Human Wrongs Watch
(UN NEWS)* — The United Nations on Friday [] appealed for sustainable funding for its agency that supports Palestine refugees, UNRWA, which is on the brink of financial collapse.
05/06/2023
UN Agency for Palestine Refugees on Verge of Financial Collapse
Chronic underfunding over the past decade, and resultant severe austerity measures, mean UNRWA is already operating with a $75 million shortfall, putting its lifesaving programmes across the Middle East at risk.
“As I address you today, I do not have the funds to keep our schools, health centres and other services running as of September,” Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini told a pledging conference at UN Headquarters in New York.
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02/06/2023
UN in Bangladesh Decries Devastating New Round of Rations Cuts for Rohingya Refugees
Human Wrongs Watch
(UN NEWS)* — The UN in Bangladesh on Thursday [] condemned a second cut in food rations for Rohingya refugees who are sheltering in the country, after a funding shortfall of $56 million compelled the World Food Programme (WFP) to enforce the cuts.
02/06/2023
‘Racism and Xenophobia Continue to Spoil Our Communities, Like Scars that Spoil the Fabric of Society’
Human Wrongs Watch
(UN NEWS)* — Racism is a global problem, and every country must take a stance against it, General Assembly President Csaba Kőrösi said on , addressing the latest meeting of a UN platform to improve the safety and quality of life of people of African descent worldwide.
“Racism and xenophobia continue to spoil our communities, like scars that spoil the fabric of society. The hatred and violence they engender persist, demanding our collective efforts to eradicate racial violence in all its forms,” he told the second session of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent.
Mr. Kőrösi said overcoming this requires recognizing our shared humanity, as the “unacknowledged legacies” of slavery and segregation persist today through oppressive and racially violent prison systems, inequalities in access to healthcare, and exclusion from the workforce.
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30/05/2023
Can the Global South Build a New World Information and Communication Order?
Human Wrongs Watch
By Vijay Prashad | Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research – TRANSCEND Media Service*
It is remarkable how the media in a select few countries are able to set the record on matters around the world.
Meas Sokhorn (Cambodia), Inverted Sewer, 2014
The European and North American countries enjoy a near-global monopoly over information, their media houses vested with a credibility and authority inherited from their status during colonial times (BBC, for instance) as well as their command of the neocolonial structure of our times (CNN, for instance).
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29/05/2023
Climate Carnage: Things Can Only Get Worse
Human Wrongs Watch
– Please stop repeating all this softened wording, such as climate change, climate-related hazards, climate crisis, or extreme weather events… And just call it what it really is: climate carnage.
The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction has now reported on the “Staggering’ rise in climate emergencies in the last 20 years.’ Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS
Indeed, several scientific findings, released ahead of the 2023 World Environment Day (5 June), staggeringly indicate that the world-spread climate carnage is predicted to hit all-time records.
See: global temperatures are set to break records during the next five years, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on 17 May 2023 alerted.
Warmest year ever
“There is a 98% likelihood that at least one of the next five years, and the five-year period, will be the warmest on record.”
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26/05/2023
‘No time to spare’: Israel-Palestine ceasefire holds, but hunger, tensions mount
Human Wrongs Watch
(UN NEWS)* — Swift action is needed to prevent flare ups of Israeli-Palestinian violence and avert a looming food crisis, the top UN official in the Middle East told the Security Council on Wednesday [].
“There is no time to spare,” said Tor Wennesland, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process.
“We must take action, not only to ensure Palestinian well-being and governance, but as an integral part of ending the occupation and restoring a political horizon toward a viable two-State solution, based on UN resolutions, international law and previous agreements,” he said, briefing the Council on recent grim and dangerous security and humanitarian concerns.
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24/05/2023
Cyclone Mocha Leaves a Trail of Destruction – Urgent Funding Needed as Hunger, Diseases Loom
Human Wrongs Watch
(UN NEWS)* — As a clearer picture emerges of the trail of destruction left by Cyclone Mocha in Myanmar and Bangladesh, humanitarians are continuing to provide life-saving assistance, and the need for an urgent increase in funding.
In Myanmar, the UN appealed on Tuesday [] for $333 million to assist 1.6 million of the most vulnerable people, many of whom have lost their homes as the cyclone hit the west of the country over a week ago.
The UN’s top aid official in the country, Ramanathan Balakrishnan, told reporters in Geneva that the disaster had left hundreds of thousands without a roof over their heads as the monsoon looms.
Among the priorities is providing people with safe shelter and preventing the outbreak and spread of water-borne diseases.
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23/05/2023
G7 Has Failed the Global South in Hiroshima
Human Wrongs Watch
– “G7 countries have failed the Global South here in Hiroshima. They failed to cancel debts, and they failed to find what is really required to end the huge increase in hunger worldwide. They can find untold billions to fight the war but can’t even provide half of what is needed by the UN for the most critical humanitarian crises.”
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Adel Mansour takes his WFP food basket home on a cart in Abyan, Yemen. Credit: WFP/Ahmed Altaf
Hunger and debt
“If the G7 really want closer ties to the developing countries and greater backing for the war in Ukraine, then asking Global South leaders to fly across the world for a couple of hours is not going to cut it. They need to cancel debts and do what it takes to end hunger.
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22/05/2023
G7 Owes the Poor $13 Trillion in Unmet Pledges. Meanwhile…
Human Wrongs Watch
– Two shocking findings have just been revealed: the G7 countries owe low- and middle-income countries a huge 13.3 trillion USD in unpaid aid and funding for climate action, at a time when one billion people now face cholera risk, precisely because of the staggering reduction and even non-payment of committed assistance.
This money could otherwise be spent on healthcare, education, gender equality and social protection, as well as addressing the impacts of climate change, says Oxfam. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS
Such an inhuman reality also reveals that the G7 (Group of the seven wealthiest countries), who represent just 10% of the world’s population, continue to demand the Global South to pay 232 million USD –a day– in debt repayments through 2028, on 17 May 2023 revealed a new analysis from Oxfam ahead of the G7 Summit in Hiroshima, Japan (May 19- 21, 2023).
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