The following is an adapted version of the presentation made at the webinar “Connecting Dots” on 25 Feb 2023. Other speakers were Dr. Marwa Osman and Dr. Atif Kubursi.
Rick Sterling
Introduction
Syria has been at war since 2011. The conflict is in a stalemate. US troops control nearly a third of the country. The US finances the operation and a secessionist army with oil and wheat they take from the area. It funds them and deprives the Syrian government from their own resources.
In the northern province of Idlib, the Syrian version of Al Qaeda is in control, receiving the majority of aid from Europe while the 90% of Syrians who live in government controlled areas go hungry and have electricity only three hours per day.
Meanwhile in Ukraine, the bloodshed continues as Russian troops battle Ukrainian soldiers while the US and NATO pour in weapons. Russian troops have taken control of much of the eastern region, the Donbass.
How did we get here and what is driving the process?
(UN News)* — One third of women in Tajikistan are subjected to violence by their husbands, but very few cases are reported. Social and legal support, provided through the joint EU/UN Spotlight Initiative, is helping affected women to protect their rights.
Like many women in Tajikistan, Shermatova Marjona has experienced gender-based violence.
Ms. Shermatova met her husband while she was working abroad as a cleaner in Moscow, Russia. It wasn’t long before they were married, and he persuaded her to send all the money she earned to her father-in-law in Tajikistan, who was to use the funds to build a house for them.
Once construction had begun, Ms. Shermatova and her husband returned to Tajikistan. She used the last of her savings to put a roof on the house, install windows and doors, and to paint the rooms. The family lived in the semi-finished home together. In addition, she provided her father-in-law with money almost daily, whenever he would ask for it.
MADRID, Mar 7 2023 (IPS)* – The answer is that there are alarming setbacks for maternal health care and, in many cases, even a total lack of maternity services, which threaten to further raise the number of these tragic preventable deaths one million or more a year by 2030.
Nearly every maternal death is preventable, and the clinical expertise and technology necessary to avert these losses have existed for decades. Credit: Patrick Burnett/IPS
Severe bleeding, high blood pressure, pregnancy-related infections, complications from unsafe abortion, and underlying conditions that can be aggravated by pregnancy (such as HIV/AIDS and malaria) are the leading causes of maternal deaths, UN specialised bodies report.
“These are all largely preventable and treatable with access to quality and respectful healthcare.”
Why then are these causes still not prevented and treated?
A coroner’s inquest into the 2015 death of Abdurahman Hassan, a refugee from Somalia, has brought to light shocking details about Canada’s immigration detention system and abusive conditions in provincial jails. In response, 40 organizations have renewed their call on the federal government to stop incarcerating people in provincial jails for administrative immigration purposes. The letter was also endorsed by former cabinet ministers Lloyd Axworthy and Allan Rock.
(UN News)* — In a new blow for equality in the 21st century workplace, UN labour experts said on Monday [] that women’s access to jobs, their employment conditions and a persistent pay gap, have barely improved worldwide in nearly two decades.
ILO/Marcel Crozet | The production floor of an apparel exporting factory in Bangladesh.
The jobs gap for women is a “stubborn and damaging reality of the global labour market” but it is particularly worrying in developing countries, the International Labour Organization (ILO) said, with almost one in four women unable to find a job, compared with 16.6 per cent of men.
‘Bleaker picture’
That assessment is based on new data gathered from all people looking for work, as opposed to those registered as unemployed.
“It paints a much bleaker picture of the situation of women in the world of work…(it) shows that women still have a much harder time finding a job than men,” ILO said.
(UN News)* — Experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council have expressed concern over reports of increased militarization and intimidation surrounding a multi-billion-dollar urban development and tourism project in Indonesia.
Unsplash/Appai | Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital.
The Mandalika project includes parks, resorts, hotels and a motorcycle racetrack hosting international sporting events. It is located on Lombok island, in impoverished West Nusa Tenggara Province.
The experts said they have received alarming accounts of alleged human rights violations committed by police and military forces, including excessive use of force to evict and restrict the rights of the indigenous Sasak people.
Intimidation and coercion
The $3 billion project is being implemented by the Indonesia Tourism and Development Corporation (ITDC), a State-owned enterprise, with funding primarily from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).
1 March 2023 (HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH)* — A devastating new investigation by the New York Times found migrant children across the United States working in dangerous jobs in violation of US child labor laws.There is more to this story. A group of often-overlooked US child workers – those working in agriculture – regularly risk their health and lives in dangerous jobs. But their backbreaking work rarely violates child labor laws because they lack basic protections given to other child workers.
(UN NEWS)* — The number of children worldwide without access to social protection continues to rise, putting them at risk of poverty, hunger and discrimination, the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said in a report published on Wednesday [].
Between 2016 and 2020, an additional 50 million boys and girls aged 15 and under missed out on child benefits, driving up the total to 1.46 billion globally.
Increased risk of hardship
Child and family benefit coverage rates either fell or stagnated in every region of the world during this period, according to the report.
For example, Latin America and the Caribbean saw coverage decline significantly, from roughly 51 per cent to 42 per cent, whereas rates remained around 21 per cent in Central and Southern Asia.
MADRID, Mar 1 2023 (IPS)* – Wildlife is indeed far much more than a safari or an ‘exotic’ ornament: as many as four billion people –or an entire half the whole world’s population– rely on wild species for income, food, medicines and wood fuel for cooking.
A million plant and animal species are threatened with extinction, we have lost half of the world’s corals and lose forest areas the size of 27 football fields every minute, finds WWF report. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS
In spite of that, one million species of plants and animals are already facing extinction due to the voracious profit-making, over-exploitative, illegal trade and the relentless depletion of the variety of life on Planet Earth.
Will President Biden, Congress and other North Americans recognize the massive war crimes committed against the Iraqi people with appropriate declarations and actions on March 19, 2023?
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 