Archive for ‘War Lords’

19/02/2022

Ethiopia Conflict: Thousands of Eritrean Refugees Flee New Deadly Attack on Camp

Human Wrongs Watch

(UN News)* — Thousands of Eritrean refugees sheltering at a camp in the Ethiopian Afar region, have fled following a deadly attack on the facility earlier this month, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said on 18 February 2022.

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© UNHCR/Laurence Bron | Eritrean refugees in the Afar region of Ethiopia receive emergency assistance.
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At a briefing for journalists in Geneva, a spokesperson the UN agency said that unidentified assailants targeted Barahle camp on 3 February after fighting engulfed the area, according to harrowing accounts provided by refugees.

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19/02/2022

Effects of Colonialism ‘Still Being Felt to this Day’ 

Human Wrongs Watch

(UN News)* — The consequences of colonialism are “still being felt to this day”, Chef de Cabinet Courtenay Rattray told the Special Committee on Decolonization on Friday [18 February 2022]. 

UNHCR/Hélène Caux | A man identified as Oumar, who was at risk of statelessness, holds his father’s identity card from French colonial times.
 
Speaking on behalf of Secretary-General António Guterres, he also reminded the participants of the challenges which face the so-called Non-Self-Governing Territories which remain around the world.

Global cooperation is central to addressing its impacts”, he underscored, urging the Committee, also known as C-24, to “commit to making 2022 a year of recovery for everyone”. 

17/02/2022

The Weaponisation of Libya’s Elections

Human Wrongs Watch

TRIPOLI, Libia, Feb 17 2022 (IPS)* – Libya was supposed to hold elections early this year. Instead, it now has two rival political administrations — a return of the divisions of the past.

Graffiti on a wall in Benghazi, Libya, calls for elections and democracy. Credit: The United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL)

Libya is entering a new cycle of its political crisis. In December 2021, a mere 48 hours before polls were supposed to open, the elections were postponed. Emad Sayah, the head of Libya’s High National Election Committee (HNEC), declared it to be a case of force majeure. He then proposed to Libya’s parliament, the House of Representatives (HoR), to reschedule the elections for 24 January 2022.

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17/02/2022

Africa’s Sahel Region Facing ‘Horrendous Food Crisis’

Human Wrongs Watch

(UN News)* — As the Sahel region “stares down a horrendous food crisis”, the UN emergency food relief chief warned on Wednesday [16 February 2022] that the number of people on the brink of starvation has “increased almost tenfold” over the past three years and “displacement by nearly 400 per cent”.

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© WFP/Cheick Omar Bandaogo | Displaced people wait in line for food distribution in Gorom-Gorom, Burkina Faso.
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The vast Sahel, which runs nearly the breadth of the continent, south of the Sahara Desert, is experiencing some of its driest conditions in years.

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16/02/2022

Sharp Escalation in Fighting across Yemen Risks Spiralling Out of Control

Human Wrongs Watch

(UN News)* — Recent attacks indicate how the conflict in Yemen risks spiralling out of control, the chief UN mediator for the country told the Security Council on Tuesday [15 February 2022], as he called for “serious efforts” to be made by Yemeni parties, the region and the international community, to end the fighting, now in its seventh year.

© UNICEF/Saleh Hayyan | A one-and-a-half year-old girl is treated for malnutrition at a hospital in Yemen.
15/02/2022

Attacks on Democracy in the United States

Human Wrongs Watch

By John Scales Avery, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service*

The Republican Party Has Become Irresponsible

John-Scales-Avery

John Scales Avery

In recent years, and especially since Donald Trump’s term as president, the Republican Party has become irresponsible.

Republican Senators and members of the House of Representatives no longer act to promote whatever is best for their country and the planet. Instead they block whatever the Democratic Party tries to achieve.

The Republican Party is aided by Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema who, although the are nominally Democrats, act as destructively as though they were Republicans. Manchin is paid to do this by giant coal corporations, while Sinema gets her blood money from big pharmaceutical firms.

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15/02/2022

Inequality Kills One Person Every Four Seconds

Human Wrongs Watch

Feb 14 2022 (IPS)* – Inequality is deadly… It contributes to the deaths of at least 21,300 people each day—or one person every four seconds. This is a “highly conservative estimate” for deaths resulting from hunger, lack of access to healthcare and climate breakdown in poor countries…
13/02/2022

Number of Internally Displaced in Myanmar Doubles, to 800,000

Human Wrongs Watch

(UN News)* — The number of internally displaced people (IDPs) in Myanmar has doubled since February of last year, now crossing the 800,000 mark, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) announced on 11 February 2022

© UNHCR/Sa Nyein Chan | Internally displaced people receive assistance at the Myaing Gyi Ngu camp in Myanmar’s Kayin State.

Speaking to journalists in Geneva, UNHCR spokesperson Matthew Saltmarsh said the agency was stepping up aid for the displaced as conflict intensifies. 

Security is deteriorating rapidly across the country as fighting and armed conflict intensifies with no sign of abating”, Mr. Saltmarsh said.

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12/02/2022

What Russia Wants 

Human Wrongs Watch

By John Scales Avery*

Russia does not want to invade Ukraine

John-Scales-Avery

John Scales Avery

Both Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, and its Foreign Secretary, Sergey Laverov, have repeatedly stated that Russia does not intend to invade Ukraine.

Logic also tells us that if they had wished to do so, they would have done it long ago. The threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine is a western invention.

Russia fears the eastward expansion of NATO

To understand how Russians feel about having western weapons and troops poured into a position on their nation’s borders, we should imagine how the United States would react if large numbers of Russian weapons and troops were stationed in Mexico or Canada.

A broken promise

In 1990, US Secretary of State James Baker assured Mikhail Gorbachev that “not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastward direction”.

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11/02/2022

War Abroad, War at Home

Human Wrongs Watch

By David Adams | Transition to a Culture of Peace – TRANSCEND Media Service*

There is an old expression that “the chickens have come home to roost.” The wars that the American Empire waged abroad have come to the continental USA. For more than a century the US has waged war, overtly or covertly throughout Latin America.

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And in recent decades throughout the Middle East. Not to mention its so-called Cold Wars with Russia and now China. But now the invasion of the Capitol one year ago has signaled the beginning of a second civil war at home.

This new, second civil war is now being widely recognized in the media. See, for example, the article in the Guardian : “The next US civil war is already here – we just refuse to see it.”

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