Archive for ‘Asia’

19/01/2022

2021, One of the Seven Warmest Years on Record

Human Wrongs Watch

Geneva, 19 January 2022 (WMO)* – Although average global temperatures were temporarily cooled by the 2020-2022 La Niña events, 2021 was still one of the seven warmest years on record, according to six leading international datasets consolidated by the World Meteorological Organization.

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Global warming and other long-term climate change trends are expected to continue as a result of record levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

The average global temperature in 2021 was about 1.11 (± 0.13) °C above the pre-industrial (1850-1900) levels. 2021 is the 7th consecutive year (2015-2021) where global temperature has been over 1°C above pre-industrial levels, according to all datasets compiled by WMO.

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18/01/2022

Hey, Hey, USA! How Many Bombs Did You Drop Today?

Human Wrongs Watch

By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies – TRANSCEND Media Service*

The Pentagon has finally published its first Airpower Summary since President Biden took office nearly a year ago. These monthly reports have been published since 2007 to document the number of bombs and missiles dropped by U.S.-led air forces in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria since 2004. But President Trump stopped publishing them after February 2020, shrouding continued U.S. bombing in secrecy.

August 2020 U.S. drone strike in Kabul killed 10 Afghan civilians. Credit: Getty Images

Over the past 20 years, as documented in the table below, U.S. and allied air forces have dropped over 337,000 bombs and missiles on other countries. That is an average of 46 strikes per day for 20 years.

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18/01/2022

As the Pandemic Devastates the Poor, the World’s 10 Richest Have Multiplied their Wealth into Trillions

Human Wrongs Watch

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 17 2022 (IPS)* – The numbers are unbelievably staggering: the world’s 10 richest men more than doubled their fortunes from $700 billion to $1.5 trillion —at a rate of $15,000 per second or $1.3 billion a day, according to a new study from Oxfam International.

In Malawi, some students have been going to school amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Credit: UNICEF/Malumbo Simwaka

These phenomenal changes in fortunes took place during the first two years of a Covid-19 pandemic that has seen the incomes of 99 percent of humanity fall, and over 160 million more people forced into poverty—60 million more than the figures released by the World Bank in 2020.

“If these ten men were to lose 99.999 percent of their wealth tomorrow, they would still be richer than 99 percent of all the people on this planet,” said Oxfam International’s Executive Director Gabriela Bucher.

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15/01/2022

Fully Ready to Kill, Shockingly Unprepared to Save Lives

Human Wrongs Watch

MADRID, Jan 14 2022 (IPS)* – While absolutely ready to kill, with the biggest military powers spending in 2020 nearly two trillion US dollars on weapons, the world is shockingly unprepared to save the lives of millions of unarmed, innocent civilian victims of wars… and other man-made catastrophes.

Credit: Albert Gonzalez Farran / UNAMID

The military spending data come from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), which also reports that global nuclear arsenals grow as states continue to modernise, thus sharply increasing the dangers of an unimaginable number of victims of the most devastating death machinery.

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15/01/2022

UK Borders Bill Increases Risks of Discrimination, Human Rights Violations

Human Wrongs Watch

(UN News)* — A new bill being debated by lawmakers in the United Kingdom increases the risk of discrimination and “serious human rights violations” and breaches the country’s obligations under international law, five independent UN human rights experts on 14 January 2022 said.

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UNICEF/Geai | A boy walks through a migrant camp in Calais, northern France, hoping to enter the United Kingdom. (file)
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If adopted, the Nationality and Borders Bill would “seriously undermine the protection of the human rights of trafficked persons, including children; increase risks of exploitation faced by all migrants and asylum seekers; and lead to serious human rights violations”, Siobhán Mullally, the UN Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons, said in a statement.
14/01/2022

Kenyan Domestic Workers’ Doomed Voyages to the Gulf

Human Wrongs Watch

Trafficked, kept prisoner in Saudi Arabia Wanjiku Njoki was lucky to escape unharmed. She has since found work serving tea for a government parastatal. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

And this fear is all too familiar for 28-year-old Wanjiku Njoki. The young woman’s whose search for greener pastures in the Gulf landed her in the hands of a physically, mentally, and verbally abusive employer.

In 2018, she travelled to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.

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13/01/2022

Disparities in the Arab Region: Hunger Doubles, Indebtedness Triggers, Recovery Uneven

Human Wrongs Watch

MADRID, Jan 12 2022 (IPS)* – The panorama is bleak: hunger in the Arab region continues to rise, with more than 90% increase since 2000, while indebtedness is growing, and the economic recovery is tenuous and uneven.

Tents and makeshift shelters at an IDP camp in Yemen. Credit: UNICEF/Alessio Romenzi

The 2021 Near East and North Africa Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition shows that the number of hungry people in the region reached 69 million people in 2020, “triggered by protracted crises, social unrests and exposure to multiple shocks and stresses such as conflicts, poverty, inequality, climate change, scarce natural resources and the economic repercussions associated with the recent COVID-19 pandemic.”

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12/01/2022

‘Prompt, Independent, Impartial Investigations’ Needed in Kazakhstan: UN Human Rights

Human Wrongs Watch

(UN News)* — As the death toll from the recent unrest in Kazakhstan mounts to 164, the UN Office for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Tuesday [11 January 2022] requested “prompt, independent, impartial investigations” into the killings, and whether “unnecessary and disproportionate use of force was made by security forces”.

© Unsplash/Alexander Serzhantov | A view of Almaty in Kazakhstan.

Close to 10,000 people are now estimated to be held in detention following the riots.

“We understand that the Ministry of Interior has announced that some 9,900 people are in detention as of the 11th of January. Now, this is clearly a huge number,” said OHCHR spokesperson Liz Throssell, briefing reporters at the United Nations in Geneva (UNOG).

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12/01/2022

The Straw that Broke Kazakhstan’s Back

Human Wrongs Watch

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ALMATY, Kazakhstan, Jan 12 2022 (IPS)* – The most violent protests of the past 30 years have erupted across Kazakhstan — exposing decades of inequality, injustice, and corruption. The protests of an unprecedented scale have rocked cities across Kazakhstan for days, as the population grew increasingly dissatisfied with the country’s leadership.

View of downtown Nur-Sultan, the capital of Kazakhstan. Credit: World Bank/Shynar Jetpissova

The government initially tried a carrot-and-stick approach to the unrest, but later was pushed to call a state of emergency and ultimately to request military help from former Soviet allies.

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11/01/2022

The Pentagon and CIA Have Shaped Thousands of Hollywood Movies into Super Effective Propaganda

Human Wrongs Watch

By David Swanson| World Beyond War – TRANSCEND Media Service*

Propaganda is most impactful when people don’t think it’s propaganda, and most decisive when it’s censorship you never knew happened. When we imagine that the U.S. military only occasionally and slightly influences U.S. movies, we are extremely badly deceived.

The actual impact is on thousands of movies made, and thousands of others never made. And television shows of every variety.

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