AlertNet Scrapbook

By Magda Mis

LONDON (AlertNet) – The UK’s Department for International Development (DfID) is due to announce this week a fund to finance innovations that will help people affected by natural disasters, the BBC reported.

The BBC said the fund will support projects such as an app to help reunite missing families and the use of satellite technology to produce maps for rescuers. It will also finance solutions like buckets that can be filled with fresh water and sealed, or collapsible wheelchairs.

It is predicted that the number of people affected by natural disasters will rise to 375 million by 2015, the BBC added.

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By Maria Caspani

LONDON (AlertNet) - A new, free app that will send alerts to people’s phones once an earthquake of magnitude 6.5 or higher is detected was unveiled in Mexico this week, the BBC reports.

Introduced by the mayor of Mexico City Marcelo Ebrard, the Blackberry app will send out alerts that will make phones beep and vibrate even if the devices are on silent mode.

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Left to die in the sun after her birth because her mother didn't want another daughter, Fawzia Koofi survived to become the Afghan parliament's first female deputy speaker as well as head of its women's affairs commission. Despite being hounded by death threats, she intends to run for presidency in 2014.

In her book “The Favored Daughter”, Koofi recounts how her mother grew close to her, life in Afghanistan under the Russians and the Taliban, the loss of murdered family members, and her journey into politics.

Here she writes about challenges facing women and about poverty in Afghanistan:

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By Katy Migiro

NAIROBI (AlertNet) - South Sudan has launched a plan to help 80,000 government soldiers lay down their arms, the Sudan Tribune reported on Thursday.

“The DDR (disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration) process focuses on integrating combatants from the civil war into civil population and… (will) provide them with job-training and support to re-enter society,” William Deng Deng, chairman of the DDR commission, was quoted as saying.

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Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said on Tuesday he is committed to protecting the country’s forests and that he will stick to a pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions by up to 40 percent, the Jakarta Globe reported.

Indonesia has the third-largest tropical forest coverage in the world, but environmental groups say that deforestation, mainly due to the impact of the palm oil, mining and paper industries, is increasing. This has made Indonesia the world’s third-largest greenhouse gas emitter.

“We know we must do more to address the primary sources of our greenhouse emissions, such as illegal logging, forest encroachment, forest and land fires and peat land drainage,” the Globe quoted Yudhoyoho as saying.

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DAKAR (TrustLaw) – A Nigerian maternal and newborn health charity has set its sights on ensuring that 5.3 million women have access to personal health records by 2015 in a bid to cut maternal deaths in the West African country, This Day newspaper reported on Tuesday.

“I myself lost a child and nearly died in childbirth,” said Toyin Saraki, the founder of Wellbeing Foundation Africa (WBF).

She said it was for this reason that she had committed the last 19 years of her life to finding a way to stop these needless deaths.

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Floods in India's eastern state of Orissa have killed at least 59 people and disrupted the lives of more than two million people in the worst deluge to hit the region in three decades, the Hindustan Times reported on Monday.

According to the report, the floods -- triggered by the annual monsoon showers -- began on Sept. 9 and have inundated more than 3,000 villages across the impoverished, yet mineral-rich state.

"We have engaged six helicopters to air-drop relief materials and for rescue operations," Orissa's Relief Commissioner P.K. Mohapatra, was quoted as saying.

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The Delhi Metro has become the first railway system in the world to earn carbon credits from the United Nations for helping to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the Hindustan Times reported on Monday.

According to the report, the railway network -- which became operational in 2002 -- has reduced pollution levels in the Indian capital by 630,000 tonnes a year as commuters have swapped cars, buses and motorcycles for the train.

The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) will now receive around $9.5 million every year from the U.N., said the paper, adding that this could increase if passenger numbers rise about the current two million Delhi-ites who use the railway daily.

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U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Monday he is recommending a reduction of U.N. peacekeeping troops during 2012 in the earthquake-ravaged Caribbean nation.

During a meeting with Haitian President, Michel Martelly, the U.N. chief said he intends to scale down the peacekeeping mission in Haiti, known as MINUSTAH, to troop levels before the earthquake struck Haiti in January 2010. 

Shortly after the quake, an additional 2,000 troops and 15,000 police were deployed to Haiti as part of the U.N. mission to support humanitarian efforts and boost law and order.

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Over 7,000 Somali refugees in Kenya’s Dadaab camp have spoken to their families following the launch of a free mobile phone service last month, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Tuesday.

Many of the thousands of Somalis arriving in the world’s largest refugee camp every week – due to famine back home -  have lost touch with their relatives.

"These men, women and children are exhausted when they finally make it to Dadaab," Valérie Preisner, ICRC’s protection coordinator, said in the statement.

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“If I get many children, only God can plan how they’ll get their food,” Babow Abdow Hansi told Kenya’s Standard newspaper.

Expecting the birth of her ninth child, Hansi lives  in Kenya’s drought-hit northern lands. She and her family have depended on food relief for as long as she can remember.

Some 3.7 million hungry Kenyans need food aid, mostly pastoralists living in arid lands where they herd livestock for a living.

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Flooding has displaced 300 families in Marigat District in Kenya’s Rift Valley after River Molo burst its banks, the Daily Nation reported on Tuesday.

More than 4,000 hectares of crops were also destroyed, the report said.

“The residents will have to depend on relief food,” the paper quoted local councillor Francis ole Keis as saying.

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The tectonic shift that caused the 6.8 magnitude earthquake which jolted much of India's northeast on Sunday could be an indication of more threatening earthquakes to come, the Indian Express reported on Tuesday.

The quake, epicentred in the Indian Himalayan state of Sikkim, killed at least 67 people and was felt in neighbouring China, Nepal and Bangladesh. Authorities warn the death toll will increase as rescuers still battle poor weather and blocked roads to get to the worst-hit areas.

According to the report, experts believe the movement of tectonic plates which caused the quake was unusual for the region -- shifting sideways as opposed to under one another -- adding that it could mean future earthquakes will have a much bigger impact.

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The head of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) Italy called on Sunday on all parties involved in relief operations in famine-hit Somalia to work together to ensure that aid supplies arriving in Mogadishu are safely delivered to the tens of thousands in need.

“It is shocking what we see on the ground,” the Italian daily Corriere della Sera quoted Kostas Moschochoritis, head of MSF Italy, as saying. “Only a long-term, joint international effort will allow food supplies to reach those in need and spare thousands of lives.”

Most of southern Somalia is experiencing famine, which the United Nations says has put 750,000 people at risk of starvation, with hundreds of Somalis dying each day. 

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BOGOTA (AlertNet) - Science and promoting science education in schools and universities are important in rebuilding Haiti following last year’s massive earthquake, according to a report by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

 “Scientific capacity is required for advancing Haitian technological innovation and economic opportunities, improving medicine and health care, creating access to clean water, improving disaster preparedness and mitigation, developing sustainable agriculture and reducing hunger, sustain ably managing natural resources, educating citizens, and advancing human rights,” said the report written by a group of international scientists.

It suggested that Haitians should lead the effort to promote science in the Caribbean nation.

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NAIROBI (AlertNet) – Somalia has the world’s highest child mortality rate, with almost one in five children dying before their fifth birthday, the United Nations said on Friday.

Somalia’s child mortality rate in 2010 stood at 180 deaths per 1,000 live births, according to the latest data released by the U.N. Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation.

With most of southern Somalia in famine, it is likely that the rate of child deaths has increased significantly. The United Nations says 750,000 people are at imminent risk of death.

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NAIROBI (AlertNet) – Burundi will start vaccinations against pneumonia, the world’s biggest killer of children under five, next week, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) said in a statement on Friday.

It will become the tenth African country to introduce the new pneumococcal vaccine.

Every year, an estimated 16,000 children in Burundi die from pneumococcal disease, the main cause of pneumonia.

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Pilot irrigation projects in Kenya’s arid North Eastern Province (NEP) show the land is fertile enough to feed the entire country, Kenya’s The Standard newspaper reported on Wednesday. 

A rice farm on the banks of the River Tana has enabled former pastoralists to feed their families and send their children to school, the report said. 

Similarly, farms along the River Dawa, on the Kenya-Ethiopia border are producing mangoes and green maize. 

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Three explosions rocked Cotabato city on the southern Filipino island of Mindanao where a decades-old Muslim insurgency is ongoing, the Philippine Star reported. No one was hurt in the blasts which occurred within 24 hours.

Two explosions disrupted a public forum for applicants to the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) on Tuesday afternoon while a third, a mobile phone-triggered bomb, rocked the city early Wednesday morning near the office of the regional governor of the ARMM, the Star quoted the police as saying.

A fourth, found near the same area, failed to explode and police and military units in Cotabato city and other parts of western Mindanao have been placed on heightened alert.

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NAIROBI (AlertNet) –  Kenya’s Business Daily newspaper praised government plans to spend 5 billion Kenya shillings ($53 million) providing farmers with drought-resistant traditional crops on Monday.

“The crops have been identified as solutions to food shortage and we believe that this is a step in the right direction as the country and the region are under the firm grip of a severe famine,” the paper said in its lead editorial.

The Kenya government, World Bank, European Union and the International Fund for Agricultural Development are funding the purchase of seeds and fertilizer for the farmers.

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NAIROBI (AlertNet) – Kenyan parliamentarians called for the resettlement of displaced families living in camps almost four years after they were forced from their homes by post-election violence, the Daily Nation reported on Monday.

Heavily rainfall has compounded the misery of families whose tents have been flooded.

"Women and children are being rained on because their tents are worn out. They have poor latrines and this puts them at risk of waterborne diseases," the newspaper reported MP David Njuguna saying.

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NAIROBI (AlertNet) – Kenya may lose $2.1 billion in aid from the United States for HIV/AIDS and malaria projects, the Daily Nation reported on Monday.

The U.S. Congress has demanded cuts in foreign aid to address domestic shortfalls.

U.S. development agencies are lobbying against the cuts, warning they would hurt American interests in Africa.

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Most Indonesians disapproved of an attack on members of the minority Ahmadiyah sect earlier this year according to a survey of 3,000 people in 10 provinces, the Jakarta Post reported.

The attack in February in West Java left three Ahmadis dead and five seriously injured. 

The Ahmadis are followers of a sect founded in the 19th century. Mainstream Muslims say their beliefs are heretical.

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Three people were killed and about 60 injured during sectarian clashes in the Moluccas in eastern Indonesia following rumours that a Muslim motorbike taxi driver was tortured to death by Christians, Asia News reports.

More than 200 police officers have been deployed to Ambon city to control rival groups who fought with rocks and machetes after the funeral of Darkin Saimen.

The police said an autopsy showed Darkin died after crashing his motorcycle but rumours spread that Christians had attacked him, the Jakarta Globe said. Buildings and vehicles were also vandalised during the fighting, the paper added.

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Cyber technology, remote-controlled weapons systems may be the stuff of science fiction, but they are also part of the changing face of modern warfare.

The reality of these new technologies, their humanitarian impact and their regulation under international humanitarian law (also called the laws of war by military types) will top the agenda of a roundtable discussion starting on Thursday.

Hosted by the International Institute of International Humanitarian Law and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the debate will consider whether it is possible to ensure that attacks through cyber space are not indiscriminate or determine the status of those operating drones thousands of miles away from the battlefield, among other questions.

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Government-run drug detention centres in Vietnam are little more than forced labour camps where drug users work six days a week processing cashews, sewing garments, or manufacturing other items for little or no pay, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in its latest report.

The human rights group said drug users in the centres also suffered torture and physical violence.

In its report, “The Rehab Archipelago: Forced Labor and Other Abuses in Drug Detention Centers in Southern Vietnam,” HRW spoke to detainees in 14 centres under the authority of the Ho Chi Minh City government. The detainees said they were sent to the centres without a formal legal hearing or trial and without seeing a lawyer or judge.

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The Philippines government and Maoist rebels National Democratic Front (NDF) announced on Wednesday they will resume peace talks next month, the Philippine Star reported.

According to the Star, both sides said the resumption of talks followed the removal of an obstacle in the negotiations after Norway mediated.

Earlier, the rebels demanded the release of at least five more detained guerrilla leaders before peace negotiations could resume.

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The largest Muslim separatist group in the Philippines said it would not attend next week’s peace talks with the government in Malaysia, the Philippine Star reported, as the two sides argue over the matter of autonomy for the southern island of Mindanao.

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front is insisting on a sub-state in Mindanao. The government is offering to create a tripartite body to lobby for reforms and laws to setup a new political entity for Muslims and indigenous people in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). MILF, meanwhile, sees the ARMM as “nothing but the administrative arm of Manila,” according to another report from Newsbreak.

"With this situation, we feel that there is no point of discussion between the two panels,” MILF chairman, Al Haj Murad, said.

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Brazil’s health ministry says nearly 116,000 cases of malaria were reported in the first half of this year, a fall of 31 percent compared with the same period in 2010, the Spanish press agency EFE reported. 

“The positive figures are the result of comprehensive action, which includes stepping up the routines for early diagnosis and the opportune treatment of patients,” Brazil’s health minister, Alexandre Padilha, said.

The government launched a malaria prevention campaign this week that aims to distribute 1.1 million mosquito nets impregnated with long-lasting insecticide.  

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