'Unseen' News and Views
Biden’s Misguided Praise for Abusive Policies Disregards Lives Lost
(Human Rights Watch)* — US President Joe Biden and members of the House of Representatives repeatedly scapegoated migrants during both this week’s presidential State of the Union address and during a hearing on the US-Mexico border held by the House of Representative’s Committee on Oversight and Accountability.
San José, 8 February 2023 (IOM)* – Migrant smugglers are using social media and instant messaging applications to promote and provide their illegal services, according to a study published by the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The study found that digital technology has made it easier for migrant smugglers to exchange money, goods, and information. Most of these activities occur on commonly used services and applications rather than on the dark web.
Smugglers use social media and video platforms to promote their services by sharing short videos of successful crossings. Social networks also play a critical role in connecting migrants and smugglers, allowing them to interact and share information. Instant messaging and real-time geolocation technologies facilitate journey planning and execution.
Compassion and Greed: Two Sides of Human Nature
John Scales Avery
Humans are capable of great compassion and unselfishness. Mothers and fathers make many sacrifices for the sake of their families. Kind teachers help us through childhood, and show us the right path. Doctors and nurses devote themselves to the welfare of their patients.
Sadly there is another, side to human nature, a darker side. Human history is stained with the blood of wars and genocides. Today, this dark, aggressive side of human nature threatens to plunge our civilization into an all-destroying thermonuclear war.
Humans often exhibit kindness to those who are closest to themselves, to their families and friends, to their own social group or nation. By contrast, the terrible aggression seen in wars and genocides is directed towards outsiders.
Human nature seems to exhibit what might be called “tribalism”: altruism towards one’s own group; aggression towards outsiders. Today this tendency towards tribalism threatens both human civilization and the biosphere.
(UN NEWS)* — Acts of armed violence targeting schools in Haiti have spiked nine-fold in one year amid rising insecurity and widespread unrest, UNICEF warned on Thursday [].
“Violence continues to take a heavy toll on children’s lives in and around Port-au-Prince, and schools are no longer spared,” said Bruno Maes, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) representative in Haiti. “As children reel from the effects of armed violence, insecurity in Haiti shows no sign of abating.”
“The targeting of schools by armed groups is having an enormous impact on children’s safety, wellbeing and ability to learn,” Mr. Maes said.
(UN News)* — Activists working with sea-rescue charities in Italy should not be criminalized, a UN independent human rights expert said on Thursday [], ahead of a trial against crew members from several non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
Preliminary criminal proceedings opened last May in Sicily against 21 people charged with aiding and abetting illegal immigration in connection with several search-and-rescue missions conducted between 2016 and 2017.
Those accused include four crew members of the Iuventa, a former fishing trawler credited with saving some 14,000 migrant lives in the Mediterranean Sea, and human rights activists from other civilian vessels.
(UN News)* — Africa is currently experiencing an exponential rise in cholera cases, amid a global surge in the disease, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported on Thursday [].
Across the continent, cases in January were 30 per cent higher than for the whole of last year.
Most new infections and deaths have occurred in Malawi, which is facing its worst outbreak in 20 years.
10 countries affected
Overall, 10 African countries are affected by cholera. The waterborne disease causes acute watery diarrhoea and can kill within hours but is easily treatable.
Besides Malawi, cases have been reported in neighbouring Mozambique and Zambia, as well as in Burundi, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Nigeria.
(Jerusalem) 2 February 2023 – Israeli authorities’ actions to seal the family homes in the occupied West Bank of two Palestinians suspected of attacks against Israelis amount to collective punishment, a war crime, Human Rights Watch said today.
In 2021, 396 million people in the region were undernourished and an estimated 1.05 billion people suffered from moderate or severe food insecurity.
Increasingly, food security and nutrition in the urban context will determine progress, or lack thereof, towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goal 2 to eliminate hunger and the World Health Assembly targets on food security and nutrition. ©Chris Steele-Perkins/Magnum Photos for FAO
Bangkok, 14 Januray 2023 (FAO)* – Asia’s cities are growing at such a fast pace that nearly 55 percent of the region’s enormous population is expected to reside in urban areas by 2030, and that will have equally enormous consequences for urban food security and nutrition, according to the main findings of a new report by four United Nations agencies.
(UN News)* — Alarmed by the recent killing and injury of many children in Israel and Palestine, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) voiced an appeal to parties on Monday [] to de-escalate tensions and refrain from violence.
ABUJA, 16 January 2023 (UNICEF)* — Nearly 25 million Nigerians are at risk of facing hunger between June and August 2023 (lean season) if urgent action is not taken, according to the October 2022 Cadre Harmonisé, a Government led and UN-supported food and nutrition analysis carried out twice a year.
UNICEF/UN028425/Esiebo
This is a projected increase from the estimated 17 million people currently at risk of food insecurity. Continued conflict, climate change, inflation and rising food prices are key drivers of this alarming trend.
Food access has been affected by persistent violence in the north-east states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe (BAY) and armed banditry and kidnapping in states such as Katsina, Sokoto, Kaduna, Benue and Niger.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 