Archive for February 17th, 2012

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17/02/2012

Over 65 percent of Asia’s Elderly Population Will Be Women

Human Wrongs Watch

With 60 percent of the world’s population, Asia has one of the largest concentrations globally of aging persons, creating a host of potential challenges, experts warn*. Over 65 percent of Asia’s elderly population will be women.

Credit:UN

“Asian countries, besides Japan perhaps, need to plan now. These countries have grown older before they have grown rich,” said Somnath Chatterji with the World Health Organization (WHO) office in New Delhi.

“One in four people in Asia will be 60 or older by the year 2050, rising from one in 10 in 2010, according to the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.”

“China and India clearly will be the countries with the largest population of older adults in absolute terms. However, China is aging more rapidly than India because of its one child policy,” Chatterji added.

The over-60 population will rise from 165 million to 439 million in China and from 93 million to 323 million in India from 2010 to 2050, according to government projections reported to the UN.

India’s overall population is expected to exceed China’s in the same period.

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Posted in Asia, Mother Earth, The Peoples | Leave a Comment »

17/02/2012

UN to Assad: ‘Cease Violence, Protect People’… Please

Human Wrongs Watch

The UN General Assembly strongly condemned the continued “widespread and systematic” human rights violations by the Syrian authorities and demanded that the Government immediately cease all violence and protect its people.

**Image: Syria-Frames-Of-Freedom. Source | Wikimedia Commons

The 193-member body adopted on 16 Feb. a resolution backing Arab League efforts to resolve the crisis in Syria, where UN officials estimate that “security forces have killed well over 5,400 people since the popular uprising began last March,” the UN reports.

“Thousands of people are also believed to be missing, some 70,000 people are internally displaced and 25,000 have fled the country to avoid the violence.”

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Posted in Middle East, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords | Leave a Comment »

17/02/2012

No Food for 10 Million People in Sahel, 5.4 Million in Niger

Human Wrongs Watch

An estimated 10 million people or more are struggling to get enough to eat across the Sahel region, including 5.4 million in Niger alone, representing over one third of its total population. More than a million children under the age of five risk severe acute malnutrition in the region, up from 300,000 last year.

*Image: Mothers waiting to have their children assessed and weighed at the Bargadja therapeutic feeding centre in Niger's Maradai Region. Photo: WFP/Phil Behan

The UN has been sounding the alarm since last September that the situation in the Sahel region was likely to become “a major humanitarian situation” this year unless something was done to reverse the trend.

“We are extremely concerned that millions of people will be affected by a combination of drought, poverty and high grain prices, which, coupled with environmental degradation and chronic underdevelopment, is expected to result in a new food and nutrition crisis,” Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Catherine Bragg stated in New York, the UN reports.

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Posted in Africa, Mother Earth, The Peoples | Leave a Comment »

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