Some 650 people are killed each day in road accidents throughout Africa, a senior United Nations official on 23 October said, calling for more to be done to keep drivers – as well as pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists – safe.
Street vendors work between vehicles stuck in traffic in Tema, Ghana. Photo: Jonathan Ernst/World Bank | Source: UN News Centre
“There is projected increase in urbanization, motorization, infrastructure development projects and vehicle ownership in the region over the coming decades. Road traffic fatalities and injuries will continue to take a rising toll on countries if no significant changes are made,” warned the Special Envoy for Road Safety, Jean Todt, addressing the 2017 Africa Road Safety Conference in Cape Town, South Africa.
23 October 2017 – International Organisation for Migration (IOM)* – Nearly 7,000 Rohingya refugees were stranded on a strip of land between Myanmar and Bangladesh for two days last week
Last week, the Government of Bangladesh moved near 7,000 Rohingya refugees, who had been stranded in “no man’s land” near the Anjuman Para border crossing point in Cox’s Bazar’s Ukhia District, into more appropriate settlement areas. The Rohingya are fleeing violence, which broke out in Myanmar on 25 August.
Unless the international community integrates wildlife conservation with sustainable development, it will not be able to protect the remaining animal species on Earth, the head of a United Nations-backed environmental treaty on 23 October 2017 said at the opening of a wildlife conference in the Philippines.
A lion watches his territory in Kenya. Photo: UN/DPI Photo
“Development without a regard for the environment is not sustainable. Their future is our future,” said the Executive Secretary of the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS), Brandee Chambers, in a press conference on the opening day of the Twelfth Meeting of countries that have joined CMS.
**M. al-Gaddafi at the 12th AU summit, February 2, 2009, Addis Abeba| U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jesse B. Awalt/ Released
Earlier that day, Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte had been occupied by Western-backed militias, following a month-long battle during which NATO and its ‘rebel’ allies pounded the city’s hospitals and homes with artillery, cut off its water and electricity, and publicly proclaimed their desire to ‘starve [the city] into submission’.
The last defenders of the city, including Gaddafi, fled Sirte that morning, but their convoy was tracked and strafed by NATO jets, killing 95 people.
Gaddafi escaped the wreckage but was captured shortly afterward.
We will keep missing out if we insist on relying solely on our intellect, acquired knowledge, reason and intelligence; human potential encompasses much more.
Antonio Carlos Silva Rosa, M.A. | Editor
I am fascinated with the insights the evolution of science provides, particularly astronomy, cosmology, quantum physics and medicine. Medical research and technology opened the doors to the insides of our brains, considered by ourselves superior and in many ways as complex, dynamic, fascinating as the universe itself.
And scientists keep sending those ‘intelligent’ messages to outer space in hopes that other ‘intelligent’ beings will pick them up and beam back their replies to them-us to provide a human life-changing experience of a close encounter of some kind. They assume that beings ‘out there’ possess minds and intellects–lives like our own.
PARANAITA, Brazil, Oct 21 2017 (IPS) – The burning down of the local forest, on Jun. 29, 1979, was the first step towards the creation of the city of Paranaita, in a municipality that is now trying to shed its reputation as a major deforester of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest and has named itself “the energy capital.”
Aerial view of the TelesPires Hydropower Plant, which has been operating since 2015.With an installed capacity of 1,820 MW, it is the biggest plant on the TelesPires River, which runs across the west-central state of MatoGrosso. Built in the middle of the Amazon rainforest, the reservoir is only 160 sq km in size and only displaced one family. Credit: Courtesy of CHTP
20 October 2017 – Highlighting the potential of cities to address malnutrition, the head of the United Nations food security agency has called for innovative partnerships between urban centres and wide range of stakeholders to overcome the challenge of food waste and to ensure a healthy and nutritious diet for all.
High rises and hotel buildings in Punta Pacifica, Panama City, Panama. Photo: World Bank/Gerardo Pesantez | Source: UN News Centre
Multiple forms of malnutrition – overweight, obesity or micronutrient deficiencies – threaten the health of millions of people around the world, José Graziano da Silva, the Director General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), told a global meeting of mayors and representatives from more than 150 cities.
ONE DAY the Israeli Labor Party felt that it needed a new leader.
Uri Avnery
That happens to this party every couple of years. The party is in bad shape. It looks more like a political corpse than a living organism. Wanted: a new leader, charismatic, energetic, enthusiastic.
So they found Avi Gabbay.
Why him? Nobody is really sure.
Avi Gabbay has no visible qualities of political leadership. No charisma at all. No special energy. No enthusiasm himself and no ability to inspire enthusiasm in others.
After serving as a government employee dealing with the mobile phone industry, he himself became the successful director of the largest mobile phone concern.
14 October 2017 – TRANSCEND Media Service – Mordechai Vanunu was imprisoned in Israel for eighteen years because he blew the whistle on Israel’s secret nuclear weapons program.
Kathy Kelly
He felt he had “an obligation to tell the people of Israel what was going on behind their backs” at a supposed nuclear research facility which was actually producing plutonium for nuclear weapons.
His punishment for breaking the silence about Israel’s capacity to manufacture nuclear weapons included eleven years of solitary confinement.
Yesterday {13 October}, reading about President Donald Trump’s new strategy on Iran, Vanunu’s long isolation and sacrificial commitment to truth-telling came to mind.
ROME, 21 October 2017 (IPS)– The Austrian elections show clearly that media have given up on contextualising events.
To do that, calls for a warning about Europe’s future, as a vehicle of European values is required.
Europe has been weakened by all the recent elections, with the notable exception of France.
Common to all, France included, were some clear trends, that we will hastily, and therefore maybe imperfectly, examine.
The decline of the traditional parties.
In every election, since the financial crisis of 2009, the parties we have known to run their country since the end of the Second World War, are on the wane ( or practically disappearing, like in the last French elections).
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 