'Unseen' News and Views
(UN News)* — The UN agency serving Palestine refugees (UNRWA) has reached breaking point due to Israeli calls for its abolition and the associated funding freeze, just when it is needed most, said UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini.
– Imperialism continues to dominate the world. Globalisation is losing to some of its anti-theses, but imperialism still rules, increasingly by law, albeit in changing even contradictory ways.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Hence, we live in challenging times. It is often difficult to see the main challenges we face as there seem to be so many. Also, the new or the unusual gains far more attention than what appears commonplace.
Power and empire
Our histories and cultures are often quite different despite our common, but varied experiences of foreign domination, even rule. Such power involves varied mixes of socioeconomic and political relations, involving governance and even the rule of law.
(UN News)* — The UN emergency food relief agency (WFP) warned that Gaza is “hanging by a thread”, calling for urgent access to allow it to reach the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians on the verge of famine.
There are three basic problems with the CIA: its objectives, methods, and unaccountability. Its operational objectives are whatever the CIA or the President of the United States defines to be in the U.S. interest at a given time, irrespective of international law or U.S. law. Its methods are secretive and duplicitous.
Jeffrey D. Sachs
Its unaccountability means that the CIA and president run foreign policy without any public scrutiny. Congress is a doormat, a sideshow.
As a recent CIA Director, Mike Pompeo, said of his time at the CIA: “I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, we stole. We had entire training courses. It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment.”
The CIA was established in 1947 as the successor to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). The OSS had performed two distinct roles in World War II, intelligence and subversion.
The CIA took over both roles.
The International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, August 27, 2018. © 2018 Mike Corder/AP Photo
Lifesaving medical care collapsing under assault in Gaza: World Health Organization.
Fewer than 1-in-10 children in low-income countries have access to child benefits, leaving them vulnerable to disease, education gaps, poor nutrition, poverty and inequality.
GENEVA / NEW YORK (ILO)* –- Globally, 1.4 billion children, aged under 15, lack any form of social protection, leaving them vulnerable to disease, poor nutrition and poverty, according to new data released on 14 February 2024 by the International Labour Organization (ILO), Save the Children and UNICEF.
– Israel continues to defy its strongest backer the US and its western allies in its quest to control the land from the “River to the Sea”, and in the process ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population.
Anis Chowdhury
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is determined to push ahead with a ground offensive against Gaza’s southernmost town of Rafah despite mounting warnings from aid agencies and the international community that an assault on Rafah would be a catastrophe.
He also snubbed the US on the latest hostage release and ceasefire deal brokered by Qatar and Egypt. The interim order of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to take all effective measures to stop “plausible” genocide in Gaza seems irrelevant to Israel.
Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief admits that Netanyahu “doesn’t listen to anyone”.
On February 7, 2024, a U.S. drone strike assassinated an Iraqi militia leader, Abu Baqir al-Saadi, in the heart of Baghdad. This was a further U.S. escalation in a major new front in the U.S.-Israeli war on the Middle East, centered on the Israeli genocide in Gaza, but already also including ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Syria, and the U.S. and U.K.’s bombing of Yemen.
Israeli airstrike on an apartment building in Rafah, the last refuge in southern Gaza, Feb 2024. Photo credit: MENAFN
13 February 2024 (OCHA)* — The scenario we have long dreaded is unraveling at alarming speed.
More than half of Gaza’s population – well over 1 million people – are crammed in Rafah, staring death in the face: They have little to eat, hardly any access to medical care, nowhere to sleep, nowhere safe to go.
They, like the entire population of Gaza, are the victims of an assault that is unparalleled in its intensity, brutality and scope. More than 28,000 people – mostly women and children – have been killed across Gaza, according to the Ministry of Health.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 