MADRID, Sep 7 2022 (IPS)* – More than two-thirds of 10-year-olds are unable to read and understand a simple text. This shocking finding should be enough to be alarmed about the horrifying fate of an entire generation. But there is much more.
There are 244 million children out of school. Credit: Shafiqul Alam Kiron/IPS
6 September 2022 — As the United Kingdom’s new Prime Minister Liz Truss names her cabinet, she has an opportunity to halt the systematic destruction of freedoms that have been hard won over decades in the UK, and to redefine how the office of Prime Minister is viewed at home and abroad.
MADRID, Sep 6 2022 (IPS)* – Both the mainstream media, the international bodies and the human rights defenders continue to rightly denounce the Taliban’s inhuman abuses against the Afghan people’s basic rights, in particular those of women and girls.
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Over one year after the Taliban takeover, an estimated 24.4 million people – 59 per cent of the population in Afghanistan – are dependent on international aid and emergency relief in their day-to-day lives. Credit: UNAMA/Fraidoon Poya
In doing so, they use a similar vocabulary, saying that since the Taliban “seized the power” on 15 August 2021 everything has collapsed. Shouldn’t it be more accurate to say that the power was “knowingly” “delivered” to them by the United States following negotiations between the two parties under Donald Trump’s administration?
The world’s largest intact forest, the Amazon plays a key role in regulating the global climate. It is home to Indigenous Peoples and traditional communities whose land stewardship practices can lead us all toward a more sustainable future. It is perhaps the world’s most biodiverse region yet also a place where there are likely still many species unknown to science.
4 September 2022 (UN News)* — The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has reported an increase in the levels of mental disorders amongst the population of the Gaza Strip, especially among children, many of whom were already in need of mental health services and psychosocial support.
Ziad Taleb | One of the destroyed houses in Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip
Over three violent days in early August, until a ceasefire was reached on 7 August, Israeli Defence Forces launched some 147 air strikes against targets in Gaza while Palestinian militants unleashed around 1,100 rockets and mortars into Israel.
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 30 2022 (IPS)* – Most sub-Saharan African French colonies got formal independence in the 1960s. But their economies have progressed little, leaving most people in poverty, and generally worse off than in other post-colonial African economies.
Anis Chowdhury
Decolonization?
Pre-Second World War colonial monetary arrangements were consolidated into the Colonies Françaises d’Afrique (CFA) franc zone set up on 26 December 1945.
For colonies to get ‘independence’, France required membership of Communauté Française d’Afrique (still CFA) – created in 1958, replacing Colonies with Communauté.
The overwrought fear of China and Russia is sold to a Western public through manipulation of the facts.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) pose during their meeting in Beijing, on February 4, 2022. (Photo: Alexei Druzhinin/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images)
23 Aug 2022 – The world is on the edge of nuclear catastrophe in no small part because of the failure of Western political leaders to be forthright about the causes of the escalating global conflicts.
MADRID, Aug 30 2022 (IPS)* – Shortly before the 25 August approval by the Spanish Parliament of the government’s plan to save energy, the country’s right and far-right opposition parties revived their debate about an earlier suggestion of not wearing neckties in the Spanish Congress and Senate and other official institutions.
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“Wildfires – well known for their disastrous consequences in southern Europe – are now occurring as far north as Scandinavia”. Credit: Unsplash/Fabian Jones.
The suggestion was made by Pedro Sanchez, President of the Spanish government, as a way to help save energy.
The idea was that neckties increase the feeling of warmth, now that the country has to face two great problems: energy shortage and unprecedented heatwaves that increase the consumption of electricity and other energy sources.
28 August 2022 (UN News)* — After successfully reclaiming her people’s territory in Northern Argentina, Celestina Ábalos turned to tourism to share and promote her indigenous culture. UN entrepreneurship training during the COVID-19 pandemic helped her business to grow.
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Ivar Velasquez | Indigenous Argentinian tourism entrepreneur Hero photo alt text Celestina Ábalos stands outside her home.
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Indigenous entrepreneur Celestina Ábalos runs a tourism business in the UNESCO World Heritage site of Quebrada de Humahuaca in Jujuy province, northern Argentina, sharing her community’s culture and knowledge of medicinal herbs..“I am a child of Pachamama, Mother Earth. Earth is everything to us. It is life. We cannot conceive of ourselves without her. My community dates back 14,000 years. On behalf of 60 families, I led a 20-year fight for the right to land, education and freedom.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 