22/02/2022
War would be in no-one’s interests. How often have we heard that, in the current Ukraine crisis? But there is one obvious exception.
Jake Lynch
‘Defence industries’ are perennial winners in such situations and – whatever the outcome of the standoff involving thousands of Russian troops at the border – arms dealers will be circling for opportunities to profit.
Stability is no good, from their perspective, if it engenders too great a sense of security. “Actual shooting wars are needed” from time to time, as Ismael Hossein-Zadeh puts it, “not only to draw down stockpiles… but also to display the wonders of what they produce”.
Being able to stamp the brochure for a new weapons system with the words, ‘battle-tested’ is the ultimate marketing ploy. In between open hostilities, however, a period of raised tensions will do nicely.
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21/02/2022
Sezim social center, Kyrgyzstan | Women of Kyrgyzstan come to specialized centers in search of protection from domestic violence.
Every year, according to official government figures, between seven and nine thousand very young girls get married in Kyrgyzstan, and about 500 girls aged 13 to 17 become mothers.
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Girls still run the risk of falling prey to such practices as “ala kachuu”, which literally means “pick up and run away” in Kyrgyz. In other words, they are kidnapped and forced into marriage.
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21/02/2022
NEW DELHI and KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 15 2022 (IPS)* – A recent Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) study shows the largest farms cultivate a high and increasing share of agricultural land in much of the world.
Vikas Rawal
Farm size concentration
World Agricultural Census data for 129 countries show about 40% of the world’s farmland is operated by farms over 1000 hectares (ha) in size. About 70% is operated by the top 1% of farms, all bigger than 50 ha each.
A rising share of farmland is in larger farms. But farm sizes in developed and developing countries seem quite different.
Farms smaller than 5 ha accounted for 63% of land in low and lower middle-income countries. But such farms covered only 8% of farmland in upper middle and high-income countries.
The “share of farmland farmed on the largest holdings has increased in … several European countries (France, Germany and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) and in the United States of America.”
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19/02/2022
Nairobi, 17 February 2022 (UNEP)* – Wildfires are burning more severely and more often, urban noise pollution is growing into a global public health menace, and phenological mismatches – disruptions in the timing of life-cycle stages in natural systems – are causing ecological consequences.
These critical environmental issues, requiring greater attention, are highlighted in the new Frontiers Report published today by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).
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19/02/2022
(UN News)* — Thousands of Eritrean refugees sheltering at a camp in the Ethiopian Afar region, have fled following a deadly attack on the facility earlier this month, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said on 18 February 2022.
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© UNHCR/Laurence Bron | Eritrean refugees in the Afar region of Ethiopia receive emergency assistance.
At a briefing for journalists in Geneva, a spokesperson the UN agency said that unidentified assailants targeted Barahle camp on 3 February after fighting engulfed the area, according to harrowing accounts provided by refugees.
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19/02/2022
UNHCR/Hélène Caux | A man identified as Oumar, who was at risk of statelessness, holds his father’s identity card from French colonial times.
Speaking on behalf of
Secretary-General António Guterres, he also reminded the participants of the challenges which face the so-called Non-Self-Governing Territories which remain around the world.
“Global cooperation is central to addressing its impacts”, he underscored, urging the Committee, also known as C-24, to “commit to making 2022 a year of recovery for everyone”.
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17/02/2022
TRIPOLI, Libia, Feb 17 2022 (IPS)* – Libya was supposed to hold elections early this year. Instead, it now has two rival political administrations — a return of the divisions of the past.
Graffiti on a wall in Benghazi, Libya, calls for elections and democracy. Credit: The United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL)
Libya is entering a new cycle of its political crisis. In December 2021, a mere 48 hours before polls were supposed to open, the elections were postponed. Emad Sayah, the head of Libya’s High National Election Committee (HNEC), declared it to be a case of force majeure. He then proposed to Libya’s parliament, the House of Representatives (HoR), to reschedule the elections for 24 January 2022.
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17/02/2022
(UN News)* — As the Sahel region “stares down a horrendous food crisis”, the UN emergency food relief chief warned on Wednesday [16 February 2022] that the number of people on the brink of starvation has “increased almost tenfold” over the past three years and “displacement by nearly 400 per cent”.
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© WFP/Cheick Omar Bandaogo | Displaced people wait in line for food distribution in Gorom-Gorom, Burkina Faso.
The vast Sahel, which runs nearly the breadth of the continent, south of the Sahara Desert, is experiencing some of its driest conditions in years.
Posted in Africa, Climate Crisis, Market Lords, Migrants and Refugees, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords |
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15/02/2022
The Republican Party Has Become Irresponsible
John Scales Avery
In recent years, and especially since Donald Trump’s term as president, the Republican Party has become irresponsible.
Republican Senators and members of the House of Representatives no longer act to promote whatever is best for their country and the planet. Instead they block whatever the Democratic Party tries to achieve.
The Republican Party is aided by Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema who, although the are nominally Democrats, act as destructively as though they were Republicans. Manchin is paid to do this by giant coal corporations, while Sinema gets her blood money from big pharmaceutical firms.
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HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 