BAE among arms firms paying Ministry of Defence staff’s salaries while winning lucrative contracts.
Nine officials at the Ministry of Defence are paid by the UK’s biggest arms firm. | Russell Hart / Alamy Stock Photo.
28/09/2022
UN Chief Calls for an End to ‘Nuclear Blackmail’ and Risk of ‘Humanitarian Armageddon’
Human Wrongs Watch
(UN News)* — In an era of “nuclear blackmail”, UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Monday [26 September 2022] urged countries to step back from the threat of potential global catastrophe and recommit to peace.
“Nuclear weapons are the most destructive power ever created. They offer no security — just carnage and chaos. Their elimination would be the greatest gift we could bestow on future generations,” he said.
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26/09/2022
Of the Mexican Joke and the Nuclear Top Guns
Human Wrongs Watch
– A Mexican joke goes: “I kill people for money. But you are my best friend, so I will kill you for nothing.”
Nuclear Test. Credit: United Nations
This seems to be the dominating thinking of the five permanent members of the so-called Security Council, who, according to their own definition, hold the “primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.”
“The Security Council takes the lead in determining the existence of a threat to the peace or act of aggression,” they say, while calling upon parties to a dispute to settle it “by peaceful means.”
Nevertheless, they self-attribute the strange right to launch wars. “In some cases, the Security Council can resort to imposing sanctions or even authorise the use of force to maintain or restore international peace and security.”
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23/09/2022
A World of One Billion Empty Plates
Human Wrongs Watch
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Ten of the world’s worst climate hotspots have suffered a 123 percent rise in acute hunger over just the past six years, according to a new report from Oxfam. Credit: FAO
If instead, you are among the 550 million plus Africans who suffer moderate hunger (40 percent of the continent’s total population of 1.300 plus) or severe hunger (some 300 million or 24 percent of all Africans), your answer would be that you will likely –or surely– go to bed hungry… also today.
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23/09/2022
The Swedish Elections: A Victory for Populism
Human Wrongs Watch
– After general elections on the 12th September, Sweden is on the threshold of a new era. The Sweden Democrats (SD) won almost 21 percent of the votes and thus became the largest in a bloc of right-wing parties that now have a collective majority in the parliament.
A nation that for a long time prided itself of being a beacon of tolerance and openness will now experience a historical transformation. The Sweden Democratswas once founded by Nazi sympathisers and for decades shunned by mainstream politicians.
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23/09/2022
Sahel Security Crisis ‘Poses a Global Threat’
Human Wrongs Watch
(UN News)* — Rising insecurity, including the proliferation of terrorist and other non-State armed groups, coupled with political instability, is creating a crisis in the Sahel that poses a “global threat”, the UN chief warned Thursday’s [22 September 2022] high level meeting on the vast African region, which took place behind closed doors at UN Headquarters in New York.
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“If nothing is done, the effects of terrorism, violent extremism and organized crime will be felt far beyond the region and the African continent”, said Secretary-General António Guterres, in his remarks issued by his Spokesperson’s Office.
“A coordinated international breakthrough is urgently needed. We must rethink our collective approach and show creativity, going beyond existing efforts.”
23/09/2022
Ethiopia: ‘Civilians Again Mired in Intractable and Deadly War’
Human Wrongs Watch
(UN News)* — Ethiopia’s people are once again “mired…in the intractable and deadly consequences” of conflict between Government troops and forces loyal to Tigrayan separatist fighters, who are all likely responsible for war crimes, top rights investigators said on Thursday [22 September 2022].
In their first, extensive report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva, the International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia said that they believed that crimes against humanity had also been committed in the on-off war that erupted in the northern region in November 2020.
23/09/2022
Famine Looms in Somalia, But Many ‘Hunger Hotspots’ Are in Deep Trouble
Human Wrongs Watch
(UN News)* — The number of people facing life-threatening levels of hunger worldwide without immediate humanitarian aid, is expected to rise steeply in coming weeks, the UN said on Wednesday [21 September 2022] in a new alert about looming famine in the Horn of Africa and beyond.
In Somalia, “hundreds of thousands are already facing starvation today with staggering levels of malnutrition expected among children under five,” warned the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP).
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22/09/2022
Myanmar Spiralling ‘from Bad to Worse, to Horrific’
Human Wrongs Watch
(UN News)* — Since the Myanmar military launched its “disastrous” coup last year, UN-appointed independent human rights expert Tom Andrews said on Wednesday [21 September 2022] that conditions have worsened, “by any measure”.
“With each report I have warned that unless UN Member States change course in the way they collectively respond to this crisis, the people of Myanmar will suffer even further,” he told the Human Rights Council in Geneva, saying that conditions have “gone from bad to worse, to horrific for untold numbers of innocent people in Myanmar”.
Mr. Andrews presented a grim assessment of 1.3 million displaced people; 28,000 destroyed homes; villages burned to the ground; more than 13,000 children killed as the death toll for innocent people rises significantly; a looming food crisis; and 130,000 Rohingya in de facto internment camps while others suffer deprivation and discrimination rooted in their lack of citizenship.
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20/09/2022
Why Are Politicians Able to Read – and Understand – Some Texts and Not Others?
Human Wrongs Watch
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Between 2010 and 2020 the number of state-based armed conflicts roughly doubled (to 56), as did the number of conflict deaths, finds new report. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS
Such studies are promptly submitted to politicians, both directly and through hundreds of summits, conferences, forums and meetings.
Are they just unable to read and understand these texts?
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HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 