'Unseen' News and Views
ALEPPO, Syrian Arab Republic, 4 August 2023 (UNFPA)* – “My suffering started with the crisis in Syria, then the economic situation got worse, and the last straw was the earthquake.”
Belet Weyne, 8 August 2023 (IOM)* – Zamzan knows the devastation of climate shocks all too well. First, drought pushed her to move away from the place she had called home for years, then flooding swept away the new home she’d just begun to build for herself and her family.
(UN News)* — The global average temperature for July 2023 was the highest on record and likely for at least 120,000 years, the UN weather agency and partners said on Tuesday [].
“The global average temperature for July 2023 is confirmed to be the highest on record for any month,” said Samantha Burgess, Deputy Director at the European Commission’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. The month is estimated to have been around 1.5C warmer than the average for 1815 to 1900, so the average for pre-industrial times.”
Briefing journalists in Geneva, Ms. Burgess noted that July had been marked by heatwaves “in multiple regions around the world”.
(UN News)* — Two senior UN humanitarian officials have called for more funding and less bureaucratic impediments to support civilians affected by the war in Sudan, including roughly 14 million children.
Ted Chaiban of the UN children’s agency, UNICEF, and Edem Wosornu with the UN humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, briefed journalists on their recent mission to the country and Chad, one of several neighbouring nations hosting some 900,000 people who fled the violence.
Fighting between the Sudanese Army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) recently passed the 100-day mark. Overall, 24 million people across the country require aid.
(UN News)* — The threat of famine, with people slowly starving to death, must be considered a red line for international peace and security, the UN Famine Prevention and Response Coordinator said on Thursday [], warning that warring groups deliberately use hunger as a tactic of war.
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Globally, over 250 million people suffered acute hunger in 2022, the highest in recent years, with about 376,000 people facing famine-like conditions in seven countries – all affected by armed conflict or extreme levels of violence. Another 35 million people are on the edge, Reena Ghelani said.
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Wildfires have caused devastation and dozens of casualties and forced evacuations of thousands of people in parts of the Mediterranean, including Algeria, Greece, Italy and Spain.
The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) has recorded a significant increase in intensity and emissions from wildfires in the eastern Mediterranean during the second half of July, particularly in Greece.
(UN News)* — United Nations agencies on Tuesday [] kicked off World Breastfeeding Week, emphasizing the need for greater breastfeeding support across all workplaces.
In the last decade, the prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding has increased by a remarkable 10 percentage points, to 48 per cent globally, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO).
Promoting and supporting breastfeeding at workplaces can help drive the progress higher and towards the global target of 70 per cent by 2030, they said.
“Supportive workplaces are key. Evidence shows that while breastfeeding rates drop significantly for women when they return to work, that negative impact can be reversed when workplaces facilitate mothers to continue to breastfeed their babies,” Catherine Russell, UNICEF Executive Director, and Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, said in a statement.
Intelligence or… what? What are AI possibilities, vis-a-vis its human counterpart? A new human master?
You be the judge.
Freepik
It is claimed that ChatGPT does not have access to the Internet but I find this incongruent. Therefore, this piece assumes that AI depends on the Web in the same way that a microorganism needs a body to survive and grow, possibly eventually killing it.
San Jose, 28 July 2023 (IOM)* – “I arrived in the Dominican Republic knowing I owed USD 4,500. Still, I did not know the conditions under which I would have to repay it,” tells Andrea*, a young Colombian woman who left her country in search of better opportunities. “I soon discovered that all the money I earned was taken from me and that I was required to work long hours, from 8 AM to 3 AM the next day.”
Andrea was a victim of sexual exploitation in the Dominican Republic after accepting a fake job offer. Illustration: IOM 2023/Milena Somogyi
Andrea was grappling with her country’s economic hardship and a lack of employment options. Amidst her desperation, a friend told her of a promising job opportunity in the Dominican Republic. The offer was tempting: a good salary and a significant loan from the company to cover her travel expenses.
(UN News)* — More than two days of armed violence at the Ein El Hilweh Palestine Refugee camp in southern Lebanon continues to impact civilians, including children, a senior UN official in the country said on Monday [].
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Eleven people were killed and another 40 were injured, including a staff member with the UN agency that assists Palestine refugees, UNRWA, said Dorothee Klaus, Director of UNRWA Affairs in Lebanon, citing reports.
Two schools operated by the agency sustained damage, and more than 2,000 people were forced to flee in search of safety.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 