26 September 2024 —There is a stand-alone article in the European Union’s founding Treaty that puts human rights at the core of EU foreign policy.
There are authoritative guidelines and a comprehensive action plan on human rights and democracy, adopted by EU governments, to guide the bloc’s external actions.
MVOMERO, Tanzania, Sep 24 2024 (IPS)* – In the scorching sun of Mikese village in Tanzania’s eastern Mvomero district, 31-year-old Maria Naeku tirelessly tends to her small vegetable patch. Each time she pulls a weed, the red soil stains her hands as she guides the trickle of water from a maze of pipes through an elevated bed to nurture her plants. In a drought-stricken area, Naeku’s small garden is a lifeline for her family, giving them food and income.
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Maria Naeku, a Maasaiwoman in Mikese village in Mvomero district tends to her vegetable garden.Credit: Kizito Makoye Shigela/IPS
The intensity of the present conflict in Lebanon has already claimed the lives of more children per day than the 2006 conflict.
UNICEF/UNI561764/SánchezOn February 22, 2024, friends of Hassan Al Durr, a 5-year-old girl killed in an airstrike, visit the aftermath of the deadly airstrike that claimed her life. Majdal Zoun, Southern Lebanon.
BEIRUT, 26 September 2024 (UNICEF)* –The average number of children killed per day in Lebanon this week is more than double the number of children killed per day during the country’s devastating 2006 conflict.
An estimated 400 children, or about 12 children per day, were killed during the 33-day 2006 conflict[1].
(UN News)* — A new humanitarian crisis is unfolding at Lebanon’s border with Syria as thousands of people flee Israeli shelling linked to the war in Gaza, UN humanitarians said on Thursday [], just as Israel premier Benyamin Netanyahu arrived in New York for the UN General Assembly.
Only hours earlier, UN Secretary-General António Guterreswarned the Security Council that “hell is breaking loose in Lebanon” along the UN-patrolled line of separation, with exchanges of fire greater in “scope, depth and intensity” than previously.
With the amount of aid Israel is currently allowing into Gaza, it will take humanitarian agencies more than two years to deliver the kits needed to prepare tents, makeshift shelters and damaged homes south of Wadi Gaza for this coming winter, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council-led Shelter Cluster in Palestine.
Makeshift site in Khan Younis, Gaza. Photo credit: Alison Ely / Palestine Shelter Cluster
25 September 2024 — At least 25,000 sealing-off kits, the equivalent of 25 truckloads, must be delivered per week to southern Gaza before the end of November, to meet the vast needs.
Everyone seems to have had a family member or friend who has either gotten seriously ill or died due to acquiring an infection that did not respond to prescribed medicines, and the underlying reason was often antimicrobial resistance.
(UN News)* —UN Secretary-General António Guterres urged the Security Council on Wednesday [] “to work in lock-step” to end the escalating violence between Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants across the Blue Line in southern Lebanon.
“Hell is breaking loose in Lebanon” the UN chief warned, noting that the exchanges of fire along the UN-patrolled line of separation “have expanded in scope, depth and intensity.”
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Monday [23 September 2024] saw Lebanon’s bloodiest day in a generation, as Israel continues to bombard largely Hezbollah-controlled territory, doubling down on the devastating electronic device attacks which killed hundreds last week.
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 25 2024 (IPS)* – When the founding fathers –regrettably, no mothers—created the United Nations 79 years ago, one of the biggest anomalies was bestowing the power of the veto to the five permanent members (P5) of the UN Security Council (UNSC): the US, UK, France, Russia and the Republic of China (later the People’s Republic of China).
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But a longstanding proposal for the reform of the UNSC has been kicked around the General Assembly hall –and the corridors of the UN– for several decades now.
(UN News)* — As Lebanon mourns the victims of a wave of Israeli airstrikes believed to have left hundreds dead, UN humanitarians warned on Tuesday [] against a return to the “dark days of 2006” when full-scale war broke out, calling for an urgent de-escalation and the protection of civilians.
Speaking from Beirut in the aftermath of Lebanon’s “worst day in 18 years”, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) deputy representative in the country, Ettie Higgins, said that unless the violence stopped, the consequences could be “unconscionable”.
Power is the ability to make people, states, movements, organizations, or things do what they would not otherwise have done. It is a matter of fact that politics is seen to be about might rather than right.
Power in Politics
It can be said that, in essence, politics is power or, in other words, the ability of some international actor to get the desired results of his/her political behavior by using whatever instruments (legal or not, moral or not, etc.).
Makeshift site in Khan Younis, Gaza. Photo credit: Alison Ely / Palestine Shelter Cluster
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Power in Politics
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 