Rita Levi-Montalcini, the Italian Nobel laureate honoured for her work in neurobiology, once gave a splendid conference with the title “The imperfect brain”. There she explained that man has a brain that is not used completely, while the reverse is true for the cockroach.
**Global temperature anomalies for 2015 compared to the 1951–1980 baseline. 2015 was the warmest year in the NASA/NOAAtemperature record, which starts in 1880. It has since been superseded by 2016 (NASA/NOAA; 20 January 2016).[
In the growing fog that envelops the planet and its inhabitants, looking at things from the point of view of a cockroach would probably give us a new perspective.
Also because the cockroach survived the atomic bomb in Nagasaki, it is 300 million years old, and it is distributed around the planet in over 4,000 species. All things that give it a great advantage over man.
Widespread and systematic sexual violence across South Sudan, just a few months after the country’s top two politicians signed a renewed commitment to peace, was at the top of the UN Commission on Human Rights in the country’s agenda on 14 December 2018, as members ended their first fact-finding mission.
OCHA/Jacob Zocherman | Mother and daughter in Unity State, South Sudan.
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The three-person team investigating rights violations in the world’s youngest country, which has been mired in bloody civil conflict since 2013, arrived on the ground shortly after more than 150 women and girls were reportedly sexually assaulted in the northern town of Bentiu.
Africa is at a “tipping point” as global warming increases, and urgent action needs to be taken across the continent now, to mitigate risks and safeguard a decade of social and economic gains, according to a new report launched on 14 December 2018 by the United Nations Development Agency (UNDP) at the COP24 climate conference, in Katowice, Poland.
UNDP Chad/Jean Damascene Hakuzim | In the reforestation site of Merea, Chad, children are planting acacia seedlings for the future In the past 50 years, Lake Chad basin shrank from 25,000 square kilometers to 2,000square kilometers.
A new plan to cover the urgent needs of millions of Venezuelan refugees and migrants, coordinated by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), was launched in Geneva on 14 December 2018.
The plan, the first of its kind in the Americas, is a strategy to deal with an estimate three million people, the largest exodus from a single country in the region, in recent years.
The vast majority of them have sought refuge in Latin American and Caribbean countries. The numbers leaving Venezuela have increased dramatically from 2017, and now, an average of 5,500 are crossing the border every day.
Addis Ababa, 13 December 2018 (IOM)* –Climate change combined with conflict has resulted in a significant increase in the number of internally displaced people (IDPs) in Ethiopia in recent years.
An internally displaced woman carries a baby on her back at the Airstrip Area Displacement Site in the Somali Region of Ethiopia. Photo credit: IOM 2017 / Rikka Tupaz
“Ethiopia is one of the countries experiencing large numbers of internal displacement – 2.6 per cent of its population,” said Mitiku Kassa, Commissioner of the National Disaster Risk Management Commission of Ethiopia, during the 109th Session of International Organization for Migration (IOM) Council in late November.
11 December 2018 (Norwegian Refugee Council)* – Conflict and natural disasters from 2017 – 2018 caused massive displacement to cities – says new report from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).
Fatumo Abdullahi, 35, and her family live in a settlement for displaced families in Mogadishu’s Kaxda district. Fatumo and her family members were displaced from Bay region due to the drought. Photo: NRC/EU Christian Jepsen
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“Somali families are fleeing to Mogadishu seeking shelter, protection and aid. With nowhere else to go, they crowd into camps that are unhealthy and unsafe. This influx has made Mogadishu the most densely populated city in Africa, with more people arriving every day,” said Evelyn Aero, Regional Adviser for Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).
2.6 million people are displaced within Somalia. Drought, competition for resources and poor living conditions has fuelled fighting in rural areas, and pushed people towards Mogadishu, says a new report from NRC’s Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.
Watching the ongoing debate between liberal and right-wing pundits on US mainstream media, one rarely gets the impression that Washington is responsible for the unfolding chaotic situation in Central America.
In fact, no other country is as accountable as the United States for the ongoing chaos and resulting refugee crisis. So why, despite the seemingly substantial ideological and political differences between right-wing Fox News and liberal CNN, are both media outlets working hard to safeguard their country’s dirty little secret?
Dec 13, 2018 – Poland is hosting lobbying for coal and fossil fuels of a scale that has rarely been seen during an annual UN conference on climate (COP). The EU is turning a blind eye to this new facet of its ‘enfant terrible.’ EURACTIV France reports.
It takes just one breath of air to understand that coal is omnipresent in Katowice. The acidic smell from the combustion of coal in a neighbouring thermal power station can be noticed even in the temporary buildings Poland has packed around the conference centre.
Even the slogan of COP24, “Katowice is changing the climate!”, which is displayed on buses, has a sense of black humour to it. The city’s emissions, which are being multiplied by the arrival of 20,000 people for two weeks, are actually contributing to the acceleration of global warming.
Forced to abandon their homes, farms and livestock, over 50,000 people have been displaced by insecurity in the border regions of west Niger. | Español | Français | عربي
TILLABERI, Niger, 13 December 2018 (UNHCR)* – When militants attacked his village in west Niger, Al-Bashir Gamo Gamo’s peaceful life spent tending to his livestock was over.
“They kidnapped five people from my village who were later found dead,” he says, explaining how armed groups threatened the village members with death if they did not leave within 12 hours.
Screen stars on Netflix wear stunning but different couture in every episode. Celebrities boast cutting edge design, always pictured in a new outfit. Are you keeping up? Don’t worry. The latest news is that you don’t have to.
If you listen to Deputy Mayor of Paris—and Parisians would know—Antoinette Guhl, as stated in the report A New Textiles Economy: “Circular is the new black! We need a fashion industry based on three principles: clean, fair and good.”
