SAN FRANCISCO, USA, Jan 15 2024 (IPS)* – Have you heard the one about the U.S. government wanting a “rules-based international order”?
Members of the UN Security-Council gather for a meeting on the maintenance of international peace and security in the Red Sea. 10 January 2024. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elías
It’s grimly laughable, but the nation’s media outlets routinely take such claims seriously and credulously. Overall, the default assumption is that top officials in Washington are reluctant to go to war, and do so only as a last resort.
The framing was typical when the New York Times just printed this sentence at the top of the front page: “The United States and a handful of its allies on Thursday carried out military strikes against more than a dozen targets in Yemen controlled by the Iranian-backed Houthi militia, U.S. officials said, in an expansion of the war in the Middle East that the Biden administration had sought to avoid for three months.”
The headquarters of the International Criminal Court in The Haque, the Netherlands- Credit: Adam Mørk.UNITED NATIONS, Jan 11 2024 (IPS)* — The continued devastation of Gaza by Israel has triggered widespread charges of war crimes, genocide, forced displacement, ethnic cleansing, starvation as a weapon of war and mass killings of civilians – over 22,000 at last count—compared to 1,200 killings by Hamas.
These accusations have prompted growing demands for intervention by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, which has remained silent while its Prosecutor Karim Khan is accused of double standards and playing politics.
The New York-based Foreign Press Association (FPA), which was scheduled to host a zoom discussion later this week, said “with more than 20,000 Palestinians dead, areas of Gaza turned to rubble, ICC prosecutor Karim Khan has yet to investigate either Israel or Hamas for the deaths, on and after 7 October– despite his exemplary hair-trigger speed against (Russian President) Vladimir Putin fo war crimes committed in Ukraine”.
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 5 2024 (IPS)* – The atrocities against Palestinians in a ruthlessly devastated Gaza — with over 21,000 mostly civilian deaths in retaliation to the killings of 1,200 inside Israel —have resurrected a longstanding question: is it time for Palestine to be recognized as a full-fledged UN member state?
A view of the General Assembly Hall as a draft resolution to grant Palestine non-Member Observer State status in the United Nations was introduced. The resolution on the status of Palestine was adopted by a vote of 138 in favour to nine against with 41 abstentions by the 193-member Assembly. 29 November 2012. Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten
(UN News)* — Hospitals and other vital medical infrastructure in Gaza and the West Bank have been attacked nearly 600 times since war erupted in the enclave in response to the Hamas-led terror attack in southern Israel, the UN health agency said on Friday [].
Some 613 people have died within health facilities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 7 October last year – 606 in Gaza and seven in the West Bank – and more than 770 have been injured, according to latest data on healthcare attacks from the World Health Organization (WHO).
HARARE, Jan 4 2024 (IPS)* – It is do or die on the streets of Zimbabwe as homeless families battle for survival solely depending on begging. Such is the life of 69-year-old Gladys Mugabe, who lives with her disabled son in Harare Gardens, a well-known recreational park in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare.
Gladys Mugabe (69) lives with her disabled son in Harare Gardens, a well-known recreational park in the Zimbabwean capital. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS
The US Congress is poised to send $14.3 billion to Israeli militarism—a “genocide tax.” The atrocities are being recorded by drones and by brave Palestinian journalists targeted by the Israeli army. Over 66 journalists have been slain.
Israel fired white phosphorous shells indiscriminately over densely populated areas of Gaza in what amounts to a war crime. Human Rights Watch
26 Dec 2023 – The unstoppable Israeli U.S. armed military juggernaut continues its genocidal destruction of Gaza’s Palestinians. The onslaught includes blocking the provision of “food, water, medicine, electricity and fuel,” openly genocidal orders decreed by Netanyahu and his extreme, blood-thirsty ministers.
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 2 2024 (IPS)* –– When US President Joe Biden lambasted “the largest aerial assault,” which hit “a maternity hospital, a shopping mall and residential areas killing innocent people”, he was not talking of the devastating Israeli attacks on Gaza but criticizing the most recent Russian military assault on Ukraine.
Destruction in Gaza Strip. Credit: UNICEF/Hassan Islyeh
Biden obviously has one yardstick for the Russians and another for the Israelis –displaying sheer hypocrisy and political double standards.
(UN News)* — UN humanitarians repeated dire concerns for civilians caught up in the war in Gaza on Tuesday [], amid reports of continued Israeli bombardment of the southern towns of Deir al Balah, Khan Younis and Rafah, direct clashes on the ground and the firing of rockets overnight by Palestinian armed groups into Israel.
The latest warnings from UN relief agency for Palestinians UNRWA and the UN World Food Programme, WFP, highlighted the threat of starvation and disease in heavily built-up areas, where tens of thousands of people have fled intense bombing campaigns in the enclave’s north and centre.
(UN News)* — In 2024, the UN will once again be at the heart of international efforts to tackle the world’s most urgent challenges, from bolstering the global economy, to supporting climate action and keeping the peace in conflict hotspots.
Whilst we can’t predict what will be making the headlines, we do know that the UN will make full use of its unique convening power, to bring together leaders and decision-makers in the hope of making the world a more peaceful, equitable and prosperous place for all.
(UN News)* —The outbreak of conflict seven months ago in Sudan has led to “a convergence of a worsening humanitarian calamity and a catastrophic human rights crisis”, according to a senior UN official, and the restive region of Darfur has been particularly badly affected.
Close to nine million people need humanitarian assistance and reports suggest that some 4,000 people have been targeted and killed because of their ethnicity.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 