Geneva/ Port-au-Prince, 14 January 2024 – More than a million people are now internally displaced in Haiti, according to alarming new figures released by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
IOM team in Port-au-Prince conducts an assessment among displaced people to understand the needs, scale and complexity of the crisis, and inform distributions of essential items. Photo: IOM 2024/Antoine Lemonnier
The latest data reveals that 1,041,000 people, many displaced multiple times, are struggling amidst an intensifying humanitarian crisis. Children bear the greatest burden of displacement, making up over half of the displaced population.
Suliman Azab with one of his children outside their collapsed home in Khan Younis, Gaza. The family were displaced three times by the conflict. Photo: WFP/Ali Jadallah
While election year politics dominates the news, the control of both major U.S. political parties by the fossil fuel industry and the military-industrial complex makes the policies they agree on more dangerous than their disagreements.
DNC delegates unfurl banner during Biden’s speech at the DNC. Photo credit: Esam Boraey
()* — Leaders from landlocked developing countries, (LLDCs) will gather in Gaborone, Botswana, this December to tackle challenges, explore solutions, and build alliances for a more equitable and prosperous future.
World Bank/Dominic Chavez | Men unload sacks of onions from a truck in Bamako, Mali, a landlocked developing country. Their lack of direct access to the vital trade links often result in landlocked countries paying high transport and transit costs.
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At the Third UN Conference on Landlocked Developing Countries, known as LLDC3, innovative solutions and strategic partnerships will be outlined and leveraged to “unlock the full potential of these nations.” LLDC3 is set to take place from 10-13 December.
Here’s what you need to know about LLDCs and plans for this year’s conference:
(UN News)* — Exceptionally heavy rain and deadly flash flooding in Yemen have compounded the already dire situation for people across the country, UN humanitarians said on Thursday [].
In a joint alert, UNICEF, the UN Children’s Fund, and UNFPA, the UN sexual and reproductive health agency, said that rising waters had shattered people’s lives in several Yemeni governorates and particularly in Hudaydah, Hajjah, Sa’ada and Taizz. The northern governorate of Marib has also been affected.
(UN News)* — Conflict in Myanmar between the military junta and opposition forces is increasingly brutal, with both sides likely responsible for international crimes including summary executions, top independent rights investigators said on Tuesday [].
In a call to regional bloc ASEAN to help end the violence and support efforts to bring perpetrators to justice, the head of the Human Rights Council-appointed probe into the Myanmar emergency Nicholas Koumjian described an increasingly “desperate” junta whose devastating military tactics were being matched by opposition fighters acting with total impunity.
“Aerial bombings have increased very substantially in this last year,” Mr. Koumjian told journalists in Geneva.
“To hell with the truth! As the history of the world proves, the truth has no bearing on anything. It’s irrelevant and immaterial, as the lawyers say. The lie of a pipe dream is what gives life to the whole misbegotten mad lot of us, drunk or sober.”
— Eugene O’Neill, The Iceman Cometh
Voters in the U.S.A. live in fantasy and probably always will. No matter how obvious it is that the U.S. is an oligarchy, not a democracy, the ardent pipe dreams of a new face in the White House go to their heads every four years. It can only be explained by a combination of intellectual ignorance, the acceptance of propaganda, and the embrace of illusions.
Kazakhstan tightens laws to combat trafficking of newborns
()*— Babies are being sold for up to $4,500 in Kazakhstan, but the government is cracking down on traffickers with a new law adopted earlier this month.
To fight against trafficking newborns, the new legislation facilitates the criminal prosecution for such crimes as kidnapping, illegal deprivation of liberty, human trafficking, involvement in prostitution and more.
(UN News)* — In a bid to prevent a polio epidemic in Gaza, UN humanitarians on Tuesday [] repeated continuing international calls for a ceasefire to allow a mass vaccination campaign to get underway.
Almost 10 months of war and intense Israeli bombardment have shattered healthcare in Gaza and disrupted routine inoculation rounds for youngsters, leaving them exposed to a range of preventable diseases including polio, which the UN World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed had been identified last month in several sewage samples taken from Gaza.
LIMA, Jul 26 2024 (IPS)* – The invasion of lands inhabited by Amazon indigenous communities is growing in Peru, due to drug trafficking mafias that are expanding coca crops to produce and export cocaine, while deforestation and insecurity for the native populations and their advocates are increasing | En español
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Members of the indigenous guard of the native community of Puerto Nuevo, of the Amazonian Kakataibo people, located in the central-eastern jungle of Peru. Credit: Courtesy of Marcelo Odicio
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 