KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Dec 20 2023 (IPS)* –The World Bank insists commercial finance is necessary for achieving economic recovery and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but does little to ensure profit-hungry commercial finance serves the public interest.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
By failing to address pressing challenges within their purview, the second-ever Bretton Woods institutions’ (BWIs) annual meetings on the African continent, in Marrakech in October 2023, set the developing world even further back.
The International Monetary and Financial Committee, which oversees the International Monetary Fund (IMF), could not agree, by consensus, on the usual end-of-meeting ministerial communique for ‘geopolitical’ reasons. The Development Committee, which governs the World Bank Group, fared little better.
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 22 2023 (IPS)* – As the killings of civilians in Gaza rose to over 20,000, the besieged city—which has been virtually reduced to rubble by Israeli bombardments—is also being ravaged by hunger and starvation.
A family cooks a meal in a temporary accommodation in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. Credit: WFP
In new estimates released on December 21, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a global partnership that includes the World Health Organization (WHO), said Gaza is facing “catastrophic levels of food insecurity,” with the risk of famine “increasing each day.”
An unprecedented 93% of the population in Gaza is facing crisis levels of hunger, with insufficient food, and high levels of malnutrition.
(UN News)* — There are no functioning hospitals in the north of Gaza and injured patients who need surgery and cannot be moved are “waiting to die”, the UN health agency said on Thursday [], in a plea for a ceasefire to allow more aid into the shattered enclave.
The latest grave assessment from the World Health Organization (WHO) came after UN teams reached Al Ahli Arab hospital and Al Shifa hospital on Wednesday, amid reports of intensifying ground operations by Israeli Defense Forces and continuing airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, in response to Hamas’s 7 October terror attacks on southern Israel.
Frequently articulated expressions derive from the Greek terms logos and eros, but who has heard of thumos? Why are the root words of logical reasoning and erotic love so familiar while one that drives us to principled action is virtually unknown?
Marilyn Langlois
In her introductory remarks to the first annual David Ray Griffin lecture on 3 December, 2023, writer and researcher Elizabeth Woodworth highlighted the concept of thumos, which she defined as the inability to tolerate injustice without taking action.
She ascribed the term to the late David Ray Griffin, one of the premier intellectuals and courageous truth seekers of our time, whose death a year ago went wholly ignored by major media.
She suggested that those who exert imperial control would prefer we not pay too much attention to thumos or those who exhibit it.
(UN News)* — As the UN Security Council was slated to meet for a third consecutive day on Wednesday [] in a new push for consensus to pause the fighting in Gaza, the head of the UN Children’s Fund UNICEF warned that without safe water, “many more children” will soon die from disease.
“Access to sufficient amounts of clean water is a matter of life and death…children in Gaza have barely a drop to drink,” saidUNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.
“Children and their families are having to use water from unsafe sources that are highly salinated or polluted. Without safe water, many more children will die from deprivation and disease in the coming days.”
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 18 2023 (IPS)* – The unrestrained destruction of Gaza and the disproportionate killings of over 17,000, mostly civilians– in retaliation for 1,200 killings by Hamas and 120 hostages in captivity– have left the Palestinians in a state of deep isolation and weighed down by a feeling of being deserted by the world at large.
People in Rafah city in the Gaza Strip flee a missile attack. Credit: UNICEF/Eyad El Baba
The United Nations and the international community have remained helpless– with UN resolutions having no impact– while American pleas for restrained aerial bombings continue to be ignored by the Israelis in an act of defiance.
The Biden administration is reportedly considering accepting mandatory detention of asylum seekers, one of the demands of Republican Party lawmakers to “secure the border” in exchange for passing the administration’s supplemental aid bill for Ukraine, Israel, and US border enforcement.
The US Immigration and Nationality Act already makes detention mandatory for asylum seekers in expedited removal who are awaiting credible fear of persecution interviews.
(WMO)* — Mountains Matter and the Cryosphere is Critical is the message from the peaks to the valleys to the desert landscape of COP28 in Dubai on International Mountain Day, an annual event on 11 December drawing attention to the importance of our mountain ecosystems to the whole planet.
WMO 2024 Calendar Competition – Niurma Sanchez
Mountains are home to 15% of the world´s population and host about half of the world’s biodiversity hotspots. They provide freshwater to half of humanity.
(UN News)* — Amidst a multitude of global crises and escalating of armed conflicts, small arms and light weapons remain a silent killer, having claimed over 260,000 lives during 2021, amounting to 45 per cent of all violent deaths.
That’s according to Izumi Nakamitsu, High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, who briefed the Security Council on Friday [], quoting the latest figures available.
“This is more than 700 people a day, or one person dying from small arms every two minutes”, she said.
She added that “small arms and light weapons are the weapons of choice in initiating, sustaining and exacerbating conflict, armed violence, terrorism and other forms of organized crime”.
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 15 2023 (IPS)* – Going back to the 1970s, thousands of UN staffers were given legal status opting for permanent residency in the US– after their retirement.
The UN Secretariat building in New York City, where staff of the UN Secretariat carry out the day-to-day work. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elías
But that longstanding privilege now seems to be in jeopardy forcing retirees to return to their home countries uprooting their lives in the US.
The United States Immigration and Nationality Act has for long allowed long-serving UN staff members, who held the traditional G-4 visa status, and who met certain criteria, to apply for Legal Permanent Residency, also known as a “Green Card,” under the “Special Immigrant” category (EB-4), upon separation on retirement.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 