24/02/2015
The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) on 23 February 2015 called for all countries to switch by 2020 to new ‘smart’ syringes that cannot be used more than once as an “absolutely critical” stop to protect millions of people from deadly infections acquired through unsafe injections.
Photo: PAHO/WHO
“Adoption of safety-engineered syringes is absolutely critical to protecting people worldwide from becoming infected with HIV, hepatitis and other diseases. This should be an urgent priority for all countries,” Dr. Gottfried Hirnschall, Director of the WHO HIV/AIDS Department, said in the announcement by the UN health agency.*
A 2014 study sponsored by WHO, which focused on the most recent available data, estimated that in 2010, up to 1.7 million people were infected with hepatitis B virus, up to 315,000 with hepatitis C virus and as many as 33,800 with HIV through an unsafe injection.
read more »
Posted in Africa, Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, Middle East, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples |
Leave a Comment »
24/02/2015
New York, 23 February 2015 – This year is pivotal for global action on climate change, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in New York, emphasizing that all the major advances of 2014 have set the stage for success in 2015.
Photo: UNEP
“Our challenge now is clear: to finalize a meaningful, universal agreement on climate change,” Ban told Member States at a briefing on relevant progress as momentum builds towards a meeting to be held in Paris this December, when leaders are expected to reach a landmark treaty.
“Addressing climate change is essential for realizing sustainable development. If we fail to adequately address climate change, we will be unable to build a world that supports a life of dignity for all,” the Secretary-General warned.
Joining Ban at the briefing was President of the UN General Assembly, Sam Kutesa, as well as the Permanent Representatives of Peru and France, who organized the gathering.
read more »
Posted in Africa, Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, Market Lords, Middle East, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples |
Leave a Comment »
23/02/2015
By Irene Wabiwa-Betoko*
23 February 2015 — The chimpanzee is one of mankind’s closest relatives. However there are many of us who do not treat them with what could be called familial affection.
Source: Greenpeace
Chimps and other primates in Africa face an increasing number of threats to their very existence.
They are traded and eaten as bush meat, have their homes destroyed by illegal loggers, are likely to be highly affected by climate change and there are reports that their numbers suffered greatly because of Ebola.
On top of it all, they are also seeing their homes destroyed by unscrupulous agribusiness companies – many foreign-owned – who are clearing vast tracts of rainforest throughout west and central Africa to make way for plantations producing palm oil, rubber and other commodities.
New evidence from Greenpeace Africa, publicized today, reveals that several projects in Cameroon are destroying and threatening ape habitat.
Satellite images show that the Chinese-owned Hevea Sud rubber and palm oil project in the country’s South region has already resulted in over 3,000 hectares of rainforest destroyed with many thousands more to come.
read more »
Posted in Africa, Market Lords, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc. |
Leave a Comment »
23/02/2015
.
© UNESCO | Mobile Learning Week
These numbers tell us that technology is now common even in areas where women’s educational opportunities are limited. A burgeoning number of programmes using mobile devices for learning are also successfully reaching women and girls. However gaps remain.
Quality of education and access to education is still unequal across gender lines, and disparities result in disproportional literacy rates for males and females. Globally, two out of every three illiterate adults are women.
Another complexity is usage and access to Internet technology. In low- to middle-income countries, a woman is 21 per cent less likely to own a mobile phone than a man, and the divide is similar for Internet access.
read more »
Posted in Africa, Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, Market Lords, Middle East, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples |
Leave a Comment »
23/02/2015
“I always wanted to go to school,” said Azra Misbih-ul-huda, 17, who lives in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. “ When this free education mobile learning project was launched in our area I was very excited […]I said to my mother I need to be educated and my mother eventually agreed because she said I had helped her a lot and I deserved it. Up until then I had been living in the village helping my mother with daily chores.” *
-
UNESCO celebrates Mobile Learning Week 2015
“Before the mobile learning course I and many girls of my age could not read and write a single word, but now all of the girls who benefited from this project can easily read books and now we often exchange books,” Azra said.
Leveraging technology to empower women and girls like Azra and her friends is the theme of this year’s Mobile Learning Week, which will be celebrated from 23 to 27 February.
read more »
Posted in Africa, Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, Middle East, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples |
1 Comment »
23/02/2015
MAIDUGURI, February 2015 (IRIN) – Mohammed Abubaker is angry. Ten months ago, he was a businessman with a comfortable life in Nigeria’s northeastern border town of Gwoza. Now he’s homeless, his life turned upside down by the Boko Haram insurgency, and he doesn’t even own the clothes he wears.
.
**Photo: Obinna Anyadike/IRIN | “We fled with just the clothes on our backs,” says Mohammed Abubakar.
Abubaker, 35, fled Gwoza for Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, 135 kms northwest. In the fear and confusion of Boko Haram’s sudden arrival in his hometown, shooting at everyone they met, he had just enough time to gather his family and run. He doesn’t know if his parents and in-laws are still alive.
“I didn’t take anything out of the house; we fled with just the clothes on our backs. We left everything,” said Abubaker. To add insult to injury, he thinks Boko Haram probably torched his shop – he saw other stores burning as he ran.
read more »
Posted in Africa, The Peoples, War Lords |
1 Comment »
22/02/2015
Roberto Savio*
Roberto Savio
23 February 2015
Abstract
The author analyses the current stage in history, marked by a lack of global governance. There is little hope of achieving this in the short term as we are undergoing a period of transition. This text, that sets out to unravel the world’s chaos, describes some eight gaps to be filled. On this path towards global governance, international relations has emerged as a new and significant reality.
It is unlikely that global governance will be achieved in the short-term. The only viable long term plan is to encourage a discussion to establish common values shared by most of humankind. Ultimately, the author proposes that if we are to achieve real and lasting global governance, the debate will have to revert to core values on which to base our coexistence.
As conflicts proliferate around the world it becomes increasingly evident that we are going through a period in history marked by a lack of global governance.
Calls, meetings, and acronyms multiply due to the many attempts towards achieving a new equilibrium. From the G7 to G8 and G20, the BRICS, G2 and Chindia (China and India) not to mention the many regional Asian, African, Latin American blocks.
read more »
Posted in Africa, Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, Market Lords, Middle East, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords |
2 Comments »
22/02/2015
By Uri Avnery*
Uri Avnery
21/02/15
ANTI-SEMITISM is on the rise. All over Europe it is raising its ugly head. Jews are in danger everywhere. They must make haste and come home to Israel before it is too late.
True? Untrue?
Nonsense.
PRACTICALLY ALL the alarming incidents which have taken place in Europe recently – especially in Paris and Copenhagen – in which Jews were killed or attacked – had nothing to do with anti-Semitism.
All these outrages were conducted by young Muslims, mostly of Arab descent. They were part of the ongoing war between Israelis and Arabs that has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. They are not descended from the pogrom in Kishinev and not related to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
In theory, Arab anti-Semitism is an oxymoron, since Arabs are Semites. Indeed, Arabs may be more Semitic then Jews, because Jews have mingled for many centuries with Gentiles.
But, of course, the German publicist Wilhelm Marr, who probably invented the term Antisemitismus in 1880 (after inventing the term Semitismus seven years earlier) never met an Arab in his life. For him the only Semites were Jews, and his crusade was solely against them.
read more »
Posted in Middle East, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples |
1 Comment »
22/02/2015
Mother tongue education is not only a force for quality learning, it is also essential to bolster multilingualism and respect for linguistic and cultural diversity at a time when societies are transforming quickly and many languages are under threat, the United Nations agency mandated with promoting education on 21 February 2015 said.
Languages connect the world. Source: UNESCO
Marking International Mother Language Day , celebrated annually on 21 February, the head of UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), emphasized that the post-2015 development agenda must focus on advancing quality education for all and that includes promoting the preservation of language.
“2015 marks the 15th anniversary of International Mother Language Day – this is also a turning point year for the international community, as the deadline for the Millennium Development Goals, when countries will define a new global sustainable development agenda,” UNSECO Director-General Irina Bokova said in a statement.
read more »
Posted in Africa, Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, Middle East, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples |
Leave a Comment »
20/02/2015
LONDON, 20 February 2015 (1) (IRIN)* – Late last year the Italian government scrapped its Mediterranean search and rescue operation the Mare Nostrum after funding shortages. The project was partially replaced by Operation Triton – but the service is far more restricted than its predecessor, both in geography (the patrols only go up to 30 miles off the Italian coast) and budget (roughly a third of Mare Nostrum). Critics have said it could leave tens of thousands of migrants at far greater risk.
**Photo: Alfredo D’Amato/UNHCR | Rescued migrants sleep after being plucked from a boat off the coast of Italy in summer 2014.
The most common argument for the shift was deterrence. Previously, proponents argued, the migrants in the boats and their smugglers could be fairly certain that they would be rescued by one of Mare Nostrum’s ships.
Baroness Anelay, British Foreign Office minister, argued at the time that such rescue missions only encouraged more people to make the treacherous journey.
Yet if the ending of Mare Nostrum was intended to be a deterrent, so far it has failed. There has been a spike in the numbers of migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean; to around 7,000 so far in 2015 from 3,338 in the same period in 2014, according to the UN’s refugee agency UNHCR (see chart below).
read more »
Posted in Africa, Asia, Market Lords, Middle East, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords |
Leave a Comment »
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 
