'Unseen' News and Views
Sargassum blooms cause a range of environmental problems, including coastal “dead zones” bereft of aquatic life. Past sargassum outbreaks have been linked to the excessive release of phosphorus and other chemical substances known as nutrients.
Phosphorus and another nutrient, nitrogen, are key ingredients in synthetic fertilizers. They have become increasingly popular in recent decades but can have devastating effects when they enter lakes, rivers and the ocean.
(UN News)* — War in Sudan is putting the future of its 24 million youngest citizens at risk, the Representative of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in the country has warned.
“Sudan is experiencing a humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions. It’s a living nightmare for children,” Mandeep O’Brien said this week in an interview with UN News.
Nearly 10 months have passed since clashes erupted between the Sudanese Army and a rival group known as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), leaving14 million children in desperate need of lifesaving assistance.
– Contractionary economic trends since 2008 and ‘geopolitical’ conflicts subverting international cooperation have worsened world conditions, especially in the poorest countries, mainly in Africa, leaving their poor worse off.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Conditions and prospects are so bad that two well-known globalisation cheerleaders have appealed to rich nations for urgent action.
Former IMF Deputy Managing Director and World Bank Senior Vice-President, Professor Anne Krueger and influential Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf warn ominously of the dire consequences of inaction.
Deepening stagnation
Following tepid growth after the 2008 global financial crisis, Covid-19 disrupted supply chains worldwide. Then, post-pandemic recovery was disrupted by wars in Ukraine and then Gaza.
Whose Child is This? Whose child is this? Is this child an Iraqi . . . an Israeli . . . a Chechnyan . . . an Afghani . . . a Kurd . . . a Nigerian? Is she or he English, Indonesian, Spanish, Lebanese, Turkish, Congolese, Bosnian, Persian? Does it matter? Is this child not a daughter or son to each of us?
Photo: Courtesy of Dr. Amer Hosin.
Is this child not a human being born of a union of a man and woman whose intimacy, whose passion, whose very breathe yielded a life that sought only to live . . . to enjoy some moments of laughter and delight, some moments of comfort and calm . . . to make yet another life.
(UN News)* — The world enters 2024 with soaring cases of cholera globally, with over 667,000 cases and more than 4,000 deaths last year, UN agencies have reported.
Eastern and southern African nations are among the worst affected, accounting for about 75 per cent of the fatalities and a third of the cases, as of 15 January, according to UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
With the regions also suffering from lack of adequate clean water and sanitation, and poor case management, children are particularly vulnerable as the outbreaks spread rapidly.
Principled Diplomacy Critical to Uphold Human Rights Framework
(New York) – Global leaders have failed to take strong stands to protect human rights during 2023, a year of some of the worst crises and challenges in recent memory, with deadly consequences, Human Rights Watch on 11 January 2024 said in its World Report 2024.
| Ed HawkinsJaffna, Sri Lanka,12 January 2024 (IOM)* – It is a sunny day and Selvan is heading out on his motorcycle to buy groceries from a nearby shop. The direct sunlight disturbs him, making it hard to concentrate on the road.
Selvan, 47, was one of the 303 Sri Lankan migrants who smugglers abandoned at sea for 28 days. Photo: IOM 2023/Anushma Shrestha
His vision blurs, the panic grows: he is back on a sinking ship packed with more than 300 other people, pounded by relentless waves, struggling to control his body. Steering his motorcycle through Jaffna, heart pounding, Selvan, 47, struggles for breath, overwhelmed by the primal fear of drowning.
Gladys Mugabe (69) lives with her disabled son in Harare Gardens, a well-known recreational park in the Zimbabwean capital. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS
(UN News)* — In 2024, the UN will once again be at the heart of international efforts to tackle the world’s most urgent challenges, from bolstering the global economy, to supporting climate action and keeping the peace in conflict hotspots.
© UNICEF/Raphael Pouget | Children make a shape with their hands in the south Omo district of southern Ethiopia.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 