'Unseen' News and Views
ALEPPO, Syrian Arab Republic, 4 August 2023 (UNFPA)* – “My suffering started with the crisis in Syria, then the economic situation got worse, and the last straw was the earthquake.”
(UN News)* — The UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, voiced concern on Tuesday [] over the situation in Mexico, where refugees and migrants aspiring to get to the United States find themselves in cramped shelters, exposed to multiple risks.
At a press conference in Geneva, agency spokesman William Spindler pointed out that “the capacity to receive and provide assistance to refugees and migrants has been exceeded for months” in that border area.
“The humanitarian situation on the Mexican side of the US-Mexico border continues to be serious,” he stressed, explaining that families with young children arrive there distraught and disoriented.
(UN News)* — Record numbers of migrants are crossing the Darién jungle in Latin America in a desperate and perilous journey, including from as far off as Nepal and Afghanistan, UN agencies said on , highlighting the urgency of finding safe and regular pathways.
Belet Weyne, 8 August 2023 (IOM)* – Zamzan knows the devastation of climate shocks all too well. First, drought pushed her to move away from the place she had called home for years, then flooding swept away the new home she’d just begun to build for herself and her family.
(UN News)* — The global average temperature for July 2023 was the highest on record and likely for at least 120,000 years, the UN weather agency and partners said on Tuesday [].
“The global average temperature for July 2023 is confirmed to be the highest on record for any month,” said Samantha Burgess, Deputy Director at the European Commission’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. The month is estimated to have been around 1.5C warmer than the average for 1815 to 1900, so the average for pre-industrial times.”
Briefing journalists in Geneva, Ms. Burgess noted that July had been marked by heatwaves “in multiple regions around the world”.
GENEVA, 27 July 2023 (UNICEF)* – Around half of children in Europe and Central Asia – or 92 million – are exposed to high heatwave frequency, according to an analysis of the latest available data from 50 countries published today by UNICEF in a new policy brief.
This is double the global average of 1 in 4 children exposed to high heatwave frequency.
Close to 300 cases have been reported so far this year, nearly the total number registered for all of 2022, and three times more than 2021.
PORT-AU-PRINCE/PANAMA CITY/NEW YORK, 7 August 2023 (UNICEF)* –The ongoing violence in Haiti continues to threaten the well-being of children and women. The latest reports received by UNICEF reveal an alarming spike in kidnappings, with nearly 300 cases confirmed in the first six months of 2023, almost matching the total number documented for the entire previous year, and close to three times more than in 2021.
(UN News)* — The threat of famine, with people slowly starving to death, must be considered a red line for international peace and security, the UN Famine Prevention and Response Coordinator said on Thursday [], warning that warring groups deliberately use hunger as a tactic of war.
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Globally, over 250 million people suffered acute hunger in 2022, the highest in recent years, with about 376,000 people facing famine-like conditions in seven countries – all affected by armed conflict or extreme levels of violence. Another 35 million people are on the edge, Reena Ghelani said.
2 August 2023 (WMO)* — Record-breaking rainfall induced by tropical cyclones has caused devastation and casualties in the Chinese capital Beijing and the surrounding province of Hebei, prompting a major relief and rescue operation. Other Asian countries have also been hit.
Beijing recorded its heaviest rainfall over the past few days since records began 140 years ago.
It logged 744.8 millimeters of rain, the maximum amount of precipitation recorded during the rainstorm, between 8 p.m. on Saturday 29 July and 7 a.m. Wednesday 2 August at a city reservoir, according to the Beijing Meteorological Service in a report cited by the Xinhua News Agency.
Intelligence or… what? What are AI possibilities, vis-a-vis its human counterpart? A new human master?
You be the judge.
Freepik
It is claimed that ChatGPT does not have access to the Internet but I find this incongruent. Therefore, this piece assumes that AI depends on the Web in the same way that a microorganism needs a body to survive and grow, possibly eventually killing it.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 