19 Mar 2023 – Writing this, I must admit that my rage and pain build up inside, still twenty years later. Below, see what TFF and I wrote back then and why we were, simply put, making better predictions on a shoestring budget than the US and other NATO decision-makers on multi-billion-dollar budgets.
Like other wars and interventions, this was no “mistake”. It was an unavoidable consequence of Western MIRE – Militarism, Imperialism, Racism and Exceptionalism.
The West has learned nothing. Militarism is now its main cohesive force into its manifest destiny: Decline and fall.
President George W. Bush announcing that he has just started the war on Iraq. Listen carefully! All the arguments and aims he presents were either false, mistaken or outright lies. And sanctimonious.
(UN News)* — Urgent support is needed to prevent a slide into poverty and an increase in child labour and hand-to-mouth jobs, following the devastating earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria in February, the International Labour Organization (ILO) said on Tuesday [] in new assessment reports.
Hundreds of thousands of workers in both countries have lost their livelihoods because of the earthquakes, preliminary findings showed in the new ILOassessments of the disaster’s impact on the labour market.
(UN News)* — Top UN officials called for creating a new institution to help locate tens of thousands of missing Syrians and bring peace to their families, as the General Assembly debated on Tuesday [] the human rights situation in the country.
Entering its 13th year of brutal civil war and scrambling to recover from devastating earthquakes in February, Syria and its people “deserve peace” and to know the truth about the fate of their loved ones, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said.
100,000 Syrians missing
“The whereabouts and fate of an estimated 100,000 Syrians remains unknown,” he said. “People in every part of the country and across all divides have loved ones who are missing, including family members who were forcibly disappeared, abducted, tortured, and arbitrarily detained.”
22 March 2023 (UNHCR)* — As needs grow and refugees continue to arrive, UN agencies and partner organizations today appealed for US$116 million to provide life-saving assistance to Somali refugees seeking safety in an extremely remote area of Ethiopia’s Somali region. | Español | Français | عربي
Since hostilities erupted last month in the city of Laascaanood, in the Sool region, Somalia, hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced within Somalia, and close to 100,000 are estimated to have crossed the border into Ethiopia to escape the violence.
Gaining access to hunger hotspots in Port-au-Prince is progress that, without robust donor support, will be tragically undermined, says World Food Programme country director.
A girl waits for her mother to pick up a cash grant at a distribution point near Les Cayes – WFP needs US$125 million to respond over the next six months in Haiti. Photo: WFP/Peyvand Khorsandi
Good news comes with a catch in Haiti. Of course, it’s good news that the 19,200 people who faced ‘famine-like’ conditions in October no longer do. This was against the odds, with the World Food Programme (WFP) working with its implementing partners to reel people back from the brink, gaining access to Cité Soleil.
Hunger levels remain extremely worrying however. This impoverished part of Port-au-Prince, home to around 100,000 people, is where the rivalry of armed gangs, which have overrun most of the capital, regularly finds its most violent expression.
The call for the U.S. to end military involvements is often made in order to advocate for new wars against more powerful countries. It appears that the only choices are forever wars or the end of the world.
Biden vs Xi Jinping
15 Mar 2023 – While the world’s attention is focused on the US proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, 900 US troops continue to occupy Syria, as they have since 2017 , and 2,000 remain stationed in Iraq, 20 years after the US attacked, overthrew its government, and hung its president. Around 500 have been in Somalia since Biden redeployed them in June 2022.
On March 8, the House and Senate Foreign Relations Committees voted for resolutions to repeal the 1991 and 2002 Authorizations of Military Force (AUMFs) against Iraq, but that was hardly a victory for the antiwar community because US troops remain with the acquiescence of the current Iraqi government, and even so, it’s not clear that the House and Senate will pass the resolutions.
UNITED NATIONS, New York, 21 March 2022 (UNFPA)* – In 2021, double disaster struck Haiti when Tropical Storm Grace hit the island nation just two days after it was rocked by a 7.2 magnitude earthquake.
As rain lashed the country’s already damaged infrastructure, midwife Jeffthanie Mathurin remembers contraceptive deliveries getting stuck on the roads – presenting a major challenge for women and girls.
“We noticed this catastrophe increased the risk of more women getting pregnant unintentionally,” she told UNFPA. “The poorest people in the country, such as rural women, face the worst consequences of climate change.”
(UN NEWS)*— Water starts wars, puts out fires, and is key to human survival, but ensuring access for all hinges largely on improving cooperation, according to a new flagship UN report published on Tuesday [21 March 2023].
Launched ahead of the UN 2023 Water Conference, the new edition of the UN World Water Development Report focuses on twin themes of partnerships and cooperation. Published by the UN Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the report highlights collaborative ways actors can work together to overcome common challenges.
“There is an urgent need to establish strong international mechanisms to prevent the global water crisis from spiralling out of control,” said UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay. “Water is our common future, and it is essential to act together to share it equitably and manage it sustainably.”
MADRID, Mar 21 2023 (IPS)* – Shockingly, the human suicidal war on Nature not only continues unabated but is also set to become even more virulent. Just to start with, please be reminded that groundwater accounts for 99% of all liquid freshwater on Earth, according to the 2022 UN World Water Development Report.
“Drop by drop, this precious lifeblood is being poisoned by pollution and drained by vampiric overuse, with water demand expected to exceed supply by 40% by decade’s end” Credit: Bigstock.
And that groundwater already provides half of the volume of water withdrawn for domestic use by the global population, including the drinking water for the vast majority of the rural population who do not get their water delivered to them via public or private supply systems.
(WFP)* — Before the deadly earthquakes on its border with Türkiye, in February, Syria was a largely forgotten crisis – now, as the country marks 12 years of conflict, the unprecedented hardships people continue to face there are thrown into sharp relief.
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A boy in Aleppo amid the rubble of an earthquake-hit building. Many families continue to occupy dangerous structures in Syria. WFP/Jonathan Dumont
More than half of Syria’s population, or 12.1 million people, are food-insecure with a further 2.9 million on the brink of food insecurity. Food and fuel prices are at their highest in a decade.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 