(UN News)* — The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) appealed on Tuesday [] for $1.6 billion to fund core operations this year, as the people it helps face hitting “rock bottom”.
Head of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, told journalists in Geneva that competing global crises, and skyrocketing levels of poverty and unemployment among Palestine refugees, have put immense strain on them – and the agency – which started the year some $70 million in arrears.
“On the one hand we are asked to deliver public-like services to one of the most under-privileged communities in the region. We obviously are a UN agency (and) abide by UN values, but in reality, we are funded like an NGO, meaning that we depend on voluntary funding from Member States.”
Child survival crisis remains acute in flood-affected areas as rates of respiratory infections and severe acute malnutrition soar
UNICEF/UN0730486/BashirA woman holds her daughter as she stands in floodwaters in Sindh Province, Pakistan.
ISLAMABAD, 9 January 2023 (UNICEF)* – More than four months after a national state of emergency was declared in Pakistan, up to 4 million children are still living near contaminated and stagnant flood waters, risking their survival and wellbeing, UNICEF warned today.
MADRID, Jan 20 2023 (IPS)* – As if the 100 billion dollars that the United States has so far provided to Ukraine in both weapons and aid were not enough, the US has now started to install in Europe its brand new, more destructive nuclear warheads.
War damage in Borodianka, Kyiv Oblast. Photo: Oleksandr Ratushniak / UNDP Ukraine
The US 100 billion dollars are to be added to all the weapons and aid that 40 Washington’s ‘allies’ –Europe in particular– have been sending to Ukraine since it was invaded by Russia in February 2022.
The US spending on the Ukrainian war in less than a year amounts to the desperately needed funding that the United Nations require to partially alleviate some of the horrifying suffering of over one billion human beings over two long years.
“These are the basic lines of the national government headed by me: The Jewish people have an exclusive and unquestionable right to all areas of the Land of Israel. The government will promote and develop settlement in all parts of the Land of Israel–in the Galilee, the Negev, the Golan, Judea and Samaria.”
— Benjamin Netanyahu, 30 Dec 2022
Richard Falk
Anyone with but half eye open during the last several decades should by now be aware of the existence of an undisclosed Zionist Long Game that preceded the establishment of Israel in 1948, and remains currently very much alive. It aims at extending Israeli sovereignty over the whole of Occupied Palestine, with the probable exception of Gaza, excluded for demographic and biblical reasons.
The significance of Netanyahu’s public affirmation of this previously secretive long game is that it may be reaching its final phase, with him presiding over the far right governing coalition that is poised to pursue closure.
Should it matter that Netanyahu’s claim of exclusive Israel’s supremacy on behalf of the Jewish people over the whole of the promised land is in direct defiance of international law?
Geneva, 17 January 2022 (IOM)* – The number of migrants irregularly crossing into Panama after embarking on the perilous Darien Gap route reached a record in 2022, nearly doubling the figures of the previous year. According to the Panamanian government, nearly 250,000 people crossed into the country compared to some 133,000 in 2021.
People who embark on this route are exposed to the dangers of the jungle, the weather and the terrain, as well as people smugglers and organized crime. Photo: IOM
“The stories we have heard from those who have crossed the Darien Gap attest to the horrors of this journey,” said Giuseppe Loprete, Chief of Mission at the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Panama. “Many have lost their lives or gone missing, while others come out of it with significant health issues, both physical and mental, to which we and our partners are responding.”
SAN FRANCISCO, USA, Jan 13 2023 (IPS)* – The current notion of a “moderate Republican” is an oxymoron that helps to move the country rightward. Last week, every one of the GOP’s so-called “moderates” voted to install House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who won with the avid support of Donald Trump and got over the finish line by catering to such fascistic colleagues as Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert.
US President Joseph R. Biden addresses the general debate of the General Assembly’s seventy-seventh session in September 2022. Credit: UN Photo/Cia Pak
Recent news reports by many outlets — including the Washington Post, USA Today, The Hill, Bloomberg, CNN, NBC, Reuters, HuffPost and countless others — have popularized the idea of “moderate Republicans” in the House. The New York Times reported on “centrist Republicans.” But those “moderates” and “centrists” are actively supporting neofascist leadership.
GENEVA, 12 January 2023 (WMO)* – The past eight years were the warmest on record globally, fueled by ever-rising greenhouse gas concentrations and accumulated heat, according to six leading international temperature datasets consolidated by the World Meteorological Organization.
The average global temperature in 2022 was about 1.15 [1.02 to 1.27] °C above the pre-industrial (1850-1900) levels. 2022 is the 8th consecutive year (2015-2022) that annual global temperatures have reached at least 1°C above pre-industrial levels, according to all datasets compiled by WMO.
(UN News)* — Although West Africa and the Sahel continues to face unprecedented security challenges, it is still “a land of immense opportunities”, a senior UN official told the Security Council on Tuesday [].
In her briefing, Giovanie Biha, Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Officer-in-Charge of the UN Office for the region, UNOWAS, urged ambassadors to continue to support a strategy centred on building resilience,
promoting good governance, and strengthening peace and security.Ms. Biha presented the latest UNOWAS report covering trends and developments over the past six months.
(London) – The United Kingdom government repeatedly sought to damage and undermine human rights protections in 2022, Human Rights Watch said today [12 January 2023] in its World Report 2023. “In 2022, we saw the most significant assault on human rights protections in the UK in decades,” said Yasmine Ahmed, UK director at Human Rights Watch.
(UN News)* — Recent Biden Administration border policy reforms “risk undermining the basic foundations of international human rights and refugee law”, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, said on Wednesday
Taking aim at the expected rise in so-called “expedited removals” from the United States, Mr. Türk also criticised the intention to use the COVID pandemic-related Title 42 public health order even more than today.
Fast-track expulsion
The move will permit the “fast-track expulsion to Mexico” of 30,000 Venezuelans, Haitians, Cubans and Nicaraguans each month, the UN rights chief maintained.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 