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49 Sunday, 20 October 2019- edited by Ilaria
Saltarelli, Laura Harth and Angelica
Russomando | | |
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2019
Global Hunger Index (GHI)
The
2019 Global Hunger Index (GHI) shows that while
the world has made gradual progress in reducing
hunger on a global scale since 2000, this progress
has been uneven. Hunger persists in many
countries, and in some instances progress is even
being reversed.
The
number of people who are undernourished actually
rose from 785 million in 2015 to 822 million in
2018. South Asia and Africa South of the Sahara
are the regions with the highest 2019 GHI
scores. According to the 2019 GHI, of the
countries for which data are available, one
country, the Central African Republic, suffers
from a level of hunger that is extremely alarming,
while four others—Chad, Madagascar, Yemen, and
Zambia—suffer from levels of hunger that are
alarming. Out of the 117 countries that were
ranked, 43 have serious levels of
hunger.
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A
Million People Are Jailed at China's Gulags. I
Managed to Escape. Here's What Really Goes on
Inside
Stockholm,
17 October 2019- Rape, torture and human
experiments. Sayragul Sauytbay offers firsthand
testimony from a Xinjiang 'reeducation' camp.
An
article by David Stavrou reporting for Haaretz
documents in detail what goes on in China’s
"re-education camps" in the Xinjiang Autonomous
Region. Twenty prisoners live in one small
room. They are handcuffed, their heads shaved,
every move is monitored by ceiling cameras. A
bucket in the corner of the room is their toilet.
The daily routine begins at 6 A.M. They are
learning Chinese, memorizing propaganda songs and
confessing to invented sins. They range in age
from teenagers to elderly. Their meals are meager:
cloudy soup and a slice of bread. Torture –
metal nails, fingernails pulled out, electric
shocks – takes place in the “black room.”
Punishment is a constant. The prisoners are forced
to take pills and get injections. It’s for disease
prevention, the staff tell them, but in reality
they are the human subjects of medical
experiments. Many of the inmates suffer from
cognitive decline. Some of the men become sterile.
Women are routinely raped.
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Venezuela
wins a seat on the U.N. Human Rights
Council
New
York, 17 October 2019 – The government of
President Nicolás Maduro won a seat
Thursday on the U.N. Human Rights Council, a
controversial victory for a regime accused of
using intimidation, torture and murder to cling to
power. The Nonviolent Radical Party, Transnational
and Transparty, as many other NGOs had launched an appeal to
call on democratic Governments worldwide to
support the last-minute bid of Costa Rica to
counter the regime’s move.
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The
weakness of the UN Security Council
The
urgent meeting of the United Nations Security
Council, requested by five European countries
(Germany, Belgium, France, Poland and the United
Kingdom) after the announcement of the beginning
of the Turkish offensive in the North-East of
Syria, it was inconclusive and ineffective
It
has also failed in the formal intention of a joint
declaration on the Turkish offensive by European
countries.
The
Secretary-General’s reference to Security Council
Resolution
2254/2015 is a dead letter.
Revising
its composition and functioning, within a wide
reform of the United Nations, is necessary and
urgent.
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“Think
of your family”: China threatens European citizens
over Xinjiang protests
The
Guardian, 17 October 2019 – Uighurs living in
Germany, the Nederlands, Finland, Sweden, and
France have complained of intimidation by Beijing.
Adrian Zenz, an independent researcher who focuses
on Xinjiang, said European governments needed to
do more to protect their citizens from Chinese
intimidation. “The biggest mistake European
Union countries make is that once they allow China
to get away with something, that emboldens
Beijing” he said. “China has systematica
strategies in place and the threats to Uighurs in
exile show that. Europe needs its own unified
strategy to stand up to China and respond to these
threats.”
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