From the morgues of Cairo to the cells of Guantanamo, I’ve seen a lot of anguish and cruelty in my human rights work over the years. But often more than blood spilled, it’s the lives stunted, solely because of a person’s identity, that hits the hardest.
Unless donors meet the gap, 60 per cent of the people the agency assists in the Occupied Palestinian Territories will no longer be receiving food assistance in June, the World Food Programme (WFP) announced, adding that by August, the agency will be forced to completely suspend operations in the West Bank and Gaza.
“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” said Samer Abdeljaber, WFP Representative and Country Director in Palestine.
“We have no option but to stretch the limited resources we have to ensure that the needs of the most vulnerable families are met. They will go hungry without food assistance.”
ROME, 11 May 2023 (UNEWA)* — Today, His Holiness Pope Francis received the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini.
The Commissioner-General described the unprecedented challenges facing Palestine Refugees, especially amid a lack of prospect to reach a solution to their plight.
He provided the Pope with an overview on the pressing needs of Palestine Refugees across the UNRWA areas of operation and firsthand testimonies following his recent visits to Syria and Lebanon following the devastating earthquake.
(UN News)*— The UN on Monday [] commemorated for the first time in its history, the mass displacement of Palestinians from land that was to become Israel, 75 years ago, that turned 700,000 Palestinians into refugees, almost overnight.
UN Photo | Barefoot and pushing their belongings in prams and carts, Arab families leave the coastal town of Jaffa which became part of the greater Tel Aviv area in the state of Israel.
The mass displacement in 1948, known as the Nakba (meaning “catastrophe” in Arabic), has an importance to Palestinians across the world, said Rosemary DiCarlo, Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, addressing a high-level event at UN Headquarters in New York, marking the day.
‘The occupation must end’
“The legacy of the event lives on, spearing us to continue our unflagging efforts to find a peaceful and lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” she said, noting that the General Assembly had adopted a resolution in November 2022 for this commemorative day.
(UN News)* — A “silent emergency” that is claiming one million tiny lives born premature each year requires concerted action to swiftly improve children’s health and survival, according to a new report released by UN agencies and partners on .
An estimated 13.4 million babies were born premature in 2020, with nearly a million dying from pre-term complications, according to Born too soon: Decade of action on preterm birth.
Produced by a range of agencies, including the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO), with its Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH), the report outlines a strategy forward to address this phenomenon, which has been long under-recognized in its scale and severity.
But, for hundreds of thousands of women globally, this gratitude only goes so far, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) said on the occasion of Mother’s Day, observed on Sundays (14 May) throughout May.According to recently released data, a woman dies from pregnancy or childbirth every two minutes, with the vast majority of these deaths due to preventable causes like bleeding and infection, the UN reproductive health agency said.
ROME, May 8 2023 (IPS)* – Less than a decade ago, Africa was home to 60-65% of the world’s uncultivated arable land and 10% of renewable freshwater resources, as reported by the African Union in 2016, while concluding that African farmers could feed the world.
Is it still the case?
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Droughts are a growing threat to global food production, particularly in Africa. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS
A major consequence is that that very percentage (60-65%) of the world’s uncultivated and arable land is now affected by degradation, with nearly three million hectares of forest lost… every single year.
What are we to think when governments make every effort to keep their actions secret from their own citizens? We can only conclude that although they may call themselves democracies, such governments are in fact oligarchies or dictatorships.
In a democracy, the citizens must control the actions of their government. If they are unable to do so because those actions are secret, then any claim to democratic government is lost.
Many governments have agencies for performing undercover operations (usually very dirty ones). We can think, for example, of the KGB, the CIA, M5, or Mossad.
How can countries that have such agencies claim to be democracies, when the voters have no knowledge of or influence over the acts that are committed by the secret agencies of their governments?
Nuclear weapons were developed in secret. It is doubtful whether the people of the United States would have approved of the development of such anti-human weapons, or their use against an already-defeated Japan, if they had known that these things were going to happen.
(UN News)* — The UN International Independent Expert Mechanism to Advance Racial Justice in policing, ended a 12-day visit to the United States on Friday [], calling on Washington to boost efforts to promote accountability for past and future violations.
Members of the UN Human Rights Council-appointed delegation said they “felt an urgency, and a moral responsibility, to echo the harrowing pain of victims” and their resounding calls for accountability and support.“We saw some promising initiatives centering the voices of victims and survivors, as well as law enforcement initiatives that could be replicated throughout the United States.
ROME, May 4 2023 (IPS)* – Some days ago in Rome, the Italian taxi driver switched on the radio during a longish ride through the usual traffic jam. Music, gossip, and the hourly news bulletin. All of a sudden, the man strongly hit the steering wheel. “They are stupid, those bastards…,” he shouted.
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Africa is the continent that has contributed the least (just 2 to 3%) to the causes of the current climate emergencies while bearing the brunt of 82% of the devastating consequences. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS
“These useless politicians speak every now and then about the need for solidarity with Africa…, blah, blah, blah,” he added. “But the solution is easy, very easy, even the most stupid can see it.”
According to the taxi driver, “the solution is that the government sends to Africa our retired engineers, agronomists, university professors… to teach Africans how to farm.”
The man was so furious that you would not dare to comment that African farmers already know how to farm… far more than many foreign academicians.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 