24 September 2020 – Los Angeles, USA (Pressenza)* — The World Wildlife Foundation, in collaboration with the Zoological Society of London, recently issued an eye-popping description of the forces of humanity versus life in nature, the Living Planet Report 2020, but the report should really be entitled the Dying Planet Report 2020 because that’s what’s happening in the real world. Not much remains alive.
A new report has found nuclear-armed states spent a record $73 billion on nuclear weapons in 2019, a $7.1 billion increase from 2018 expenditures. The United States, the center of the global coronavirus pandemic, accounted for nearly half of that spending.
As the economies of the US, China, France, and Russia all contract, their nuclear spending is expanding. Supplemental ICAN research shows yearly expenditure on nuclear weapons in the US alone could pay for 300,000 ICU beds; 150,000 nurses; 75,000 doctors; and 35,000 ventilators to address the COVID19 pandemic.
Sculpture depicting St. George slaying the dragon. The dragon is created from fragments of Soviet SS-20 and United States Pershing nuclear missiles. PHOTO:UN Photo/Milton Grant
(United Nations)* — Achieving global nuclear disarmament is one of the oldest goals of the United Nations. It was the subject of the General Assembly’s first resolution in 1946, which established the Atomic Energy Commission (dissolved in 1952), with a mandate to make specific proposals for the control of nuclear energy and the elimination of atomic weapons and all other major weapons adaptable to mass destruction.
IAEA/Dean Calma | Euratom inspectors conduct safeguards inspections at URENCO in the Netherlands.
.
Almost 75 years since the adoption of the first General Assembly resolution in 1946, which committed the UN to the goal of ridding the planet of nuclear weapons, “the world continues to live in the shadow of nuclear catastrophe”, Secretary-General António Guterressaid in his message commemorating the day.
(UN News)* — Tax abuse, money laundering and corruption, plague the global financial system, a high-level UN panel reported on Thursday [24 September 2020], launching an interim report that underscores the need for urgent reforms to achieve the 2030 Global Goals (SDGs).
World Bank/Philip Schuler | Anti-corruption sign in Namibia.
“Corruption and tax avoidance are rampant. Too many banks are in cahoots and too many Governments are stuck in the past”, said Dalia Grybauskaitė, co-chair of the High-Level Panel on International Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity to Achieve the 2030 Development Agenda (FACTI Panel) and a former president of Lithuania.
17 Sep 2020 – This morning I heard courageous patriot and Vietnam War-era whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg interviewed on Democracy Now!.
Referring to the Afghani refugee tragedies on the Greek Island of Lesbos and elsewhere, Ellsberg said:
“Our government is responsible for the flight of 37, 000,000 refugees worldwide because of United States-initiated wars.”
And he could have added,
“The US is also responsible for the sale of the lethal weapons that militaries and mercenary soldiers use to kill, maim and terrify innocent refugees-to-be all around the world. These weapons and militaries have destroyed families, freedoms, safety, shelter, jobs, food and water supplies, which naturally means that these innocents have to leave their destroyed homelands in search of safety, food, water and a future for them and their children.”
24 September 2020 (Wall Street International)* — As we start the 21st century and the new millennium, our scientific and technological civilization seems to be entering a period of crisis.
Today, for the first time in history, science has given to humans the possibility of a life of comfort, free from hunger and cold, and free from the constant threat of infectious disease.
(UN News)* — Amidst a technological era that “beckons with vast opportunity”, new risks exist to global peace, stability and development, the UN chief told a side event of the General Assembly on Wednesday, aiming to help ensure access to digital technologies for all [23 September 2020].
The UN was founded 75 years ago, at the outset of the nuclear era, to provide “a global platform for addressing the world’s most pressing challenges, to secure peace and to safeguard the future for generations”, said Secretary-General António Guterres in a video message on Thursday to the high-level meeting on digital cooperation.
A new ILO analysis of the labour market impact of COVID-19 reveals a “massive” drop in labour income and a fiscal stimulus gap that threatens to increase inequality between richer and poorer countries.
Washington Bullets: A History of the CIA, Coups, and Assassinations, by Vijay Prashad, Sep 2020, 162 pp.
While vaunting itself as an oasis of democracy, the United States, in reality, has become a superpower by infiltrating foreign governments, obliterating entire cultures, and carrying out murderous military interventions in developing countries all over the world.
Washington Bullets is about U.S. imperialism—the bullets sent by various Washington, DC administrations to crush revolutions, assassinate democratically elected leaders—to destroy hope.
Washington Bullets: A History of the CIA, Coups, and Assassinations, by Vijay Prashad, Sep 2020, 162 pp.
