MADRID, Mar 18 2022 (IPS)* – Yemen’s already dire hunger crisis is teetering on the edge of outright catastrophe, with 17.4 million people now in need of food assistance and a growing portion of the population coping with emergency levels of hunger, three UN agencies warned on 14 March 2022.
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Across Yemen, 2.2 million children are acutely malnourished, including nearly more than half a million children facing severe acute malnutrition, a life-threatening condition, according to new IPC report. Credit: United Nations.
Tripoli, 17 March 2022 (IOM)* – At least 70 migrants are missing at sea and presumed dead off the Libyan shore in the past two weeks, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Mediterranean Sea. Photo IOM/Mohamed Muse
On 12 March, a boat reportedly carrying 25 migrants capsized near the Libyan coast of Tobruk. Authorities rescued six migrants and recovered seven bodies while 12 remain missing.
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 18 2022 (IPS)* – The United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund (UNJSPF), which is expected to provide retirement, death, disability and related benefits for staff, upon cessation of their services– has a staggering portfolio amounting to over $81.5 billion ranking far, far ahead of the UN’s annual budget of $3.1 billion and its average peacekeeping budget of over $6.4 billion.
The thousands of UN retirees and their beneficiaries, numbering over 71,000 at last count, who depend on their pensions for economic survival, are relentlessly protective of the Fund—while protesting all attempts at risky investments.
MELBOURNE, Australia, Mar 16 2022 (IPS)* – The recently published “No 1 central policy document” (“No 1 document”), China’s national blueprint for rural policy, further demonstrates Beijing’s commitment to safeguarding food security and advancing rural revitalisation.
Genevieve Donnellon-May
The document’s release comes against an increasingly complicated geopolitical environment which, along with factors, such as disruptions to the global food chain supplies and worsening climate change impacts, have forced Beijing to rethink how its national goals can be achieved.
For the past few decades, safeguarding food security has been a critical goal for the Chinese central government.
(UN News)* — Security forces in Myanmar have killed at least 1,600 people and detained more than 12,500, since the military coup last year, the UN rights office said on Tuesday [15 March 2022].
Unsplash/Pyae Sone Htun | Protesters attend a march against the military coup in Myanmar.
In a new report warning that serious rights abuses uncovered in Myanmar may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, appealed to the international community to take “concerted, immediate measures to stem the spiral of violence” there.
MADRID, Mar 15 2022 (IPS)* – More than 60 percent of the world’s adult labour force –or about 2 billion workers– work in the informal economy. “They are not recognised, registered, regulated or protected under labour legislation and social protection. The consequences can be severe, for individuals, families as well as economies.”
Women sell fruit and vegetables on a sidewalk in the Philippines. Credit: ILO/Minette Rimando
The International Labour Organization (ILO) on 18 February 2022 on this issue reported that despite major efforts over the years, there are few signs of the informal economy shrinking in size.
Farmers and fishing communities have had to let go of their folk knowledge on weather and seasonal patterns that used to guide them for the best times to carry out the various steps in their trade—planting, harvesting, setting out to sea, preservative drying of goods, etc.
Governments inability or unwillingness to implement solutions to the climate crisis is deeply entrenched, and seemingly intractable | Image from Wall Street International Magazine.
March 2022 (Wall Street International)* — For far too many climate change activists, 2021 and the beginning of 2022 have plunged people into feelings of helplessness and hopelessness.
The inertia of the existing fossil fuel infrastructure and governments inability/unwillingness to implement tangible, collaborative, global solutions to the climate crisis is deeply entrenched, and seemingly intractable.
(UN News)* — Yemen’s already dire hunger crisis is “teetering on the edge of outright catastrophe”, UN agency chiefs said on Monday [14 March 2022], as new data analysis from the war-ravaged country indicated potentially record food insecurity.
Today, more than 17.4 million Yemenis are food insecure; an additional 1.6 million “are expected to fall into emergency levels of hunger” in coming months, taking the total of those with emergency needs, to 7.3 million by the end of the year.
Famine to rise fivefold
Of extreme concern to humanitarians is the likelihood that the number of people experiencing “catastrophic”– or famine-like – levels of hunger, will increase five-fold, from 31,000 now, to 161,000,by 31 December.
10 March 2022(UN News)* — The business model of the news media is ‘broken’ and with it, our fundamental right to information is at risk, a new UNESCO report examining global trends in freedom of expression warns.
Unsplash/Lilly Rum | The dominating presence of social media has led to a decline in demand for traditional print journalism.
In the past five years, both news audiences and advertising revenues have moved in huge numbers to internet platforms, with only two companies – Google and Meta (formerly known as Facebook) – soaking up half of all global digital advertising spending.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 