Archive for ‘Middle East’

16/07/2025

First Person: How Many More Children Must Die before the World Acts?

Human Wrongs Watch

(UN News)* — The ongoing 21-month-long war in Gaza has seen more than 58,000 killed and 100,000 wounded as Israeli attacks continue amid rising numbers of child deaths from malnutrition.
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Salam, six months old, is screened for malnutrition at an UNRWA medical point in Gaza City.
© UNRWA/Hussein Owda | Salam, six months old, is screened for malnutrition at an UNRWA medical point in Gaza City.

In recent weeks, UN agencies have recorded nearly 900 deaths of desperate and hungry Gazans as they try to collect food – with most linked to private aid hubs run by the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

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16/07/2025

Facts and Myths about Nuclear Materials Trafficking

A Q&A with Robert Kelley, a Distinguished Associate Fellow at SIPRI.

Yellowcake packed in special, tightly sealed steel drums similar in size to oil barrels. Photo: Dean Calma / IAEA
Yellowcake packed in special, tightly sealed steel drums similar in size to oil barrels. Photo: Dean Calma / IAEA
 

In January this year, a nuclear trafficking case made the international news headlines. The United States Department of Justice announced that Takeshi Ebisawa, an alleged Japanese gangster, had pleaded guilty to charges of major narcotics trafficking as well as conspiring to traffic nuclear materials.  

15/07/2025

Nuclear Risks Grow as New Arms Race Looms – SIPRI

World’s nuclear arsenals being enlarged and upgraded 

(Stockholm) The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) on 16 June 2025 launched its annual assessment of the state of armaments, disarmament and international security.

 SIPRI Yearbook 2025 copies stacked on a table, with the cover prominently displaying the title in bold white text on a red background.

SIPRI Yearbook 2025. Photo: SIPRI.

Key findings of SIPRI Yearbook 2025 are that a dangerous new nuclear arms race is emerging at a time when arms control regimes are severely weakened.

Nearly all of the nine nuclear-armed states—the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) and Israel—continued intensive nuclear modernization programmes in 2024, upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions.

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15/07/2025

NATO’s Trillion-dollar Gamble: The Dangers of Defence Without Accountability

Human Wrongs Watch

BRUSSELS, Belgium / MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Jul 14 2025 (IPS)* Donald Trump’s bullying tactics ahead of NATO’s annual summit, held in The Hague in June, worked spectacularly.

Credit: Piroschka Van De Wouw/Reuters via Gallo Images

By threatening to redefine NATO’s article 5– the collective defence provision that has anchored western security since 1949 – Trump won commitments from NATO allies to almost triple their defence spending to five per cent of GDP by 2035.

European defence budgets will balloon from around US$500 billion to over US$1 trillion annually, essentially matching US spending levels.

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14/07/2025

Climate Crisis Tripled Death Toll of Europe’s Latest Heatwave: Greenpeace Calls for Polluters to Pay

Human Wrongs Watch

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14/07/2025

Rich Polluter Profits Tax Could Raise Up to $400 Billion and Help Phase Out Fossil Fuels

Human Wrongs Watch

By Ashfaq Khalfan, Climate Justice Director, Oxfam America*

Mega rich oil, gas and coal companies, described as the Godfathers of climate chaos, are driving humanity to the edge of destruction and earning billions in doing so. For decades, they’ve spread lies and disinformation about the climate crisis and lobbied to create fossil-fuel driven economies.
polluter profits tax
They’ve received billions in government subsidies and as energy prices soared, instead of investing in renewable energy, enriched their shareholders to the tune of $403 billion in 2024 alone.     

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13/07/2025

Transformation to a Healthy Food System Is Blocked by Three Key Barriers

Human Wrongs Watch

By the United Nations Environment Programme*

Nairobi – Despite its critical role in sustaining billions of lives, the global food system fails to deliver for health, rights, and particularly, nature.

Image: Unsplash/Dan Meyers

A report published on 1 July 2025 by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and Chatham House highlights three system barriers – the cheaper food paradigm, market consolidation and investment path dependencies – that must be addressed to meet sustainable development goals.

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13/07/2025

Who Are Climate Migrants? New Data Reveals Stark Socio-Economic Differences in Disaster-Displaced Populations

Human Wrongs Watch

Droughts displace young and poor pastoralists, while wildfires displace older urban residents with higher socio-economic status.
 

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A new study by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) shows the wide range of demographic and socio-economic profiles affected by weather-related displacement worldwide. 

This publication provides first-of-its-kind global insights into the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of communities facing weather-related displacement.

With an estimated 218.6 million internal displacements caused by weather-related disasters over the past decade, the analysis fills a critical data gap by revealing detailed profiles of these populations, including their age, income, education, and livelihoods. 

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13/07/2025

West Bank: Israeli State-Backed Settler Violence Drives Mass Displacement of Palestinian Communities

Human Wrongs Watch

By the Norwegian Refugee Council*

Palestinian communities are being displaced and dispersed across the occupied West Bank as settler violence, backed by Israeli authorities, forces families from their land. One community has just been emptied. Others may soon follow.

Israeli forces sit with sanctioned settler Zohar Sabah (far right) in Muarrajat East. Photo: Aliya Mlihat

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) warns that the recent uprooting of families from Muarrajat East could soon be repeated in Ras Ein al-Auja, where sustained settler attacks and mounting restrictions on water and grazing access are making it nearly impossible for families to remain.

These are not isolated acts.

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13/07/2025

No Fuel, No Aid, No Escape: UN Warns of Looming Collapse in Gaza

Human Wrongs Watch

(UN News)* — The fuel crisis in Gaza has reached a breaking point, threatening to bring all humanitarian operations to a halt and endangering the lives of everyone reliant on aid inside the enclave, UN agencies warned in a powerful joint statement on Saturday [].

People gather to fill containers with clean water from a UNDP distribution truck in Gaza. Fuel supplies are now critically low, threatening to shut down all aid operations.
UN News | People gather to fill containers with clean water from a UNDP distribution truck in Gaza. Fuel supplies are now critically low, threatening to shut down all aid operations.

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