Infants and young children most at risk of fatal complications, health agencies warn
5 December 2019 (WHO)* — Worldwide more than 140,000 people died from measles in 2018, according to new estimates from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United States Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC). These deaths occurred as measles cases surged globally, amidst devastating outbreaks in all regions.
WHO/Daniel Hodgson
Most deaths were among children under 5 years of age. Babies and very young children are at greatest risk from measles infections, with potential complications including pneumonia and encephalitis (a swelling of the brain), as well as lifelong disability – permanent brain damage, blindness or hearing loss.
With every passing day, it becomes clearer that the military coup in Bolivia on November 10th was masterminded in Washington DC.
Bolivian president Evo Morales who is now in exile in Mexico.(Photo: Sebastian Baryli)
This reality will create yet a new difficulty in relations between the U.S. regime and Mexico to its direct south, because the Mexican Government, under progressive President Lopez Obrador, took the courageous and very meaningful step of providing refuge to the U.S.-couped Bolivian President Evo Morales and therefore posed overtly a resistance to the U.S. dictatorship.
3 December 2019 (Wall Street International)* — Since we have been Homo sapiens, the language has deeply transformed our way of seeing the world, but it has not cut those strong and substantial ties that link the human communication to that of other animals, in particular chimpanzees.
Such a unique way of communicating in our species, takes place, from an ontogenetic point of view, in a true and real cognitive revolution which happens in the child when he or she is about one and a half years old, when he or she discovers the other children are also intentional agents.
(Greenpeace International)* — Extreme weather is becoming the norm. Droughts across swaths of China, catastrophic flooding in Venice, and fires in Russia, Brazil, Congo and recently in Australia have all been attributed to climate change. The arctic glaciers are melting. Even Antarctica is feeling the heat.
Fires burn trees at a plantation area, in Palangkaraya city, Central Kalimantan. This year’s nearly 2,000 wildfires are burning across Indonesia. It is the worst year since 2015. Officials estimate that the fires have burned more than 800,000 acres. Greenpeace criticized the government for not taking action against the companies that set fires to clear land for agriculture purposes.
Economy: From Care and Management of “Oikos” to a Money Machine at War with the Planet and People
Manlio Masucci
The word ‘economy’ has its roots in the Greek word ‘oikos’, which originally referred to household, house, or family, its daily operations and maintenance. Economy, derived from Oikonomia is thus the management of the home.
6 December 2019 (FAO)* — On the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro, in the Chagga community’s Shimbwe Juu village, much of the area is divided into ‘Kihamba’, plots of land with a traditional home and garden. Here, the Kihamba help form a multilayered agroforestry system that boasts over 500 types of plants and is rich in biodiversity.
5 December 2019 (FAO)* — World Soil Day 2019 (#WorldSoilDay) and its campaign “Stop soil erosion, Save our future” is envisaged to raise awareness on the importance of sustaining healthy ecosystems and human well-being by addressing the increasing challenges in soil management and, raise the profile of healthy soil by encouraging governments, organizations, communities and individuals around the world to engage in proactively improving soil health.
By FAO* — One of the key ingredients to a #ZeroHunger future is the soil beneath our feet. Although it may not look like much, soil is full of water, nutrients and microorganisms that are vital for growing our food. However, soil is a finite resource – restoring even a few centimetres of soil can take up to 1 000 years. So if we want to ensure food security and improved nutrition in the future, we need to take care of our soil today.
The number of Caribbean children displaced by storms has risen approximately six-fold in the past five years, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reveals in a new report released on Friday [6 December 2019]. (*).
Catastrophic tropical cyclones and hurricanes uprooted an estimated 761,000 children in the region between 2014 and 2018, which also was the hottest five-year period on record.
Let us begin by recognizing the brilliant contributions that Jewish intellectuals have given to the world.
Of the three great monotheistic Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Judaism was the first. Thus the religious traditions of much of the world have their roots in Jewish culture.
We should also acknowledge the remarkable intellectual achievements of thinkers such as Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Niels Bohr, Hanna Adler, Emmy Noether, Noam Chomsky, and many, many more. Interested readers can look at a more complete list HERE.
