'Unseen' News and Views
(UN News)* — Global hunger levels have skyrocketed because of conflict, climate change and the economic impact of COVID-19; and one in five children around the world is stunted, UN agencies on 12 July 2021 warned.
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This time, it was different. Protests over Israel’s threatened forcible removal of Palestinian residents from East Jerusalem, followed by armed police storming the compound of the Al-Aqsa Mosque; rocket fire from Hamas in Gaza and the latest military onslaught on the Strip, formed a sequence of events that were reported with inputs from a much wider range of sources than in comparable episodes from the recent past.
Jake Lynch
The result was a pattern of coverage, in many international media, which posed a serious challenge to the propaganda lines, elisions and suppressions that have kept the Israeli security state in a privileged position in public discourse over several decades.
The most prominent visual signifier of this shift came when the New York Times used its front page to display photos of all 66 children killed in the ten-day bombardment of Gaza. The paper followed up with in-depth investigations, exposing false claims by Israeli army and government spokespersons that targets for its bombs had any conceivable military role or value.
– ‘No one is protected from the global pandemic until everyone is’ has become a popular mantra. But vaccine apartheid worldwide, due to rich countries’ policies, has made COVID-19 a developing country pandemic, delaying its end and global economic recovery.
Anis Chowdhury
Systemic inequities
Most rich countries have been blocking the developing country proposal to temporarily suspend relevant provisions of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) for the duration of the pandemic to more affordably and effectively contain it.
Needed to quickly scale up production and affordable access to relevant diagnostic tests, medical treatments, personal protective equipment and prophylactic vaccines, the proposal – by South Africa and India in late 2020 – is now supported by more than two-thirds of WTO members.
The Biden administration has reversed Trump’s opposition to the proposal, albeit only for vaccines.
13 July 2021 (Wall Street International)* — Every once in a while, a seductive term comes along to save the fortress of rulers from being taken down by disgruntled ‘subjects’. We’ve had concepts like ‘inclusive’, ‘sustainable’, and ‘participatory’, each hiding what is otherwise business as usual. The latest in this lineage is ‘net-zero’.
Legal scholar Francis A. Boyle told Ann Garrison that a “Responsibility-to-Protect” intervention in Ethiopia would be illegal and catastrophic.
“The NATO nations, and especially the US are hostile to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the government of Ethiopia.”
Ann Garrison: Francis Boyle, you’re an expert in international law, including subsets, international human rights law, and international humanitarian law. Could you explain what international humanitarian law is?
Francis A. Boyle: There is a subset of international human rights law that is called international humanitarian law.
World Youth Skills Day 2021 will again take place in a challenging context due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Some of the delegates at the Intergenerational Dialogue of the Asian Parliamentarians and Youth Advocates on Meaningful Youth Engagement. Credit: APDA
During an interaction with parliamentarians from 23 countries, youth representatives considered an enabling political framework to be the most crucial reform required to remove inequities.
Work together to end preventable deaths from toxic chemicals
7 July 2021 (ILO)* — Millions of workers around the world lose their lives every year or suffer from chronic diseases due to toxic chemicals in the workplace. In a video message to the Berlin Forum on Chemicals and Sustainability, ILO Director-General, Guy Ryder, says global cooperation is needed to end these preventable deaths and illnesses.
While the coronavirus outbreak has forced most gaming and sports activities to scale down, chess has demonstrated remarkable resilience, adaptability and a very strong convening power in time of pandemic.
Over the past few months, the overall interest in chess is reported to have doubled, with more players than ever coming together to participate in chess events that are being increasingly held through online platforms.
– When a Southeast Asian ambassador hosted a lunch for journalists, including reporters from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, he told us there was an ulterior motive for the sumptuous lunch at his residence.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres briefing journalists in a pre-pandemic era. At left is his Spokesman Stéphane Dujarric. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elias
“We will soon begin our two-year term as a non-permanent member of the Security Council – and we need your cooperation (read: news coverage)”.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 