'Unseen' News and Views
(UN News)* — As Lebanon mourns the victims of a wave of Israeli airstrikes believed to have left hundreds dead, UN humanitarians warned on Tuesday [] against a return to the “dark days of 2006” when full-scale war broke out, calling for an urgent de-escalation and the protection of civilians.
Power is the ability to make people, states, movements, organizations, or things do what they would not otherwise have done. It is a matter of fact that politics is seen to be about might rather than right.
Power in Politics
It can be said that, in essence, politics is power or, in other words, the ability of some international actor to get the desired results of his/her political behavior by using whatever instruments (legal or not, moral or not, etc.).
23 September 2024 — The richest 1 percent have more wealth than the bottom 95 percent of the world’s population put together, new Oxfam analysis of UBS data reveals today ahead of the annual UN High-Level General Debate.
A boy sits amid scenes of destruction in Macomia town after it was hit by tropical cyclone Kenneth, which made landfall in Cabo Delgado province in Northern Mozambique, on 25th April 2019. Photo: Tommy Trenchard/Oxfam
Billionaires are exerting new levels of control over economies, with a billionaire either running or the principal shareholder of more than a third of the world’s top 50 corporations. The combined market capitalization of these corporations is $13.3 trillion.
– Bangladesh’s White Paper committee will review foreign loan deals signed by the fallen kleptocratic regime.
Anis Chowdhury
We recommend that it identifies and declares the loans or portions of loans that did not benefit the nation as unpayable, because they were siphoned off the country by corrupt politically powerful elites, or worse used to buy deadly weapons and surveillance equipment to oppress people.
Such loans are “odious” – they stink and are detestable.
It is not clear if sufficient courage will be summoned to even include the loans from the international organisations and significant and powerful donor countries.
However, this is vital as nearly 45% of Bangladesh’s debt is owed to multilateral organisations, such as the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), whereas about 27% of the total loans is from bilateral donor countries, such as Japan and European Union.
– The United Nations, over the last year, has been relentlessly promoting the upcoming Summit of the Future – scheduled for September 22-23—as a landmark event.
And rightly so.
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But, surprisingly, the provisional list of speakers, released early this week, reflects notable absentees for a high-level summit– the five permanent members (P5) of the Security Council — whose representatives do not include any head of state (HS) or head of government (HG).
(UN News)* — Last October’s terror attacks by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups on Israeli communities marked a devastating day for children, and the suffering has continued unabated, a senior UNICEF official said on Thursday [].
(UN News)* — The United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday [] voted overwhelmingly to adopt a resolution that demands that Israel “brings to an end without delay its unlawful presence” in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Joseph Loree, who lives in the oil-rich Lokichar area of Turkana in northern Kenya, keeps a few goats due to frequent droughts. Governments in the Global South are spending billions of dollars subsidising industries harming the climate, such as the one in Lokichar. Credit: Maina Waruru/IPS
Washington’s military interventions are not just wars on people — they’re also wars on the planet’s climate.
U.S. combat soldier in the rubble at one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces in Baghdad, 24 Apr 2003. (U.S. Air Force, Cherie A. Thurlby, National Archivers, Public domain)
13 Sep 2024 – This week marks 23 years since George W. Bush declared a U.S.-led “war on terror” and the people of Afghanistan and Iraq are still suffering its consequences.
(UN News)* — Some of the world’s poorest countries spend more on debt repayments than health, education and infrastructure combined, severely hampering their chances of developing their economies.
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“The international financial architecture, crafted in 1945 after the Second World War, is undergoing a stress test of historic proportions – and it is failing that test”, argues UN Secretary-General António Guterres in a 2023 policy brief.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 