(UN News)* — Rising COVID-19 cases are not only putting further pressure on already stretched health systems and workers but also triggering an “increasing trend of deaths”, World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told journalists at the regular weekly press briefing on Tuesday [12 July 2022].
Unsplash/Yoav Aziz | An uptick in COVID-19 cases in New York prompts people on a busy street to don protective masks.
The writer is Director, Population Division of the United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
School Opens in Weapons Free Zone East of UNMISS”. Credit: UN Photo/Amanda Voisard
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 11 2022 (IPS)* – What does a young girl from Juba, in South Sudan, an 8-year-old boy living in the slums of Mumbai, in India, a young mother from the south of Lima, in Peru, and an 83-year-old man enjoying retirement in the suburbs of Stockholm, in Sweden, have in common?
War was always madness, always immoral, always the cause of unspeakable suffering, economic waste and widespread destruction, and always a source of poverty, hate, barbarism and endless cycles of revenge and counter-revenge. A Freely Downloadable Book
Why Does War Persist?
John Scales Avery
War was always madness, always immoral, always the cause of unspeakable suffering, economic waste and widespread destruction, and always a source of poverty, hate, barbarism and endless cycles of revenge and counter-revenge.
It has always been a crime for soldiers to kill people, just as it is a crime for murderers in civil society to kill people. No flag ha ever been wide enough to cover up atrocities.
But today, the development of all-destroying modern weapons has put war completely beyond the bounds of sanity and elementary humanity.
NATO is the US dominated global war machine whose policy is ‘Full Spectrum Dominance.’ Contrary to its claims, NATO is not a defensive organization but an instrument for US world domination to prevent all challenges to its hegemony. It should have been disbanded in 1991 after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact but instead expanded into fifteen new countries.
Mairead Maguire
Patrick Murphy’s 18 June column in the Irish News entitled ‘Pope’s Comments May Help Avert Global Conflict’ is courageous and challenging.
Courageous in that Ireland (and most of Europe) are caught up in Russia phobia and war propaganda being peddled by our main stream media and military industrial complex.
Murphy quoted Pope Francis as saying that the war was ‘perhaps somehow either provoked or not prevented’. I think this statement hints towards the elephant in the room (NATO/US endless expansion).
MEXICO CITY, Jul 8 2022 (IPS)* – Eduardo Reyes, originally from Puebla in central Mexico, was offered a 40-hour workweek contract by his recruiter and his employer in the United States, but ended up performing hundreds of hours of unpaid work that was not authorized because his visa had expired, unbeknownst to him. | En español
Mexican workers harvest produce on a farm in the western U.S. state of California. The number of temporary agricultural workers from Mexico has increased in recent years in the United States and with it, human rights violations. CREDIT: Courtesy of Linnaea Mallette
Food security caught in the crossfire as people reel from gang violence alongside rising prices, climate shocks and the Ukraine-crisis ripple effect.
Christina fled her home under gunfire but made it to safety in Tabarre, Port-au-Prince, where she receives hot meals from WFP. Photo: WFP/Theresa Piorr
(WFP)* —When Christina woke up after hearing gunshots at 5am on a Monday in May, she decided to hide under her bed to try and keep herself and her unborn baby safe. “I lay flat on my stomach even though I was pregnant,” she says.
“I spent all day hiding under my bed. They spent all day shooting.”
The new chancellor has been employing Mark Fullbrook for three years – and intends to secure the top job.
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Nadhim Zahawi outside 10 Downing Street | Han Yan / Xinhua / Alamy Stock Photo
7 July 2022 (openDemocracy)* — The political ‘playbook’ deployed by the controversial strategy firm Crosby Textor Fullbrook Partners (CTF) to get Boris Johnson into 10 Downing Street three years ago is being used again to turn the newly appointed chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi, into the UK’s next prime minister.
8 July 2022 (Human Rights Watch)* — The European Court of Human Rights issued a historic ruling on July 7 concerning Greece’s illegal and life-threatening practice of pushing boats of asylum seekers back to Turkey.
(UN News)* — The annual UN report on Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC), released on Monday [11 July 2022], details the devastating impact that various forms of conflict had on children around the world in 2021.
The dangers outlined in the report range from conflict escalation, military coups, and takeovers, protracted and new conflicts, as well as violations of international law.
Cross-border conflict and intercommunal violence also impacted the protection of children, especially in the Lake Chad Basin and Central Sahel regions.
The report highlights almost 24,000 verified grave violations against children, an average of some 65 violations every day.
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 11 2022 (IPS)* – India and China, two Asian nuclear powers who are also longstanding rivals embroiled in the geo-politics of the Indian Ocean region, have remained two of the world’s most populous nations accounting for over a billion people each.
Credit: Freepik
But as the world’s population reaches the 8.0 billion mark, come November, India is projected to surpass China. The current numbers stand at 1.44 billion people in China and 1.39 billion in India. But the numbers are expected to change as India races ahead of China.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 