'Unseen' News and Views
From killing and maiming, to recruitment, sexual abuse and abduction, “violence against children in armed conflict can take many forms”, said Secretary-General António Guterres, in a special message delivered at the launch of a new UN advocacy campaign on Tuesday [2 April 2019] – Act to Protect Children Affected by Conflict.
Alfàs del Pi: “The rain in Spain falls mainly in the plains.” (Pygmalion). And in mountainous Southeast Spain; “unspanish activity” with no McCarthy. Fortunately: the air is fresh, drinkable; and the clouds promise more.
Johan Galtung
There are millions of such places of local beauty in the world. But we tend to focus on the more global and often less beautiful; right now there seem to be four of them. US with a UK appendix make Anglo-America; EU in the process of that appendix Brexiting or not; SCO–Russia-China-India-some Islam; and all of Islam (1.650 million).
Is a four-power world stable, or will it tend to bipolarize? Probably, and in that case, who will line up with whom?
Berlin/Stockholm, March 2019 (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute)* — Advances in additive manufacturing, artificial intelligence and robotics could increase the possibilities for the development, production and use of biological weapons. The existing biological arms control and non-proliferation governance framework needs to be adapted to address these security risks, according to a new report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). | French | German
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In a world defined by “competition over cooperation, and the acquisition of arms, prioritized over the pursuit of diplomacy”, the threat of a nuclear weapon being used is “higher than it has been in generations,” the Security Council heard on Tuesday [2 April 2019].
Dar es Salaam, 2 April 2019 (IOM)* – Irregular migration from the East and Horn of Africa to southern Africa, presents countries along this route with a new challenge: how to manage these flows while ensuring that the human rights of migrants are respected and protected.
South Africa is the destination for many irregular migrants using the Southern Route. Photo: IOM
The ‘Southern Route’ – as this migration route is known – is used by scores of irregular migrants journeying southward in the hope of reaching South Africa.
2 April 2019, Brussels (FAO)* — A report presented today jointly by the European Union, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) finds that around 113 million people in 53 countries experienced acute food insecurity in 2018, compared to 124 million in 2017.
‘Millions more are forced to choose between health care and daily expenses such as food, clothing and even a home’.
Universal Health Coverage: Everyone, Everywhere
Universal health coverage (UHC) is about ensuring all people and communities have access to quality health services where and when they need them, without suffering financial hardship.*
It includes the full spectrum of services needed throughout life—from health promotion to prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, and palliative care—and is best based on a strong primary health care system.
Over the past decade, countries in the WHO Western Pacific Region have made significant health gains and increased commitments to advance UHC.
We, in the United States, have yet to realize both the futility and immense consequences of war even as we develop, store, sell, and use hideous weapons. The number of children killed is rising.
Kathy Kelly
At 9:30 in the morning of March 26, the entrance to a rural hospital in northwest Yemen, supported by Save the Children, was teeming as patients waited to be seen and employees arrived at work.
Suddenly, missiles from an airstrike hit the hospital, killing seven people, four of them children.
Jason Lee of Save the Children, told The New York Times that the Saudi-led coalition, now in its fifth year of waging war in Yemen, knew the coordinates of the hospital and should have been able to avoid the strike. He called what happened “a gross violation of humanitarian law.”
The United Nations is highlighting the important role that population trends play in promoting sustainable development, during the annual Commission on Population and Development, which began at UN Headquarters in New York on Monday [1 April 2019].
This year’s Commission is also an opportunity to take stock and review progress made since the landmark International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), which took place 25 years ago in the Egyptian capital, Cairo.
If you are able read just one book in 2019, I urge it to be Joan Mellen’s Blood in the Water: How the U.S. and Israel Conspired to Ambush the USS Liberty.
Richard Falk
The author on the basis of meticulous research probes every detail to establish beyond a shadow of a doubt that the sinking of USS Liberty in the midst of the 1967 War is the greatest moral and political scandal in all of American history.
In what was long described as a ‘mistake’ or ‘accident’ Israeli planes and submarines attacked the Liberty, killing 34, wounding 174 American naval personnel.
Subsequent critical writing had established convincingly that the United States Government refused to authorize an inquiry that would have established that Israel deliberately attacked the ship of its ally.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 