'Unseen' News and Views
(UN News)* — COVID-19 continues to demonstrate how quickly “an infectious disease can sweep across the world”, pushing health systems to the brink and upending daily life for all of humanity, the UN chief said on Monday [27 December], marking the International Day of Epidemic Preparedness.
War spews hell in all directions. Just ask the guys at Talon Anvil, a secret U.S. “strike cell” recently exposed by the New York Times as a unit with a reputation for ignoring the rules of engagement and killing lots and lots of civilians with drone strikes as it plays war with ISIS.
Part of the problem, a source told the Times, is that “the daily demands of overseeing strike after strike seemed to erode operators’ perspective and fray their humanity.”
In other words, participating in the endless U.S. war on terror turned them into . . . terrorists, e.g.: Early one morning, as a Predator drone circled over the Syrian farming town of Karama, the operators focused on a particular building that they decided, with virtually no evidence, was an “enemy training center” and dropped a 500-pound bomb through the roof.
LUAMBO, Democratic Republic of the Congo (UNFPA)* – At only 35, Nsenga Malu has lived many lives. In one, she was a girl growing up in the city of Luambo, in her home country of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
“Listen my friend: when we are born we are black; when we grow-up we are black; when we are sick we are black, and when we are angry we are black. But you, white man, when you are born you are pink, when you grow you are colourless; when you’re sick you are yellow; and when you are angry you are purple. And you call us people of colour?”
– Human rights are under global assault. In 2021, the escalation of the worldwide siege on human rights included clampdowns on civil society organisations, attacks on minorities, the undermining of democratic institutions, and violence against journalists.
Young people take part in a pro-democracy demonstration in Myanmar. Credit: Unsplash/Pyae Sone Htun via United Nations
Meanwhile, more than 10 months since Myanmar’s military seized power, the country’s human rights situation is deepening on an unprecedented scale, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights warned December 10.
– Now it comes to the scary water crises, as it is estimated that, globally, over two billion people live in countries that experience high water stress.
Up to four billion people – over half the population of the planet – are already facing severe water stress for at least one month of the year, while half a billion suffer from permanent water stress. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS
The Threat of a Large-Scale Global Famine by the Middle of the 21st Century
John Scales Avery
Unless efforts are made to stabilize and ultimately reduce global population, there is a serious threat that climate change, population growth, and the end of the fossil fuel era could combine to produce a large-scale famine by the middle of the 21st century.
As glaciers melt in the Himalayas and the Andes, depriving India, China and South America of summer water supplies; as sea levels rise, drowning fertile rice-growing regions of Southeast Asia; as droughts reduce the food production of North America and Southern Europe; as groundwater levels fall in China, India, the Middle East and the United States; and as high-yield modern agriculture becomes less possible because fossil fuel inputs are lacking, the 800 million people who are currently undernourished may not survive at all.
According to the 2021 Asia and the Pacific Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition by FAO and UNICEF
2021 Asia and the Pacific Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition ©FAO/Saikat Mojumder
Bangkok (FAO)* – The state of food security and nutrition in Asia and the Pacific has worsened, as more than 375 million people in the region faced hunger in 2020, an increase of 54 million over the previous year, according to a joint report just published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
(UN News)* — The UN food relief agency warned on Wednesday [22 December 2021] that it is running out of funds to continue providing food assistance to 13 million Yemenis.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 