Archive for ‘Latin America & Caribbean’

11/07/2022

Thousands of Children Endure ‘Horrific Conditions’ in Conflict Zones

Human Wrongs Watch

(UN News)* — The annual UN report on Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC), released on Monday [11 July 2022], details the devastating impact that various forms of conflict had on children around the world in 2021.

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© UNICEF/Ashley Gilbertson | A ten-year-old boy walks in the courtyard in front of his family’s apartment in central Chernihiv, Ukraine, which was destroyed in an air strike.

The dangers outlined in the report range from conflict escalation, military coups, and takeovers, protracted and new conflicts, as well as violations of international law.

Cross-border conflict and intercommunal violence also impacted the protection of children, especially in the Lake Chad Basin and Central Sahel regions.

The report highlights almost 24,000 verified grave violations against children, an average of some 65 violations every day.

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11/07/2022

India and China Continue to Lead –as World Population Projected to Reach 8.0 Billion

Human Wrongs Watch

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 11 2022 (IPS)* – India and China, two Asian nuclear powers who are also longstanding rivals embroiled in the geo-politics of the Indian Ocean region, have remained two of the world’s most populous nations accounting for over a billion people each.

Credit: Freepik

But as the world’s population reaches the 8.0 billion mark, come November, India is projected to surpass China. The current numbers stand at 1.44 billion people in China and 1.39 billion in India. But the numbers are expected to change as India races ahead of China.

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08/07/2022

A World of 8 Billion, Yes, But (II): The Untold Story of the 50%

Human Wrongs Watch

MADRID, Jul 8 2022 (IPS)* – While women and girls have been so far enjoying some of their due rights in Western high-income countries, the overwhelming majority of teenagers and adult women in the impoverished regions of the current world’s population of 8 billions continue to suffer all kinds of inequalities.
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"When nearly a third of all women in developing countries are becoming mothers during adolescence, it is clear the world is failing adolescent girls,” said UNFPA Executive Director Dr. Natalia Kanem. Credit: Michael Duff/UNFPA Teenage Pregnancies - Teenage pregnancies - Almost one third of women in developing countries had their first baby while they were still in their teens, with nearly half of those new mothers aged 17 and younger

“When nearly a third of all women in developing countries are becoming mothers during adolescence, it is clear the world is failing adolescent girls,” said UNFPA Executive Director Dr. Natalia Kanem. Credit: Michael Duff/UNFPA

Such a harsh reality does not only impact their basic human rights, like equal treatment, same rights as men in decision-making, working conditions, payment, property, healthcare, staggering poverty and a very long etcetera. Not only…

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08/07/2022

A World of 8 Billion, Yes, But (I) Only a Few Are Seen as Human Beings

Human Wrongs Watch

MADRID, Jul 7 2022 (IPS)* – Far-right Brazilian president, Jair Messias Bolsonaro, was quoted a year ago or so as saying to a small group of indigenous people that they “now look a bit more like humans.”
World Population Day - Since the middle of the 20th century, the world has experienced unprecedented population growth. The world’s population more than tripled in size between 1950 and 2020.. Credit: Fahim Siddiqi/IPS

Since the middle of the 20th century, the world has experienced unprecedented population growth. The world’s population more than tripled in size between 1950 and 2020.. Credit: Fahim Siddiqi/IPS

Tragically, a vast majority of this year’s record world population of 8 millions is harshly neglected and seen as just disturbing numbers, if ever treated as such humans.

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08/07/2022

Exile on Main Street: The Sound of the Unipolar World Fading Away

Human Wrongs Watch

By Pepe Escobar | The Cradle – TRANSCEND Media Service*

The future world order, already in progress, will be formed by strong sovereign states. The ship has sailed. There’s no turning back.

pepe-escobar-1-150x150

Pepe Escobar

Let’s cut to the chase and roll in the Putin Top Ten of the New Era, announced by the Russian President live at the St. Petersburg forum  for both the Global North and South.

The era of the unipolar world is over.

The rupture with the West is irreversible and definitive. No pressure from the West will change it.

Russia has renewed with its sovereignty. Reinforcement of political and economic sovereignty is an absolute priority.

The EU has completely lost its political sovereignty. The current crisis shows the EU is not ready to play the role of an independent, sovereign actor. It’s just en ensemble of American vassals deprived of any politico-military sovereignty.

Sovereignty cannot be partial. Either you’re a sovereign or a colony.

Hunger in the poorest nations will be on the conscience of the West and euro-democracy.

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08/07/2022

Sanctions Are a Boomerang

Human Wrongs Watch

CARACAS, Jul 7 2022 (IPS)* – Economic sanctions against countries whose behavior is reproached by the West operate as punishment although they fail in their declared political objectives, and in cases such as Venezuela the contrast is clearly on display in the windows of high-end stores that sell imported goods. | En español
Economic sanctions against countries whose behavior is reproached by the West operate as punishment although they fail in their declared political objectives

The “bodegones” are Venezuela’s new commercial boom. They sell imported products, mostly from the United States despite the sanctions, and have spread into middle and lower-middle class neighborhoods in Caracas and other cities, to attract consumers who receive remittances of foreign currency from the millions of Venezuelans who have migrated in recent years. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez/IPS

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08/07/2022

Ukraine Is the Latest Neocon Disaster

Human Wrongs Watch

By Jeffrey D. Sachs | ScheerPost – TRANSCEND Media Service*

If Europe has any insight, it will separate itself from these U.S. foreign policy debacles, writes Jeffrey D. Sachs.
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President Joe Biden delivering “stand with Ukraine” remarks on May 3 at the Lockheed Martin facility in Troy, Alabama. (White House, Adam Schultz)

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The war in Ukraine is the culmination of a 30-year project of the American neoconservative movement. The Biden Administration is packed with the same neocons who championed the US wars of choice in Serbia (1999), Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003), Syria (2011), Libya (2011), and who did so much to provoke Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The neocon track record is one of unmitigated disaster, yet Biden has staffed his team with neocons.

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01/07/2022

New World Records: More Weapons than Ever. And a Hunger Crisis Like No Other

Human Wrongs Watch

MADRID, Jul 1 2022 (IPS)* – While the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Summit ended in Madrid on 30 June with net commitments to double spending on weapons and to increase by eight-fold the number of troops in Europe, the total of hungry people worldwide now marks an unprecedented record.

Conflict is still the biggest driver of hunger, with 60 percent of the world’s hungry living in areas affected by war and violence. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

As advanced by IPS in its: NATO Summit Set to Further Militarise Europe, Expand in Africa? The Western military Alliance Declaration states that its member countries continue to face distinct threats from “all strategic directions.”

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01/07/2022

The Urgency to Ban All Wars

Human Wrongs Watch

The writer is Professor Emeritus of the Catholic University of Louvain

Credit: UN Peacekeeping

BRUSSELS, Jun 30 2022 (IPS)* – On Sunday 19 June, we gathered in Sezano, municipality of Verona (VR), at the Monastery of the Common Good to affirm the need and urgency to ban war, all wars, and build peace without yes or no buts.

To the powerful world leaders who want to continue the war in Ukraine (USA, Russia, NATO member states, the European Union which has become a war front, Ukraine) we say STOP your new world war for world domination, of which the one in Ukraine is a dramatic expression.

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01/07/2022

US Supreme Court Ruling on Environmental Protection ‘a Setback in Our Fight against Climate Change’

(UN News)* — The ruling by the United States Supreme Court against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Thursday [30 June 2022], is “a setback in our fight against climate change” said the UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric.

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© BLM Nevada | Solar power crescent dunes in Nevada, California.

He was responding to a question at the regular noon briefing at UN Headquarters in New York, about the ruling, which in effect strips away the power of the EPA to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

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