'Unseen' News and Views
(UN News)* — Mass evacuation orders issued by the Israeli military to the people of Gaza continue to push them “into ever smaller areas” amid “ever-intensifying violence” in likely violation of international humanitarian law, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said on Friday [].
(UN News)* — Women and children account for roughly 70 per cent of people killed in the war in Gaza, with two mothers killed every hour since hostilities erupted more than 100 days ago, according to a UN Women report published on Friday [19 January 2024].
© UNRWA/Ashraf Amra | Displaced Palestinians collect food at a distribution point near a school-turned-shelter in Gaza.
The report examines the gendered impact of the conflict, which has left more than 23,000 Palestinians dead, according to Gazan health authorities, about 16,000 of whom are women or children.
(UN News)* — Babies are being “delivered into hell” in Gaza with many others likely dying as a result of conflict with Israel and increasingly dire conditions in the enclave, UN humanitarians warned on Friday [].
Credit: Oxfam
In a new report released January 15, Oxfam says the wealth of the world’s five richest men has doubled since 2020 –even as five billion people were made poorer in a “decade of division.”
(UN News)* — The world enters 2024 with soaring cases of cholera globally, with over 667,000 cases and more than 4,000 deaths last year, UN agencies have reported.
Eastern and southern African nations are among the worst affected, accounting for about 75 per cent of the fatalities and a third of the cases, as of 15 January, according to UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
With the regions also suffering from lack of adequate clean water and sanitation, and poor case management, children are particularly vulnerable as the outbreaks spread rapidly.
Principled Diplomacy Critical to Uphold Human Rights Framework
(New York) – Global leaders have failed to take strong stands to protect human rights during 2023, a year of some of the worst crises and challenges in recent memory, with deadly consequences, Human Rights Watch on 11 January 2024 said in its World Report 2024.
| Ed HawkinsJaffna, Sri Lanka,12 January 2024 (IOM)* – It is a sunny day and Selvan is heading out on his motorcycle to buy groceries from a nearby shop. The direct sunlight disturbs him, making it hard to concentrate on the road.
Selvan, 47, was one of the 303 Sri Lankan migrants who smugglers abandoned at sea for 28 days. Photo: IOM 2023/Anushma Shrestha
His vision blurs, the panic grows: he is back on a sinking ship packed with more than 300 other people, pounded by relentless waves, struggling to control his body. Steering his motorcycle through Jaffna, heart pounding, Selvan, 47, struggles for breath, overwhelmed by the primal fear of drowning.
– World Bank aid encourages governments to enable illicit financial outflows to offshore tax havens by reducing capital controls, thus draining precious foreign exchange and government resources.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Aiding elite wealth
Aid disbursements to highly aid-dependent countries coincide with sharp increases in bank deposits in offshore financial centres known for banking secrecy and private wealth management.
Using Bank for International Settlements (BIS) data, Jørgen Juel Andersen, Niels Johannesen and Bob Rijkers found trends suggesting wealth accumulation abroad by national elites coinciding with World Bank aid disbursements.
Capital outflows follow aid inflows apparently captured by ruling politicians, bureaucrats and their cronies. In the 22 most World Bank aid-dependent countries, aid disbursements coincide “with increased deposits in foreign bank accounts in tax havens”.
(UN News)* — The imminent execution of an American prisoner by a new and untested method – suffocation by nitrogen gas – could amount to torture, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, warned on Tuesday [16 January 2024].
.
© UNICEF/Josh Estey | Photograph of a prison. (file)
Kenneth Eugene Smith was convicted of murder in 1988 and is scheduled to be executed on 25 January in the southern state of Alabama.
This will mark the first time in the US that a person will be put to death using nitrogen gas.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 