Human Wrongs Watch
By Human Rights Watch*
Two Years into Program, Thousands Face Violence, Trauma, Uncertainty
08/01/2021
US: ‘Remain in Mexico’ Harms Children, Families
08/01/2021
Storming of Capitol Hill Reminiscent of a Banana Republic
Human Wrongs Watch
– The storming of Capitol Hill in Washington DC by an unruly mob is reminiscent of an insurrection in a “banana republic” –as hilariously portrayed in the 1971 Woody Allen comedy “Bananas” spoofing a revolt in a fictional Latin American country.
But judged by the disastrous four-year administration of President Trump such a description is an insult to all banana republics.
US President Donald Trump at a meeting of the Security Council. Credit: United Nations
Trump’s presidency has been characterized by misgovernment, corruption, lies, xenophobia, nepotism, arrogance, and ultimately, contempt for the country’s democratic electoral process.
For long, America has been the world’s self-appointed cop ousting dictatorships and overthrowing authoritarian regimes (read: Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan), upholding human rights and preaching peace – even while selling millions of dollars in weapons to conflict-ridden countries.
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08/01/2021
Returning ‘Heroes’: Filipino Migrant Workers Met with a Devastated Economy
COVID-19 has exposed deep-seated cracks in the Philippines’ export-based and remittance-dependent economy.
Filipino Market in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia. | CC BY-SA 4.0
7 January 2021 (openDemocracy)* — Filipino healthcare workers have found themselves thrust to the frontlines of the pandemic to care for the most vulnerable across the globe. The Philippines is one of the world’s leading labour-sending countries, facilitating the migration of an estimated 2.2 million overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) during the period April to September 2019.
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08/01/2021
Brazil: Bolsonaro Cancels Purchase of Syringes for Vaccination
A health worker prepares to administer a dose of Chinese CoronaVac vaccine, Sao Paulo, Brazil, Dec. 20, 2020. | Photo: Twitter/ @mlnangalama
07/01/2021
The Face of Things to Come
Human Wrongs Watch
By Walden Bello*
The storming of Capitol shows America has entered the Weimar Era
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The storming of Capitol Hill | Image from Wall Street International.
7 January 2021 (Wall Street International)* — By mid-February 2021, American deaths from Covid-19 may well surpass the country’s 405,400 deaths during the Second World War.
By around mid-May, more Americans will have died from Covid-19 than during the Civil War, which killed 655,000, and the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, when 675,000 are estimated to have perished.
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07/01/2021
Is the COVID-19 Vaccine a Potential Biological Weapon in Reverse?
Human Wrongs Watch
Meanwhile,” the COVID-19 pandemic has worsened the already dire humanitarian and socio-economic situation” Secretary-General António Guterres said at a meeting online last November, marking the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.
Patients arrive at a health centre in Gaza. Credit: UNRWA
– If the coronavirus is not deemed a biological weapon, is the heavily-publicized Covid-19 vaccine in danger of being weaponized when over 159,000 Palestinians who have tested positive in Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) are being denied treatment during a deadly pandemic?
The London-based human rights organization Amnesty International (AI) says Israel’s vaccine roll-out plan excludes the nearly 5 million Palestinians who live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip under Israeli military occupation.
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07/01/2021
2020: The Year That Was
‘Lockdown’ was declared by Collins Dictionary as the Word of the Year for 2020.
Looking back, the world will remember 2020 as the year that disrupted our present-day lives: most of us were locked up for months and doing everything from home, unable to see and be with friends and loved ones, when everyone wore masks, scrubbed our hands with soap or alcohol, and practiced social distancing. Many felt worried and anxious about the uncertainties that came with lockdown living.
Australia’s bushfires. © Kiran Ridley / Greenpeace
But amidst a raging pandemic, humanity was not spared from a much bigger threat. While some were feeling safe and secure in their homes, thousands of people were fighting for their survival against a raging climate.
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07/01/2021
Liberee’s Story: Genocide Survivor Now Works for World Food Programme as a Monitor Helping Burundian Refugees
Human Wrongs Watch
By Livia Hengel*
As a child, she received emergency nutritional support from the World Food Programme where she is now a monitor helping Burundian refugees
Liberee Kayumba, a survivor of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, has seen the horrors of war first-hand. She was only 12 years old when she lost her parents and brothers in the genocide – a trauma that was further compounded by the immediate risk of starvation.
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07/01/2021
Record-Breaking 2020 Ozone Hole Closes after an Exceptional Season Due to Occurring Meteorological Conditions, and the Continued Presence of Ozone Depleting Substances in the Atmosphere
Human Wrongs Watch
6 January 2021 (WMO)* — The record-breaking 2020 Antarctic ozone hole finally closed at the end of December after an exceptional season due to naturally occurring meteorological conditions and the continued presence of ozone depleting substances in the atmosphere.
The 2020 Antarctic ozone hole grew rapidly from mid-August and peaked at around 24.8 million square kilometres on 20 September 2020, spreading over most of the Antarctic continent.
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06/01/2021
Is High Tech a Danger to Humanity?
Human Wrongs Watch
Oh, Lord won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz.
My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends.
Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends.
So, oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz.
Janis Joplin, 1970
James Dean accident.
– COVID-19 has made several of us aware of the frailty of our bodies, the certainty of death and how valuable health, companionship and compassion are. Such insights are not uncommon in poor societies where a person’s main and perhaps only asset is her/his body and what s/he is able to do with her/his hands.
However, wealthy and privileged people are surrounded by, dependent on, and even integrated with an ever more sophisticated technology, which increasingly, for better or worse, is separating us from what human existence has been for thousands of years.
Once technology has made its entry into the human sphere; from fire and wheels, to printing presses, trains, radio, aircraft, TV, the Intranet, sophisticated weaponry and … cars, everyone’s life, even unprivileged ones, has changed to an extent that it is difficult to fathom. For example, cars were invented as an effective and comfortable means of transport, but they soon became so much more.
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HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 