Excluded Headlines: Earthquake clickbait, Congo protests UN presence, Peru protests still going..
Stay up to date on the global news stories the US- and Eurocentric media overlooks, with journalist and author, Tamara Pearson.
This is a hard one to write. The tragedy of the earthquake in Syria and Türkiye weighs heavy. The mainstream media has covered it because tragedies in the Global South still have sensationalist appeal. The videos and photos of collapsed buildings, the footage of grieving people, the huge death toll, is moving. The media will exploit this horror, but most outlets won’t explain the background politics: Kurdistan, the aid contradictions when it comes to supporting Syrians in the country and refugees, or the underlying causes of poverty in the region which inevitably leads to a higher death toll during earthquakes and suffering from collapsed infrastructure.
For some more in depth pieces written by people much more familiar with and concerned about the region than the parachuting correspondents of the English media, consider:
Kurds denied earthquake aid: natural disasters as political violence
Syria Today – Biggest Disaster Yet to Come
The banality of evil: Charlie Hebdo mocks Türkiye quake victims
“Continuous Insanity”: Syrian Dissident Yassin al-Haj Saleh on 12 Years of War & Earthquake Relief
» Give analysts time to produce more in depth and quality content and if you know of good articles, do share.
Most of the suffering and injustice in the Global South doesn’t fit into nine-second video clips. Syrian have been dealing with the many layered horrors of war, drought, and closed borders for years, but looking closely at that would involve some genuine concern for people who aren’t Europeans, and acknowledgement of the role of the US. The transnationals destroying forests and Indigenous land here in Mexico in order to extract and sell gold, have less of a sensationalist appeal for the media. And stories like that are too critical, too thought provoking. While I work on just this article, today I continue to bring you some of the important stories about the Global South that the media has overlooked:
Congolese protest UN and East Africa forces – In DR Congo, UN forces killed at least eight people on Tuesday while they were protesting the UN’s presence. The locals had been displaced by attacks from the M23, a group backed by Rwanda and which defends certain mining interests. In polls, most people (80-99% of people in different regions where the UN is active as MONUSCO) didn’t believe the organisation would protect them. Source, source, source.
Chile fires continue while it goes through “megadrought” – The media has covered the Chilean fires a little, though not as much as if they were taking place in the US or the UK, for example. There has been little context as to the impact and magnitude. For 14 years, central Chile has been going through a “mega drought” - the longest lasting drought in Latin America. An agricultural emergency has been declared in some parts of central Chile. In Magallanes, there was 8.8 mm of rain in November, well below its historic average of 60 mm. In south-central Chile, fires have been out of control for over a week now, destroying 309,000 ha of forest. Over 20 people have died and six schools have been totally destroyed. Source, source, source.
Brazil to restart housing program for poor families – Some 120,000 unfinished housing units that were paused during Bolsonaro’s presidency, will be resumed. The government will re-activate its housing program mid this month, including subsidies for home ownership. Source.
Peru protests continue – Though the media has largely stopped covering them, Peruvians are still protesting around the country to demand that Boluarte step down. Just today, in Puno, soldiers fired on protestors, and another march was held in Puno of the family members of those killed in protests, unionists marched in and joined the national strike in Ayacucho, in Loreto construction workers mobilised, and police tried to end a road block in Cajamarca, and another in Cusco.
Boluarte has now been an unelected president of Peru for over 50 days. In that time, security forces have committed acts of torture, used indiscriminate force, killed protestors, used prohibited weapons, gone against the freedom of press, and carried out arbitrary arrests. Source, source.