tagged w/ Humanitarian Crisis
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http://bcove.me/sxi31pzq (For video)
—The medical chart Abdisalam Osman’s mother uses to flick away flies says her youngest son suffers from acute malnutrition and the measles. A chest X-ray will soon reveal he also has tuberculosis.
When he arrived at Mogadishu's Benadir Hospital, 3-year-old Abdisalam weighed only 14 pounds. Each laborious breath made his tiny rib cage stick out even farther.
He lies beside his mother, unable to cry; all his energy reserved for his weak gasps.
“A 50-50 chance,” says Dr. Shafie Mohamed Jimale, gently touching the little boy’s emaciated arm. The 30-year-old Somali pediatrician, trained in Sudan, became a father two months earlier; his son was born at the height of the famine that is mainly killing children.
Many of his patients have died. About 50-50.
When Somalia’s famine was declared in July there were emergency calls for help and shocking statistics: 29,000 children had died in the worst drought in 60 years.
A global relief effort has helped save some. Last Friday, the United Nations Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit downgraded famine declarations for three southern regions, thanks to the rains that have finally come and emergency food aid.
But the UN warns that 250,000 are at risk as cholera, malaria and other diseases spread through crowded hospitals and camps. Tens of thousands of others still face starvation.
This famine should not have come as a shock. And if its roots are not understood and the world looks away again, Somalia’s cycle of despair — corruption, starvation, war, death — will continue, dragging children like Abdisalam into its abyss.
So what caused the famine?
Back-to-back droughts killed the livestock and destroyed the farms throughout the Horn of Africa, like the one Abdisalam’s family tended.
The southern region of the country is also warring with Al Shabab, the militant Islamic group that has pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda, and starved its own people by blocking outside foreign aid.
These are the easy answers.
These are the hard ones: Somalia’s rampant and criminal government-corruption; a war on terror at the expense of aid; and a lucrative crisis industry that spends millions that Somalis will never see.
This is why this country has topped Foreign Policy’s index of failed states for the last three years and why a drought that affected the entire Horn of Africa became a famine only in Somalia.
The scope of the tragedy is overwhelming. Last Friday’s UN announcement on easing famine conditions did not include Mogadishu. The city remains a famine zone.
Tents made of sticks and cloth, pitched between dilapidated buildings, house the starving and desperate. The sea of people in the camps ripples endlessly. It is difficult to get an accurate estimate, but it is believed that more than 100,000 have arrived since July.
Water is still scarce and largely contaminated. Mounds of human feces dot walkways between the shelters. Security is a problem. Rapes and abuses have been reported. Few foreign aid groups have come, with the exception of the Turks, who have taken over a large region of the city now called “Little Istanbul.”
Across the street from Tarabunka, a sprawling camp of more than 16,000, the graveyard is already near capacity. Ali Kafi, one of the farmers-turned-gravediggers, says he hunts untouched patches of red earth to find burial plots. Before 10 on one October morning, three babies and a young woman, nine-months pregnant, were buried. It was a typical day.
The good news for Mogadishu is that there are few visible remnants of the Shabab, which has waged war against the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) for nearly three years.
Weakened themselves by the famine and claiming to withdraw for “tactical” purposes, hundreds of Shabab fighters abruptly left the capital this summer.
This is why Abdisalam’s family trekked here from the south, believing there would be help in Mogadishu from the TFG, the UN-backed parliament of 550, propped up by a 9,000-member African Union peacekeeping force of Burundian and Ugandan soldiers.
The TFG had an opportunity to repair its badly damaged reputation and make the famine a priority. That didn’t happen.
As people began to starve earlier this year, the country’s president and its parliamentary speaker — President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and Speaker Hassan Sharif, who are known as the “Two Sharifs” — were locked in a dispute, trying to shore up political support as they debated at conferences in Djibouti, Kenya or Uganda.
“They say the fish starts rotting from the head,” says Abdi Rashid, an analyst with the International Crisis Group. “At the height of the famine, there was a president who was busy holding meetings with clan elders, not talking about the famine, but about the struggle with the speaker of parliament.”
But the “Two Sharifs” are not the only members of the TFG accused of political gamesmanship or corruption.
One senior TFG official says he is disgusted with his government’s continued focus on politics and power.
“What are we doing?” he asks. “People are dying and we’re focusing on passing a road map?”
snip
Still, there is confusion, says Joe Belliveau, operations manager in Somalia for Médecins Sans Frontières. “The bottom line is that it certainly does not encourage humanitarian action,” Belliveau says. “It’s fine to say that these conditions are lifted and maybe that will help in the short term, but the fact that those laws are on the books remains a major deterrent.”
Abdisalam is defying the odds that have conspired against him — the war against the Shabab, corruption, ineffective aid groups and a famine that the world failed to stop but is now trying to ease.
The nutrition supplements provided by the hospital have made him stronger and TB medication has calmed his breathing.
“He’s a fighter,” said Jimale, the doctor who has volunteered at the city-run Benadir Hospital for the last two years.
Abdisalam was discharged from the hospital three weeks ago and Jimale said the little boy’s odds of survival had increased to more than 80 per cent.
But Abdisalam and his family haven’t returned home. The rains may have come and eased the drought, but a Kenyan-led offensive to fight the Shabab has left the region war torn again.
Abdisalam now lives in one of the camps, just one of thousands getting by, waiting for help.http://bcove.me/sxi31pzq (For video)
—The medical chart Abdisalam... more
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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Sept. 19 (UPI) -- The United Nations appealed for $357 million for flood-ravaged southern Pakistan.
An estimated 5.4 million people have been affected by the floods stemming from heavy monsoon rains. Nearly 1 million homes have been destroyed and 72 percent of crops lost in the worst affected areas in Sindh and Balochistan.
In launching its Rapid Response Plan on Sunday, the United Nations says it aims to provide food, water, sanitation, health and emergency shelter to those worst hit for six months.
The United Nations and its humanitarian partners have distributed more than 20,000 shelters and 530,000 plastic sheets and more than 650,000 people have received medicine and medical care.
The United Nations says it aims to provide access to safe drinking water for 400,000 people in the coming days and it expects 500,000 people will receive food aid by the end of the month.
"More than 5 million people are struggling to survive massive flooding across southern Pakistan and the rains continue to fall," Valerie Amos, undersecretary-general for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said in a statement.
"They have lost their homes, their possessions and their livelihoods. The next few days will be crucial, as the U.N. and partners help the government to get food, safe water and shelter to the most vulnerable. One year after the largest floods in recent history, the people of Pakistan are in desperate need again. We cannot let them down."
Pakistan's floods last year directly affected about 20 million people with a death toll of nearly 2,000. In that disaster, about one-fifth of Pakistan's total land area -- more than 307,000 square miles -- was underwater.
The amount of rainfall hitting the otherwise arid region this monsoon season was close to what it normally gets in five years, said Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry, climate affairs adviser and vice president of the World Meteorological Organization, Asia Region.
"If we look at the frequency and the trend of the extreme weather events happening in Pakistan during the last two decades, it is easy to find its connection with climate change," Chaudhry told Pakistan's The News International.
In Sindh the rainfall is 270 percent and 1,170 percent above average for monsoon rains, respectively, for August and September, he said.
Chaudhry said that due to climate change, Pakistan could expect an increase in frequency and intensity of extreme weather events and more erratic monsoon rains, causing more frequent flooding and droughts.ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Sept. 19 (UPI) -- The United Nations appealed for $357 million... more
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While the world's attention this week has been focused on the global economic impact of the U.S. debt ceiling deal, credit downgrade and subsequent market woes, the drought crisis in the Horn of Africa continues to deteriorate.
Children are dying at an alarming rate.
The United States estimates that as many as 29,000 Somali children died just in the last 90 days.
Three more areas in Southern Somalia have been added to the famine zone and the UN warns that without urgent intervention all of Southern Somalia will be engulfed in famine, resulting in the likelihood of tens of thousands of Somalis literally starving to death.
There have also been hopeful developments.
The retreat of the Al Qaeda-backed group Al Shabab from Mogadishu means that aid groups will have an easier time reaching the more than 500,000 people living either near or inside the capital city suffering from famine.
It's also significant progress for the current weak central government being backed by African Union troops.
For four years the fiercest battles for the soul of the country have taken place in Mogadishu.
"We have been dreaming of this day for more than three years," Somalia's Prime Minister Prime Minister Dr. Abdiweli Mohamed Ali said in a statement."This is a big day, and a tremendous step forward, towards a more stable Somalia. By their actions in the past hours the extremists have shown that they never had a place in a peaceful Somalia...And the people do not want them here," he said.
Virtually no one believes the retreat will be permanent, a point punctuated by an Al Shabab spokesperson who called the pull-out a "tactical" decision and told reporters the group will continue to fight the government and AU troops using guerilla warfare.
"We shall fight the enemy wherever they are," Ali Mohamed Rage, reportedly told a local radio station. He also emphasized the militant group will be tightening its control in Southern Somalia, where Shabab rules unabated.
But even within the Islamist insurgency there remains a long-standing conflict within the leadership made up of mostly foreign Al Qaeda fighters, who want Shabab to play a bigger role in waging global jihad and Somali clan leaders who want to keep the movement Somalia-focused, defeating the current government and AU forces and impose strict sharia law.
The confusion over whether the militants will allow foreign aid agenciesto operate in areas they control has highlighted the rift, with some local clan leaders insisting that they won't let their people starve.
Some humanitarian organizations like UNICEF are already operating in Shabab-controlled areas, and more aid agencies are working on getting access to the most needy.
More at the link.While the world's attention this week has been focused on the global economic... more
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It is always the children who are the victims of the world adults create and it is the greatest injustice. War ravages this region as it has for years it's affects now exacerbated by a drought the likes of which has been unseen for decades exacerbated as is the war by human behavior which was totally preventable. I know it is a place where terrorism thrives. I know it is a place where corruption and lawlessness thrive. And it is a poor area of the world seen as expendable as noted by the many hateful comments I have read from people on other news sites, some of which absolutely stunned me. However, it is also a place where humanity must thrive in order to spare a worse catastrophe.
As 12 million people most of them children face certain death if they get no help, we on this side of the world will throw out tons of uneaten wasted food without a thought. We will continue to be absorbed in our diversions that give us pleasure with little thought to what may be going on outside of our own worlds. And we will find some reason, any reason at all to dismiss the urgency of this drought war and ensuing famine to not have to do something no matter how small it may be to at least save one life.
These children did nothing to anyone. They are products of a world not of their creation. And they are also human beings like all of us who deserve to live life with hope. We must strip away all of the political, religious and ideological obstacles that prevent us from being human now. This is a humanitarian catastrophe of untold proportions and I simply cannot believe that the world willl sit by and allow these people to die. It is truly outrageous that geopolitics and foreign policy must always become more important than simply saving a human life.
Of course, the problems here go much deeper and will not be solved with just a 10 dollar donation to MSF to give them plumpy nut. This however is part of a greater war we now fight. A war against ignorance, hatred and intolerance. If we could only grasp how opening our hearts could release so many from the fear that grips our world and just look at the human beings in front of us we could solve anything. Right now however, these children need our help. Please do so if you haven't already. Humanity won't stand a chance if we can't be human, at least this once.It is always the children who are the victims of the world adults create and it is the... more
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U.N. declares famine in southern Somalia
By Robyn Dixon | 2:19 p.m.
To declare a famine, child malnutrition must be at 30% or higher, daily deaths at two per 10,000 people and people are not able to access food and other basic necessities.
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U.N. declares famine in southern Somalia
Famine, a highly technical term, means that the rate of child malnutrition and deaths in two areas of southern Somalia, a country riven by fighting and drought, has risen. Agencies appeal for aid.
PHOTO: Eleven-month-old Abdifatah Hassan, suffering from severe malnutrition, is cared for at a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders at a camp housing Somali refugees in Dadaab, Kenya. The United Nations officially declared famine in two regions of southern Somalia, saying child malnutrition rates exceed 30% and as many as six children age 5 or younger are dying daily. The region is suffering its worst drought in 60 years and tens of thousands are feared dead.
(Roberto Schmidt / AFP/Getty Images / July 4, 2011)
By Robyn Dixon, Los Angeles Times
July 20, 2011, 2:19 p.m.
Reporting from Johannesburg, South Africa—
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For months, people have been trudging out of the desert, leaving their dead children behind and carrying those who have managed to survive. On Wednesday, the horror of hunger and death unfolding in the Horn of Africa officially got a name: famine.
It's actually a very technical term — unless you're one of those walking for weeks in a last-ditch hope to save your family.
For the United Nations to declare a famine, as it did at a news conference in Nairobi, child malnutrition must be at 30% or higher, daily deaths at two per 10,000 people and people are not able to access food and other basic necessities.
According to Unicef, the U.N. agency that focuses on children, the rate of child malnutrition rate in southern Somalia has doubled in a single month; in some places it has reached 55% and infant deaths have increased to six per day.
Yet the global response has been dismal. An appeal late last year for $535 million to address the need is still more than $250 million short. Officials hope the famine declaration will help focus global attention on the Horn of Africa.
Across the country, about 3.7 million people, half the population, are facing starvation, with an estimated 2.8 million of them in the south. The agency says another 6.3 million in other countries in the Horn of Africa affected by hunger.
It's the worst African hunger crisis in 20 years, according the Rozanne Chorlton, Unicef's representative on Somalia. The last time things were this dire in Africa was 1991. Then, as now, it was in Somalia.
The U.N. famine declaration Wednesday formally covered two regions of southern Somalia, Bakool and Lower Shabelle, where farmers' crops failed and their livestock died. Malnutrition rates exceed 30% and more than six children age 5 or younger are dying daily in some areas. But in coming months, neighboring regions will inevitably fall into famine too, said Mark Bowden, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Somalia.
U.N. and non-governmental agencies are appealing for $300 million in the next two months to increase their operations in the worst-hit areas.
If it seems extraordinary that millions of Africans can be facing starvation in 2011, despite the focus of a raft of humanitarian agencies and their early-warning networks, it is, Bowden said.
Part of the problem is that many donors had written off Somalia as too hard, he said in a telephone interview. Aid agencies must grapple with a long-running civil conflict and Somalia's extremist Shabab militia, which controls much of the south, where the worst hunger is.
"We have good warning systems, but we don't always listen to them, particularly if we put some countries in the too-difficult-to-deal-with basket," Bowden said.
Two decades with no government and the failure of successive efforts to restore peace have left donors cynical. The country's global reputation for piracy and mayhem have done it no favors.
The 1991 Somalia famine occurred after civil war destroyed agriculture and clan warlords hijacked humanitarian aid, leading to the U.S.-led Operation Restore Hope. That resulted in bloody fighting with militias in Mogadishu portrayed in the book and film "Black Hawk Down."
But Bowden, who recently met Somali refugees walking to Ethiopia, said the problem today was mainly one of successive drought, compounded by global warming.
"They are victims of drought. They are also victims of climate change. They're people who have lost everything after years of successive drought."
The situation is complicated by the Shabab, which in the past has imposed informal taxes on humanitarian agencies, limited their access, and demanded they send female staff home. The World Food Program withdrew early last year from areas controlled by the Shabab because of security threats and unacceptable working conditions. It recently announced it would resume it work there if conditions allowed.
Aid agencies have been negotiating access with local leaders, but security remains uncertain.
"We need predictability," Unicef's Chorlton said in a telephone interview. "The important thing is that those who are there [in Somalia] should be able to act unhindered to deliver the services to children and families that are so desperately needed."
Unicef has doubled its food, health and water programs in Somalia, she said.
"Somalis have always helped each other to cope in times of crisis, and they have been incredibly resilient over the years. I think what has not been quantified is that people's resistance has been so undermined over the last year, it's no longer adequate to the task," she said. "The issue is now we need donors to massively increase their contribution."
.U.N. declares famine in southern Somalia
By Robyn Dixon | 2:19 p.m.
To declare... more
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I keep trying to have hope that the right thing will be done here and in all places where such harsh conditions exist. For this is a primer to a world of climate change/biodistress and it is one in which what we see now is exactly what has been predicted by climate scientists for years. Should these lands be rendered uninhabitable where would these millions of people go? How would they be provided for? We already know the answer to this and it is a totally inhumane, unconscienable and unacceptable answer.
And I know I have posted about this several times in the last week. And that's because it's that important.
And let me also add that we alll know droughts happen in Africa. The difference now is the scope, pace, severity and patterns which can be seen now, especially by those who live in these areas and know the land.
http://water-is-life.blogspot.com/2011/07/climate-changebiodistress-test-of.html
All information posted so far on this drought can be found here.I keep trying to have hope that the right thing will be done here and in all places... more
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The effects of the Fukushima plant are just one thing the people of the earthquake/tsunami region will have to face. The psychological effects are just as devastating, and actually not getting the attention they should be getting.
Excerpt:
"Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) plans to support a team of six psychologists who will treat survivors of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit northeast Japan March 11.
For the past 12 days, a 12-person MSF team has been treating patients with chronic diseases in one of the areas worst affected by the disasters. A psychologist was also sent in earlier this week to evaluate mental health needs.
“Many people now are in a phase of acute stress disorder, which is a totally natural response to this level of trauma,” said Ritsuko Nishimae, a clinical psychologist working with the MSF team in Minami Sanriku. “If they are not able to get proper support psychologically, there is an increased possibility that they could develop post-traumatic stress disorder (P.T.S.D),” said the psychologist.
Ritsuko has been working in the field for the last two days, getting an accurate picture of needs, as well as working with disaster survivors. “I talk with them and listen to their experiences and to what they need now," Ritsuko said. "Gradually, they open their feelings and express their thoughts and show emotion. This process is very effective to release stress."
The psychologists with whom MSF plans to work come from the Japanese Society of Certified Clinical Psychologists. MSF will assist them as they identify populations in need of assistance and will provide logistical support.
MSF medical teams continue to work in evacuation centers in Minami Sanriku, in northern Miyagi prefecture, and has also started supporting a Japanese doctor who was working in the town of Taro, in Iwate prefecture. The main activity continues to be consultations with elderly patients suffering from chronic diseases such as hypertension or diabetes."The effects of the Fukushima plant are just one thing the people of the... more
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Mycoremediation of the Japanese landscape after radioactive fallout:
Nuclear Forest Recovery Zone
Many people have written me and asked more or less the same question: “What would you do to help heal the Japanese landscape around the failing nuclear reactors?”
The enormity and unprecedented nature of this combined natural and human-made disaster will require a massive and completely novel approach to management and remediation. And with this comes a never before seen opportunity for collaboration, research and wisdom.
The nuclear fallout will make continued human habitation in close proximity to the reactors untenable. The earthquake and tsunami created enormous debris fields near the nuclear reactors. Since much of this debris is wood, and many fungi useful in mycoremediation are wood decomposers, building the foundation of forest ecosystems, I have the following suggestions:
http://goo.gl/WOJvOMycoremediation of the Japanese landscape after radioactive fallout:
Nuclear Forest... more
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Six days into the worst natural disaster in modern Japanese history, millions of people still lack drinking water as relief efforts are hampered by fuel and water supply shortages, the ongoing nuclear crisis, mangled roads, and extraordinarily cold weather.
According to the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare, 1.6 million households in 11 prefectures do not have drinking water. Other government sources estimate that as many as 2.5 million households could be affected. The ministry is distributing bottled water and is sending hundreds of water supply vehicles to the three prefectures—Miyagi, Fukushima, and Iwate—that took the barrel end of the twin catastrophes.
Not only were pipes and treatment plants destroyed by Friday’s 9.0 magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami, but otherwise functioning systems have been rendered inert because there is no electricity to run the pumps.
The Japanese government has mobilized 100,000 troops to assist the recovery. To date, search and rescue operations have saved more than 22,000 people.
The National Police Agency has confirmed 5,178 deaths as of March 17, according to the United Nations humanitarian office. Nearly 9,000 are officially listed as “missing.” Both numbers are expected to rise as relief workers gain access to the hardest-hit coastal areas.
South Korea will send 100 tons of water if transport logistics can be worked out, according to the Korea Times. The U.S. Navy is using 14 ships and their aircraft, plus 17,000 sailors and Marines, to assist the relief effort, according to the Department of Defense. More than 100 countries offered manpower, financial assistance, and supplies.
Aid agencies are finding it difficult to procure supplies and reach dislocated people who are not among the 430,000 already in emergency shelters. Some in the shelters, especially the elderly, are becoming sick with diarrhea because of inadequate water and sanitation, according to the U.N.
Unsure of what it will find, CARE Japan, a non-governmental aid group, is sending a three-vehicle convoy into Kamaishi city in Iwate Prefecture, northwest of the earthquake’s epicenter.
“The situation is changing daily. It is very difficult to receive accurate information. Once in Kamaishi we will assess the situation to determine how best CARE can scale up our response,” said Katsuhiko Takeda, the national director of CARE Japan, in a press release.
Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it does not need material assistance beyond what has been provided, and financial contributions are preferred since money can be directed to areas with the greatest need.
It will take weeks to put a figure on the damage to water and sanitation infrastructure in northeastern Japan.
cont.Six days into the worst natural disaster in modern Japanese history, millions of... more
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As access improves in the region of northeastern Japan that was devastated by last Friday's 9.0-magnitude earthquake and the tsunamis it caused, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is finding serious needs in areas that had previously been impossible to reach by road.
MSF currently has a team of 10 people divided into three teams conducting mobile clinics and assessments in Miyagi prefecture.
The tsunamis decimated coastal areas, which are now becoming accessible by road due to the efforts of Japanese authorities. "In one area around Minamisanriku, in northern Miyagi, we were told by officials there were 9,200 people in 20 evacuation centers who needed water, non-food items and medical attention,” said Mikiko Dotsu, the coordinator of the MSF team.
Although injured people had been evacuated by helicopter from these areas, many elderly people were still there, some of whom were dehydrated, the coordinator said. “The chronic diseases of some of these elderly people are a cause for concern,” Mikiko said. MSF is now identifying specific needs—including oxygen, non-food items, medical items and water—and will work with Japanese authorities to assist these populations.
More MSF personnel staff are standing by in Japan and other countries to head to Miyagi prefecture to increase our assistance.
MSF continues to monitor the situation around Fukushima nuclear power plants. If there is a serious nuclear incident, it is only the Japanese government that will be in a position to react.
Related:
•Field News: March 14, 2011
Japan: A Note On Funding and DonationsAs access improves in the region of northeastern Japan that was devastated by last... more
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Officials with Japan's nuclear safety agency said early Sunday morning there is an emergency at another nuclear reactor at a quake-hit power plant. The agency says the cooling system at the number three reactor at the Fukushima nuclear power plant is offline and could possibly explode, following Saturday's blast at the plant's number one reactor.
Reports quoting government officials say up to 160 people may have been exposed to radiation. Meanwhile, residents in the country's northeast are struggling to find food and clean water.
Aftershocks continued to hit northeastern Japan Sunday, several days after a 8.9-magnitude earthquake and resulting 10-meter-high tsunami devastated the coastline.
VOA Correspondent Steve Herman is near the power plant. He says locals are complaining that the authorities are not giving them accurate information about the situation fast enough. "One of the things the authorities are trying to do is not have any panic spreading among people, but information about what is happening is coming out of Tokyo not Fukushima," he said.
snip
Herman says that because of this, people are scrambling to find basic necessities, even in inland areas such as Fukushima. "People are just trying to find clean water. Food supplies are running out. In the convenience stores, there are no rice balls left. There is no bottled water left. We are facing a really serious situation in the days ahead for these people that are living in areas that were only moderately damaged," he said.
Overall, analysts say Japan could have fared much worse in the disaster.
Tokyo has invested billions of dollars into making the country as earthquake-proof as possible. Architects specially design high-rise buildings to flex in a quake. Tsunami warning signs and large seawalls line the Japanese coast. Even schoolchildren practice drills on what to do during an earthquake.
However in the end, analysts say that no amount of human preparedness is foolproof against the power of nature.Officials with Japan's nuclear safety agency said early Sunday morning there is... more
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While the rest of the world looks away.
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Widespread flooding in Bolivia, which prompted the government to declare a national emergency last week, shows the vulnerability of one of South America's poorest countries to changing weather patterns linked to climate change.
Landlocked Bolivia, which runs from the rugged Andes to the Amazon jungle, faces a variety of climate change-related pressures, from disappearing glaciers to worsening droughts and more intense and unpredictable rainfall. Combined with rising urban demand for water, the problems suggest a long-term water crisis ahead for the country, analysts say.
The latest disaster has killed at least 50 people and left thousands homeless in Bolivia after weeks of heavy rain triggered flooding and mudslides, with 400 houses destroyed in the capital La Paz alone in a mudslide.
In Cochabamba, southeast of La Paz, schools and stadiums were sheltering hundreds of families whose homes were destroyed. In lowland Santa Cruz department, Bolivia's major grain growing region, floods damaged soy, corn and wheat crops. Rivers burst their banks and major roads were unusable.
"We've declared a state of emergency on different levels in different areas of the country," Defence Minister Ruben Saavedra said last week.
The government has allocated $20 million to help survivors.
Defence Minister Saavedra put the crisis in the Cochabamba, Beni, Santa Cruz, La Paz, Chuquisaca and Tarija departments (administrative regions) down to the La Niña weather phenomenon, linked to abnormally cool ocean temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific.
Changing ocean temperatures and increased evaporation linked to climate change may be increasing the frequency and intensity of La Nina and El Nino events, some scientists believe.
snip
Perhaps the most worrying threat to the country’s water supplies, however, has been glacier retreat. Chacaltaya, which at 5,300 m was once the world's highest ski run, is now a rocky, icy slope with a redundant lift.Widespread flooding in Bolivia, which prompted the government to declare a national... more
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According to the national survey commissioned by the California Academy of Sciences:
Only 53% of adults know how long it takes for the Earth to revolve around the Sun.
Only 59% of adults know that the earliest humans and dinosaurs did not live at the same time.
Only 47% of adults can roughly approximate the percent of the Earth's surface that is covered with water.*
Only 21% of adults answered all three questions correctly.
Despite the fact that access to fresh water is likely to be one of the most pressing environmental issues over the coming years, less than 1% of U.S. adults know what percent of the planet's water is fresh (the correct answer is 3%).
Nearly half didn't even hazard a guess.
Additionally, 40% of U.S. adults say they are "not at all knowledgeable" about sustainability.
About 4 in 5 adults think science education is "absolutely essential" or "very important" to the U.S. healthcare system (86%), the U.S. global reputation (79%), and the U.S. economy (77%).According to the national survey commissioned by the California Academy of Sciences:... more
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Haiti reported more cholera deaths Wednesday as chaos reigned in this country's second-largest city, and cases among people who had traveled from Haiti were reported in Florida and the Dominican Republic.
At least six people were wounded in related violence in Haiti.
The cholera-infected woman who had recently traveled from Haiti to Florida was recovering, the Florida Department of Health said.
Her case was identified through the state's disease surveillance system and sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, where it was confirmed, the state health department said.
Florida, home to about 241,000 Haiti-born residents, has asked local health care providers to watch for people who become sick or show symptoms of cholera after returning from travel to Haiti.
"We are working with our health care partners to ensure appropriate care of this individual and prevent the spread of this disease within the community," said State Surgeon General Ana Viamonte Ros. "We will continue to monitor the state for any future cases."
The first confirmed case in the Dominican Republic was a 32-year-old Haitian construction worker who returned Friday from Haiti with symptoms of the illness, the health ministry said Tuesday night.
The man, who was vomiting and had diarrhea, was hospitalized in Higuey, near the eastern resort town of Punta Cana, said Health Minister Bautista Rojas Gomez. The man was in stable condition, according to the newspaper El Nacional.
Neither case was a surprise, said Dr. Jordan Tappero, team leader in Haiti for the CDC in Port-au-Prince. "CDC has been expecting to see cholera cases elsewhere in the region, including the United States," he told CNN in a telephone interview.
But he said cholera was unlikely to spread widely in the United States or in the Dominican Republic, since both countries have public health infrastructures -- i.e., chlorinated drinking water and intact sewage lines -- that are more robust than those in Haiti.
In addition, health officials in the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, have been watching the epidemic spread across Haiti for several weeks, during which they have been preparing by putting into place a surveillance system and educating the populace about what to do if they should come down with symptoms, he said.
"We are very hopeful that the magnitude of the cholera problem in the Dominican Republic will not be on the scale of Haiti," Tappero said. "Diligence in public health messaging and people doing the right thing with water and food preparation and managing waste is going to be critical to that success."
In Haiti, the outbreak had claimed 1,110 lives, the health ministry reported Wednesday. Another 18,382 people had been hospitalized with the disease. The hospital death rate was 4.0 percent, far above the 0.0 to 1.0 percent that infectious disease experts said they expect in developed countries.
cont.Haiti reported more cholera deaths Wednesday as chaos reigned in this country's... more
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A senior Israeli official has warned activists planning to break a naval blockade of Gaza later this month that their flotilla of cargo ships and passenger boats will be stopped.
An international coalition of pro-Palestinian activists aim to send eight vessels carrying 5,000 tonnes of reconstruction materials, school supplies and medical equipment to Gaza. One cargo ship, the MV Rachel Corrie, named after a US human rights activist killed by an Israeli bulldozer, set sail from Ireland last week.
Greta Berlin, one of the flotilla's organisers, told Al Jazeera that despite being "brutally attacked" for attempting to enter Gaza in the past, the movement was optimistic about the latest attempt.
"The last three trips we have gone on we were brutally attacked," she said.
"We're going into the waters of Gaza, not Israel, so they have no right to stop us."
Representatives from six organisations, including the European Campaign to End the Siege in Gaza (EGESG), said on Monday that they were determined to enter the area regardless of pressure from Israel.
Hundreds of activists protesting against Israel's siege on Gaza will also be aboard the vessels. Israel says the blockade aims to prevent Hamas, the political movement that controls Gaza, from acquiring weapons or materials that could be used for military purposes.
For the majority of Gaza's population of 1.5 million people, the result has been impoverished living conditions, while Hamas' grip on power since 2007 shows little sign of weakening.
"Israel should not be under any illusion whatsoever that their threats or intimidation will stop us or even that their violence against us will stop us," Huwaida Arraf, from the Free Gaza Movement, said.
A statement from Israel's foreign ministry said it had "no intention of allowing the flotilla into Gaza" but has not elaborated on what measures could be used to stop them.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2010/05/2010517155117976235.html
http://savegaza.eu/eng/A senior Israeli official has warned activists planning to break a naval blockade of... more
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A photo essay of the tent citites of Haiti, which now like most tragedies has receeded out of the consciousness of the media. Yet, the hardship and struggle goes on for thousands of Haitians fighting off poverty, hunger, and the encroachment of not only the rains, but interests looking to take what little they have left. It is a tragic story, but also one of hope. The people's faces in these pictures are not faces of despair even in the wake of it. They are faces of hope and determination and their faces need to be seen and their stories told.A photo essay of the tent citites of Haiti, which now like most tragedies has receeded... more
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http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601116&sid=a9_ImG_9bQdU
More than 8,000 cases of rape were reported last year in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s eastern Kivu provinces, where government forces are battling rebel fighters, the United Nations humanitarian agency said.
Of the rapes, “a vast majority were committed by armed groups, including the national army,” the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in an e-mailed report today.
Humanitarian groups cannot reach 30 percent of the people displaced by fighting because of continuing insecurity in remote parts of the Kivus, the report said, adding that there were 179 attacks against humanitarian workers in the provinces in 2009, compared with 112 in 2008. In total, seven aid workers were killed last year, all Congolese nationals, Giuliano said.
In December, the UN Security Council mandated that peacekeepers in Congo base all future support for the Congolese army on its adherence to international law and protection of civilians.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601116&sid=a9_ImG_9bQdUhttp://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601116&sid=a9_ImG_9bQdU
More than... more
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More than 500,000 Haitians who fled Port Au Prince after the earthquake are beginning to return even though plans have not been implemented to clear debris. However, I think this should not be seen as people being in the way, but an opportunity to engage the people in rebuilding their homes even better. Haitian people are very strong and resilient and deserve to play a vital role in the rebirth of their homeland.More than 500,000 Haitians who fled Port Au Prince after the earthquake are beginning... more
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