(UN News)* — The UN trade and development body, UNCTAD, has called for action to curb cryptocurrencies in developing nations, in three policy briefs published on Wednesday [10 August 2022].
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Unsplash/Kanchanara | Digital coin crypto currency.
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Although private digital currencies have rewarded some individuals and institutions, they are an unstable financial asset that can bring social risks and costs, the agency warned.
UNCTADsaid their benefits to some are overshadowed by the threats they pose to financial stability, domestic resource mobilization, and the security of monetary systems.
Cryptocurrencies are an alternative form of payment. Transactions are done digitally through encrypted technology known as blockchain.
10 August 2022 (UN News)* — Dozens of people are said to be missing after a boat of migrants and refugees sank in the Aegean Sea on Wednesday off the Greek island of Karpathos, according to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR.
“Very sad news from the Aegean: Dozens of people are missing after a boat sank off the island of Rhodes this morning (Wednesday),” UNHCR’s office in Greece said in a tweet.
News media reported that the vessel sank at dawn after setting sail from southern Türkiye yesterday, heading for Italy.
“A major search and rescue operation is underway,” said UNHCR.
On International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, World Food Programme agronomist Deborah Suc tells Simona Beltrami she’s lost her shyness for sticking up for others – and the environment.
‘The consequences of climate change are hitting us really hard,’ says Deborah Suc who works for WFP in her native Indigenous community in Guatemala. Photo: WFP/Nelson Pacheco
8 August 2022 (WFP)*— As record hunger sweeps the globe, Indigenous peoples’ communities – who’ve been marginalized and left behind throughout history – remain disproportionately affected by food insecurity and malnutrition.
3 Aug 2022 – “I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous Peoples.”
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So said Pope Francis last week, at a powwow in Alberta, at the start of his “apology tour” across Canada — for the participation of the Catholic Church in the multi-century horror of Native American “residential schools” on this continent, which more accurately might be called concentration camps for 6-year-olds.
This papal mega-apology, while cheered by some, has been widely criticized as little more than a wimpy shoulder-shrug — sorry about that — for a governmental, church-complicit policy, lasting well into the 20th century, of snatching indigenous children from their families and squeezing their culture, if not their life, out of them.
AIsrael launched multiple air strikes on Gaza on August 5, in another eruption of open warfare between Israel and Palestinian militants. The latest attacks come just over a year after hundreds were killed in an intense period of conflict in the territory.
Fatima Shbair/AP/AAP
Israel announced its missile strikes were targeting military leaders of the al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad militant organisation in Gaza. Israel alleged Islamic Jihad forces were making “threatening movements” near the Israeli border.
Israel’s strikes killed two key leaders of Islamic Jihad in Gaza and severely damaged its military capabilities.
MADRID, Aug 8 2022 (IPS)* – Nothing –or too little– has changed since Hollywood started producing its spectacular western movies. Rough men, ranchers, mercenary killers, saloons, cowboys, guns, gold fever, the ‘good sheriff’… and the ‘bad indians”. Those movies were anything but fiction–they were real history.
Add to this mix, the deeply-rooted, widely dominating culture of the so-called “white supremacy.”
The female guardians of Venezuela’s Imataca Forest Reserve | An FAO-GEF project, which also aims to increase gender equality in the forestry sector, has continued supporting the Kariña women in actively leading the development of their territories and the conservation of the area’s biodiversity. Credit: FAO
MADRID, Aug 3 2022 (IPS)* – Human beings have proved to be capable of producing innumerable practical inventions while much too often making the worst use of them. Take the case, per example, of how criminal groups heavily rely on digital platforms to trap and enslave their victims also for extracting and selling their organs.
Venezuelan migrant Manuela Molina (not her real name) was promised a decent job in Trinidad, but minutes after her arrival she was forced into a van and taken to a secret location. Credit: IOM Port of Spai
Yes, technology now dominates most of human activities and, surprisingly enough, it is now presented as the perfect life-saving solution for the smallest and poorest households worldwide. Simply, it has replaced the precious human knowledge, which has been acquired over thousands of years.
In April 1965, U.S. President Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) explained why he was escalating US involvement in Vietnam. With an Orwellian touch, LBJ titled the speech “Peace without Conquest”as he announced the beginning of US air attacks on Vietnam. He explained that,
“We must fight if we are to live in a world where every country can shape its own destiny and only in such a world will our own freedom be secure… we have made a national pledge to help South Vietnam defend its independence and I intend to keep that promise. To dishonor that pledge, to abandon the small and brave nation to its enemies and the terror must follow would be an unforgivable wrong.”
Johnson further explained,
“We are also there to strengthen world order… To leave Vietnam to its fate would shake the confidence of all these people in the value of an American commitment and in the value of America’s words.”
(UN News)* — The World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Tuesday [2 August 2022] that the Greater Horn of Africa is experiencing one of the worst hunger crises of the last 70 years.
More than 37 million people are facing acute hunger, with approximately seven million children under the age of five acutely malnourished in the region.
While finding food and safe water is the absolute priority, WHO said that ensuring a strong health emergency response is needed to avert preventable disease and deaths.
Frontex Aerial Surveillance Facilitates Return to Abuse in Libya.
Reconstruction of the July 30, 2021, interception facilitated by Frontex drone. In addition to the track of the Frontex drone, the map shows the track of Seabird (a Sea-Watch airplane) that witnessed the interception. It also shows the NGO vessel Sea Watch 3 in the vicinity. There is no vessel tracking data for the Libyan Coast Guard patrol boat Ras Jadir or the intercepted vessel. Map courtesy of Border Forensics.
1 August 2022 (Human Rights Watch)*— “We didn’t know it was the Libyans until the boat got close enough and we could see the flag. At that point we started to scream and cry. One man tried to jump into the sea and we had to stop him. We fought off as much as we could to not be taken back, but we couldn’t do anything about it,” Dawit told us.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 