(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.
COPENHAGEN, Denmark, Feb 2 2024 (IPS)* –Two months ago, an opinion piece I wrote, “The Cries of Gaza Reach Afghanistan,” was published with the hope of reminding American and other Western leaders of how quickly wars ON terror descend into wars OF terror because of their disproportionate impact on civilians and the unpredictability once unleashed.
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Sa’ada, Yemen. Aftermath of a Saudi airstrikes. Credit: Ghaith Abdul-Ahad
The United States and its Western alliance of ‘forever wars’ since 9/11 were all entered under the pretext of defeating terrorism. Instead, they strengthened the political and military standing of those they aimed to destroy while simultaneously causing unimaginable suffering for millions of civilians, including their own citizens.
ABUJA , Feb 1 2024 (IPS)* – One day in October 2020, Serah Akpan, 70, was seated in her house at Boki Local Government in Cross River, southern Nigeria, when she heard the murmurings of irate youth outside. Before she could grasp what was really happening, they had broken into her house, bundled her outside, and threatened to kill her for allegedly being a witch.
This elderly woman was marginalized as a ‘witch’ in Southern Nigeria. Her face has been obscured to protect her identity. Credit: Peace Oladipo.
Siddarth Kara’s book exposes the exploitation behind the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Photo Courtesy of Siddharth Kara
“Unspeakable riches have brought the people of the Congo little other than unspeakable pain.” So writes Siddharth Kara in Cobalt Red, How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives. It’s one of the many poetic phrases that make this book easy on the ear but hard on the heart and mind.
There’s pleasure in turning the pages of such finely crafted prose, pain in knowing that, if you have half a heart, you’ll never be able to see your smartphone, laptop, tablet, solar power system, or electric car quite the same way again, that you’ll see blood all over the supply chain that put them in your hand, on your roof, or in your driveway.
(UN News)* — War in Sudan is putting the future of its 24 million youngest citizens at risk, the Representative of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in the country has warned.
“Sudan is experiencing a humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions. It’s a living nightmare for children,” Mandeep O’Brien said this week in an interview with UN News.
Nearly 10 months have passed since clashes erupted between the Sudanese Army and a rival group known as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), leaving14 million children in desperate need of lifesaving assistance.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 