'Unseen' News and Views
Sargassum blooms cause a range of environmental problems, including coastal “dead zones” bereft of aquatic life. Past sargassum outbreaks have been linked to the excessive release of phosphorus and other chemical substances known as nutrients.
Phosphorus and another nutrient, nitrogen, are key ingredients in synthetic fertilizers. They have become increasingly popular in recent decades but can have devastating effects when they enter lakes, rivers and the ocean.
Sa’ada, Yemen. Aftermath of a Saudi airstrikes. Credit: Ghaith Abdul-Ahad
The United States and its Western alliance of ‘forever wars’ since 9/11 were all entered under the pretext of defeating terrorism. Instead, they strengthened the political and military standing of those they aimed to destroy while simultaneously causing unimaginable suffering for millions of civilians, including their own citizens.
UNRWA SITUATION REPORT #71 ON THE SITUATION IN THE GAZA STRIP AND THE WEST BANK, INCLUDING EAST JERUSALEM — January 30, 2024
This elderly woman was marginalized as a ‘witch’ in Southern Nigeria. Her face has been obscured to protect her identity. Credit: Peace Oladipo.
Siddarth Kara’s book exposes the exploitation behind the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Photo Courtesy of Siddharth Kara
“Unspeakable riches have brought the people of the Congo little other than unspeakable pain.” So writes Siddharth Kara in Cobalt Red, How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives. It’s one of the many poetic phrases that make this book easy on the ear but hard on the heart and mind.
There’s pleasure in turning the pages of such finely crafted prose, pain in knowing that, if you have half a heart, you’ll never be able to see your smartphone, laptop, tablet, solar power system, or electric car quite the same way again, that you’ll see blood all over the supply chain that put them in your hand, on your roof, or in your driveway.
A family from the Q’eqchi Mayan indigenous people of Guatemala gathers to share a meal cooked with firewood. Life in many rural areas of Latin America continues to be marked by scarce resources and inequality, in comparison with urban areas. CREDIT: IDB
(UN News)* — War in Sudan is putting the future of its 24 million youngest citizens at risk, the Representative of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in the country has warned.
“Sudan is experiencing a humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions. It’s a living nightmare for children,” Mandeep O’Brien said this week in an interview with UN News.
Nearly 10 months have passed since clashes erupted between the Sudanese Army and a rival group known as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), leaving14 million children in desperate need of lifesaving assistance.
– Contractionary economic trends since 2008 and ‘geopolitical’ conflicts subverting international cooperation have worsened world conditions, especially in the poorest countries, mainly in Africa, leaving their poor worse off.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Conditions and prospects are so bad that two well-known globalisation cheerleaders have appealed to rich nations for urgent action.
Former IMF Deputy Managing Director and World Bank Senior Vice-President, Professor Anne Krueger and influential Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf warn ominously of the dire consequences of inaction.
Deepening stagnation
Following tepid growth after the 2008 global financial crisis, Covid-19 disrupted supply chains worldwide. Then, post-pandemic recovery was disrupted by wars in Ukraine and then Gaza.
Whose Child is This? Whose child is this? Is this child an Iraqi . . . an Israeli . . . a Chechnyan . . . an Afghani . . . a Kurd . . . a Nigerian? Is she or he English, Indonesian, Spanish, Lebanese, Turkish, Congolese, Bosnian, Persian? Does it matter? Is this child not a daughter or son to each of us?
Photo: Courtesy of Dr. Amer Hosin.
Is this child not a human being born of a union of a man and woman whose intimacy, whose passion, whose very breathe yielded a life that sought only to live . . . to enjoy some moments of laughter and delight, some moments of comfort and calm . . . to make yet another life.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 