On February 7, 2024, a U.S. drone strike assassinated an Iraqi militia leader, Abu Baqir al-Saadi, in the heart of Baghdad. This was a further U.S. escalation in a major new front in the U.S.-Israeli war on the Middle East, centered on the Israeli genocide in Gaza, but already also including ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Syria, and the U.S. and U.K.’s bombing of Yemen.
Israeli airstrike on an apartment building in Rafah, the last refuge in southern Gaza, Feb 2024. Photo credit: MENAFN
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Feb 14 2024 (IPS)* –A gathering ‘perfect storm’ – due to various developments, several quite deliberate – now threatens much devastation in the global South, likely to most hurt the poorest and most vulnerable.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Globalisation’s protracted decline The age of globalization had mixed consequences, unevenly incorporating national markets for labour, goods and even some services.
It ended gradually, with the trend far more pronounced following the protracted worldwide stagnation since the 2008 global financial crisis.
Sometimes still referred to as the Great Recession, Western central banks resorted to unconventional monetary policies, mainly ‘quantitative easing’, to keep their economies afloat.
But easier credit enabled more financialization and indebtedness, rather than recovery, let alone sustainable development.
GENEVA, 9 February 2024 (UNICEF)* –- “Three hundred days ago, a wave of atrocities were unleashed upon the children of Sudan.
“Here is some of what happened in those 300 days:
“First: the world’s largest displacement of children has been seen in Sudan. Four million children have been displaced. That’s 13,000 children every single day for 300 days. Safety, gone. Worldly possessions, gone. Friends and family members separated or lost. Hope, fading.
(UN News)* —The United Nations on Wednesday [] urged countries not to forget millions of people caught up in the war between rival militaries in Sudan, calling for $4.1 billion to help stave off famine and assist those who have fled into neighbouring countries.“
Half of Sudan’s population, 25 million people, needs humanitarian assistance,” Martin Griffiths, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, told journalists in Geneva.
(UN News)* — The UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide on Friday [] expressed profound horror at the ongoing situation in the Middle East, reiterating the call for a humanitarian ceasefire and protection of civilians.
UN Photo/Manuel Elías | Alice Wairimu Nderitu, UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide.
Alice Wairimu Nderitu also underscored the need to intensify diplomatic efforts to bring the crisis to an end.
“Civilians should never pay the price of a conflict for which they bear no responsibility,” she said in a statement.
“Their most basic rights must be protected and preserved, and their humanitarian needs must be met,” she added.
Wednesday marked the fourth month of the brutal war in Gaza.
PANAMA CITY, Feb 8 2024 (IPS)* – At the bar that Sandra manages in Panama City’s central financial district, the variety offered on the menu has shrunk due to delays in ship traffic through the Panama Canal, one of the world’s major shipping routes. | En español
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A ship passes through the Pedro Miguel lock on its way to the Miraflores system to cross the Panama Canal. The infrastructure faces water shortages due to drought in the country, which limits the pace of maritime cargo transport through the bioceanic route that moves six percent of the world’s maritime trade. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS
“We are out of stock of some of our foreign beers, because the shipment didn’t arrive. I hope it will get here one of these days,” the Panamanian bar-keeper told IPS, as she pointed to a half-empty refrigerator in the bar nestled between skyscrapers.
“Sanctions,” as imposed by the US, is a sanctimonious word for economic warfare and outright theft, and Venezuela is a textbook case.
Anya Parampil’s book tells the story of US hybrid warfare on Venezuela and of the tectonic social and economic shifts reshaping the world today.
As Anya Parampil demonstrates in Corporate Coup: Venezuela and the End of US Empire, sanctions were part of a multi-pronged regime change war that included diplomatic aggression, economic terrorism, covert operations, and information warfare.
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 9 2024 (IPS)* – As the UN continues its never-ending saga on the reform of the Security Council (UNSC), one of the political anomalies that keeps cropping up is the absence of Africa, among the five permanent members (P5)—a privilege bestowed only on the US, UK, France, China and the Russian Federation.
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Credit: United Nations
The African continent, which has been shut out, consists of 55 states with a total population of over 1.4 billion people.
5 February 2024 (FAO)* —They are the dried edible seeds of legumes both cultivated for food and feed. They are pulses, and if you didn’t know already, they have the potential to transform our agrifood systems.
(By UNEP)* — For months last year, Florida’s beachgoers were plagued by rotting tangles of decaying seaweed that had washed ashore. Known technically as sargassum, the thick clumps were part of a record-setting 8,000-kilometre-long seaweed belt in the Atlantic Ocean.
Sargassum blooms cause a range of environmental problems, including coastal “dead zones” bereft of aquatic life. Past sargassum outbreaks have been linked to the excessive release of phosphorus and other chemical substances known as nutrients.
Phosphorus and another nutrient, nitrogen, are key ingredients in synthetic fertilizers. They have become increasingly popular in recent decades but can have devastating effects when they enter lakes, rivers and the ocean.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 