While President Trump lashes out at rioting and looting in Portland and Kenosha, half way around the world, the USA and Turkey are plundering and looting Syria on a vastly greater scale with impunity and little publicity.
Turkey Loots Syria, then Disrupts Safe Water Supply
Turkey has been plundering the Syrian infrastructure for years. Beginning in late 2012 and continuing through 2013 some 300 industrial factories were dismantled and taken to Turkey from Aleppo, the industrial capital of Syria.
“Machinery and goods were loaded on trucks and carried off to Turkey through the Cilvegozu and Ceylanpinar crossings. Unfortunately, ‘plundering’ and ‘terror’ have become permanent parts of the Syrian lexicon when explaining their saga.”
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 24 2020 (IPS)* – With more than 20,000 civilians killed last year in conflicts in 10 countries — including Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, Ukraine and Yemen– UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reiterated his call for a “global cease-fire”: a proposal which failed to generate a positive response since he first announced it last March.
26 September 2020 (Wall Street International)* — America proclaims itself to be the land of ultimate freedom and opportunity. The ability to rise above one’s condition of birth, not inhibited by social class – this is the essence of the American myth of a classless society.
24 September 2020 – Los Angeles, USA (Pressenza)* — The World Wildlife Foundation, in collaboration with the Zoological Society of London, recently issued an eye-popping description of the forces of humanity versus life in nature, the Living Planet Report 2020, but the report should really be entitled the Dying Planet Report 2020 because that’s what’s happening in the real world. Not much remains alive.
A new report has found nuclear-armed states spent a record $73 billion on nuclear weapons in 2019, a $7.1 billion increase from 2018 expenditures. The United States, the center of the global coronavirus pandemic, accounted for nearly half of that spending.
As the economies of the US, China, France, and Russia all contract, their nuclear spending is expanding. Supplemental ICAN research shows yearly expenditure on nuclear weapons in the US alone could pay for 300,000 ICU beds; 150,000 nurses; 75,000 doctors; and 35,000 ventilators to address the COVID19 pandemic.
Sculpture depicting St. George slaying the dragon. The dragon is created from fragments of Soviet SS-20 and United States Pershing nuclear missiles. PHOTO:UN Photo/Milton Grant
(United Nations)* — Achieving global nuclear disarmament is one of the oldest goals of the United Nations. It was the subject of the General Assembly’s first resolution in 1946, which established the Atomic Energy Commission (dissolved in 1952), with a mandate to make specific proposals for the control of nuclear energy and the elimination of atomic weapons and all other major weapons adaptable to mass destruction.
IAEA/Dean Calma | Euratom inspectors conduct safeguards inspections at URENCO in the Netherlands.
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Almost 75 years since the adoption of the first General Assembly resolution in 1946, which committed the UN to the goal of ridding the planet of nuclear weapons, “the world continues to live in the shadow of nuclear catastrophe”, Secretary-General António Guterressaid in his message commemorating the day.
(UN News)* — Tax abuse, money laundering and corruption, plague the global financial system, a high-level UN panel reported on Thursday [24 September 2020], launching an interim report that underscores the need for urgent reforms to achieve the 2030 Global Goals (SDGs).
World Bank/Philip Schuler | Anti-corruption sign in Namibia.
“Corruption and tax avoidance are rampant. Too many banks are in cahoots and too many Governments are stuck in the past”, said Dalia Grybauskaitė, co-chair of the High-Level Panel on International Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity to Achieve the 2030 Development Agenda (FACTI Panel) and a former president of Lithuania.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 