UK nationals committed abuses in Iraq after 2003 on a significant scale. The International Criminal Court’s Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) Final Report on the UK and Iraq on December 9 is the latest official report to find that members of UK armed forces subjected Iraqi detainees to abuse, and concludes there is a reasonable basis to believe these were war crimes.
But the prosecutor’s decision to close her examination of the UK without proceeding to an investigation on the basis that the UK is willing to genuinely investigate and prosecute these war crimes defies belief.
The Prosecutor Office’s report amounts to one of the clearest findings by any official body of the extent of UK abuses in Iraq.
18 December 2020 (ILOSTAT)* — The international migration of women, either together with their family or on their own, is an increasingly important and complex phenomenon but remains insufficiently documented owing to a lack of data. New ILOSTAT data offer some insights on the profile of women looking for work and better opportunities abroad.
In 2017, women accounted for 42 per cent of the 164 million migrant workers around the world. ILOSTAT data show that the share of women in the working-age migrant population increased over the past decade in 24 out of the 63 countries for which time series are available, with particularly significant growth observed in Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Indonesia and Viet Nam.
BONN, Germany, Dec 18 2020 (IPS)* – While Afghanistan ends a historic year, filled with the hope for peace as the government and Taliban sat down for almost three months of consecutive peace talks for the first time in 19 years, it was also a year filled with violence with provisional statistics by the United Nations showing casualties for this year being higher than 2019.
19 December 2020 (United Natiions)* — The Sustainable Development Agenda is centred on people & planet, underpinned by human rights and supported by a global partnership determined to lift people out of poverty, hunger and disease. It will, thus, be built on a foundation of global cooperation and solidarity.
(UN News)* — Attacks by armed groups in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado, Nampula, Zambezia and Niassa provinces have displaced more than 530,000 people, many of whom have been forced to move multiple times, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Friday [18 December 2020].
UNICEF/Daniel Timme | A father in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique, receives supplementary food packs for his children.
According to the agency, majority of the affected families have sought refuge in the safer southern districts of Cabo Delgado province, where around 90 per cent of those displaced are sheltered by host communities.
Lt. Col. Danny Davis was a hero on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. Our army hero then became a whistleblowing legend by exposing the chronic monumental lies the military has told and continues to peddle about achieving victory in those convulsed and splintered nations. The costs of the military’s prevarications have been steep: trillions of dollars squandered on fool’s errands; the killing, maiming or displacement of millions; and the awakening of hatreds or revenge against the United States that make all citizens potential targets.
(UN News)* — As the end of another year of war looms, “families in Syria remain without respite after almost a decade of conflict”, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator told the Security Council on Wednesday [16 December 2020].
Speaking via videoconference, Humanitarian Affairs chief Mark Lowcock said that millions have been left displaced, impoverished, traumatized and suffering “deep personal loss”.
18 December 2020 — (UN News)* — The United Nations is commemorating International Migrants Day, on Friday [18 December 2020], highlighting their contributions to societies globally, and underlining the need to ensure that they remain central to the recovery from COVID-19.
UN Women/Pornvit Visitoran | Women migrant workers at a ceramics factory in northern Thailand. As part of the labour force, migrant workers support local businesses and also communities back home.
In a message, Secretary-General António Guterres said that in the midst of the global pandemic, societies have come to appreciate their dependence on migrants “who are too often invisible within our communities.”
We are born with power inherent in us. Why cede it to governments (capitalist, socialist, royal, and whatever other brand)? Why forever run after parties, however revolutionary, thinking they will do the right thing when in power… when we know from experience this is usually not the case?
In all terrestrial organisms, information is transmitted between generations by means of the genetic code; and genetic evolution takes place through natural selection acting on modifications of this code.
In human cultural evolution, information is also transmitted between generations by means of language and writing.
This second mode of evolution gave our species enormous adaptive advantages. While genetic changes are random and slow, cultural changes are purposeful and rapid.
For example, when our ancestors moved out of Africa and spread over Europe and Asia, they did not adapt to the colder climate by growing long fur, but instead invented clothing.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 