khetam*, a Syrian refugee in Iraq, feared for her life. “Two commanders had chosen me and my friend as their brides,” she recalled to UNFPA. The so-called “marriage” would mean rape and control for as long as the militants desired.
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Two internally displaced sisters from Jalalabad pictured in their temporary accommodation in Kabul, Afghanistan. © UNHCR/Andrew McConnell
GENEVA (UNHCR)* – The number of people displaced by conflict, violence, persecution and human rights abuses rose for the tenth straight year in 2021 to reach the highest level since records began, according to the latest Global Trends report released on 16 June 2022 by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency.
22 June 2022 (UNEP)* — While many use paint to cover the blemishes on their walls, each coat they apply could end up leaving a stain on the planet. Despite legally binding controls in 87 countries, lead is still commonly used in paint, and experts warn that it’s time to stop brushing aside the hazardous chemical’s human and environmental health impacts.
Every year, an estimated 900,000 people die from lead exposure. Lead exposure can also result in increased risk of antisocial behavior, cardiovascular disease and reduced fertility.
(UN News)* — Because of the global hunger crisis, every single minute, one child is pushed into life-threatening, severe malnutrition.
That’s the alarming message on Thursday [23 June 2022] from UN Children’s Fund UNICEF, which issued the alert for 15 countries in crisis where the situation is worsening.
UNICEF has called for $1.2 billion to meet urgent needs of eight million children at risk of death from severe wasting, in 15 mainly African nations, such as Burkina Faso, Chad, Kenya, Somalia and Sudan, but also Afghanistan and Haiti.
“We speak of the 222 million dreams representing each 222 million children and adolescents sustaining the extreme hardship of emergencies and protracted crises. Their dreams are profoundly driven by their experience of wars and forced displacement. This is our moment to empower them to turn their dreams into reality.” Yasmine Sherif, Director, ECW
View of the United Nations General Assembly, which on three occasions this year has censured the invasion of Russian forces in Ukraine and where many countries have expressed non-alignment with the positions taken by the contenders. CREDIT: Manuel Elias/UN
Meetings and votes on the conflict at the United Nations and in other forums, the search for support or neutrality, and negotiations to cushion the impact of the economic crisis accentuated by the war are the spaces where the process of new alignment is taking place, according to analysts consulted by IPS.
(UN News)* — Further food ration cuts are imminent for refugees as humanitarian needs multiply around the world while funding struggles to keep pace, the UN food relief agency warned on Monday [20 June 2022], World Refugee Day.
“As global hunger soars way beyond the resources available to feed all the families who desperately need WFP’s help, we are being forced to make the heart-breaking decision to cut food rations for refugees who rely on us for their survival,” said David Beasley, Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP).
The sombre warning comes as WFP has already been forced to significantly reduce rations to refugees across its operations.
(UN News)* — Sexual violence has become a brutal tactic of warfare and repression that “terrorizes populations, destroys lives and fractures communities,” the UN chief said on Friday [17 June 2022].
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Unlike corporations that sell to consumers, Lockheed Martin and the other top contractors to the U.S. Government are highly if not totally dependent upon sales to governments, for their profits, especially sales to their own government, which they control — they control their home market, which is the U.S. Government, and they use it (their government) to sell to its allied governments (via the NATO and other U.S.-run weapons-marketing operations), all of which foreign governments constitute the export markets for their products and services.
Eric Zuesse
These corporations effectively control the U.S. Government, and they control its weapons-marketers, such as NATO (in addition to, of course, the U.S. Government itself, which has the world’s largest sales-force peddling specifically U.S.-made weapons to foreign countries).
UNITED NATIONS, New York, 17 June 2022 (UNFPA)* – “I have gone to the police after receiving threats of violence,” Nistula Hebbar told UNFPA (UN Population Fund), describing the relentless onslaught of abuse she experiences online. As a politics reporter for The Hindu, her words and her reputation are her livelihood. But as a woman, the cost for doing this job is her safety.
For others, the cost is their careers, their health or even their lives.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 