Monthly Archives: July 2019

I am 15 and am blocking your commute so my generation has jobs to go to and a planet to live on

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“I am going to be late for work because of you! You lot don’t have jobs to go to!” a red-faced woman yelled at last month’s youth climate march in London. Admittedly, by occupying Westminster Bridge, the schoolchildren had caused some disruption, but that was the point. Commuters might be late for work, but [a new generation] will not have jobs to go to or even have a healthy planet to live on unless our governments take immediate action on climate change.

  This group of schoolchildren are part of an ever-growing movement. In May, more than a million children in 1,600 towns in at least 125 countries took part in the school strikes for justice.

Although you might not agree that occupying roads and disrupting traffic is the best way to bring about change, these actions certainly get people talking and it forces the issue of climate change on the political agenda.

Most of us are aware of the catastrophic effects of climate change – from prolonged drought to devastating tropical storms, heatwaves and wildfires. But climate change does not just affect the natural world. It will also intensify inequalities damaging our rights to life, health, food, water, housing and livelihoods. Climate change is not just another political or moral issue that people and politicians are able to ignore. It puts the survival of humanity and our human rights at peril. But it seems that some people –especially the so-called Gen Z (aged 7-22) – see this more clearly than others.

Young people are often dismissed as inactive by older generations who see our obsession with mobile devices and social media sites as a sign of lassitude. But Generation Z are using technology to mobilize. Growing up with instant access to information the Internet has to offer, Generation Z stands to be the most well-informed generation ever. Equipped with instant messaging and mobile phones, mass mobilization of youth for causes we care about is now easier than ever. An army of young people can rally behind the cause of climate change through the tap of a button and co-ordinate themselves to engage in acts of civil disobedience, such as peacefully demonstrating and occupying.

[Amnesty International]

How a community brought down child mortality by 95%

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Imagine a world in which pregnant women and little kids get regular home visits from a health worker — and free health care. That’s the ground-breaking approach that’s being adopted in one of the world’s poorest countries: the West African nation of Mali.

A nurse from the country’s cadre of community health workers visits each of the homes in her designated area, which contains roughly 1,000 people, at least twice a month. She diagnoses, treats and refer patients. It’s part of a free door-to-door health-care plan that began in 2008 as a trial by the government.

When data from seven-year trial was compiled by a team including researchers from the University of California, they found that child mortality for kids under age 5 dropped by an astounding 95%, according to findings published last year in BMJ Global Health. The population in the study area was 77,132 in 2013. During the seven years of the study, child mortality rates for that demographic fell from 154 deaths for every 1,000 live births in Yirimadio, among the worst in the world, to 7 – comparable to the 6.5 figure in the U.S.

And now the program will be extended to the entire country. President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta announced a target date of 2022 for nationwide coverage — at a cost of $120 million. This localized, free health care for pregnant women and children under age 5 could help the West African nation meet the U.N. Millennium Development Goals. A key factor will be the provision of community health care workers who’ll be trained to do the door-to-door work.

The decision has earned praise from policy experts and patients alike. “This is long overdue,” says Dr. Eric Buch, a medical doctor and professor of health policy and management at South Africa’s University of Pretoria, who was not involved in the study. “Free health care for mothers and children under 5 is a very effective way of reducing mortality, and it could have a huge impact.”

The key to long-term success is long-term funding. Mali’s planned reforms rely on external funding from bodies such as the Clinton Health Access Initiative to supplement government spending. But there is no guarantee this funding source will last in future decades, and Mali will need to find a long-term solution that may involve restructuring its budget.

[NPR]

Countries with the highest murder rates

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Armed conflicts are becoming deadlier but a new United Nations report reveals that actually, intentional homicide kills far more people.

In fact, according to the hefty Global Study on Homicide 2019, published this week by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), crime kills significantly more people than armed conflict and terrorism combined. While armed conflict killed 89,000 people in 2017 and terrorism killed 26,000, crime ended the lives of 464,000 people that year. This data is important to track, the report says, because homicide affects not just the victim but also the victim’s family and community. It creates a violent environment that is harmful to society, the economy and the world at large.

Homicide rates are also the first indicator for measuring progress toward the first target under the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16: to “significantly reduce all forms of violence and related death rates everywhere.” It also affects nearly all the other SDGs, the report notes, including no poverty, good health, quality education, gender equality, decent work and economic growth, reduced inequalities, sustainable cities, climate action and life on land.

According to the report, organized crime alone is a major source of homicide around the world. More than half of the 464,000 homicides in 2017 were carried out with guns. Particularly in the Americas, firearms were used to perpetrate about three-quarters of homicides in 2017. These killings account for more than a quarter of all homicides in the world that year.

  • The two regions with homicide rates that exceed the global average were the Americas.
  • Asia, which accounts for 60 percent of the global population, recorded the lowest rate.
  • The rates in Oceania and Europe were also below the global average.

To view an interactive map that lists countries homicide rates, visit this UNDOC resource. 

[UN Dispatch]

African migrants arrive at Texas border and fan out across the country

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United States Customs and Border Patrol is facing a new wrinkle in their efforts to control and manage the flow of migrants across the U.S.’s southern border: a sudden influx of asylum seekers from countries in Africa. The Associated Press reports that migrants from Africa are flocking to the U.S.-Mexico border after flying into South and Central American countries.

In one recent week, border patrol apprehended at least 500 African migrants in the Del Rio sector of the border — twice the number border patrol apprehended in all of fiscal 2018 across the entire U.S.-Mexico border.

Like those immigrants coming to the border in migrant caravans, the African migrants have a plan once they hit the U.S. border. After being processed, they typically fan out to 16 U.S. cities, according to the Washington Examiner, where communities of African refugees are thriving, helped along by non-profits at the border that provide newly processed asylum seekers with paid transportation.

Most African migrants appear to be escaping human rights abuses and violent dictatorships on their home continent. Most, Border Patrol says, are from the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Angola, as well as Cameroon. The AP adds that, in recent weeks, border patrol has processed asylum seekers from Ethiopia, Eritrea, and the Sudan.

A report about the Republic of the Congo, published by the U.N.’s Joint Human Rights Commission, claims that there have been “at least 324 victims of extrajudicial or summary executions, 832 victims of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, 173 victims of rape or other sexual violence (114 women, 58 children and one man), and 431 victims of forced labor. The civilian population has been the main victim of the worsening security situation in these territories.”

The widespread violence, the U.N. says, is threatening to create a “mass displacement” of civilians; that “mass displacement” may have already begun.

Increased number of migrants from Africa turning up at US southern border

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Thousands of Africans from Cameroon, Congo and other violence-plagued countries are preparing to cross over the southern border of the United States, according to Customs and Border Protection reports.

  • Border agents from the Del Rio area of Texas sounded the alarm on May 31 about a group of 116 African migrants, sitting on the US side of the Rio Grande, waiting to be arrested.
  • Then, in early June, agents in Eagle Pass, Texas, detained another group of Central African families. In all, more than 500 Africans in a single week crossed the Del Rio border zone.
  • Late in June, agents arrested yet another 310 mostly Haitian and African migrants.
  • Data from Mexico’s interior ministry suggests that migration from Africa this year will break records. The number of Africans registered by Mexican authorities tripled in the first four months of 2019 compared with the same period a year ago, reaching about 1,900 people, mostly from Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Until recently, African migrants headed to Europe, but the European Union has slammed the door on them. Now African migrants who head to Europe face indefinite detention in facilities on the north coast of Libya. According to the United Nations, these detention centers are “an outrage to the conscience of humanity.” Toilet facilities are nonexistent, food is crawling with maggots, many adults succumb to severe malnutrition and rape and torture are commonplace.

That’s why many African migrants are coming to the United States. They’re cobbling together airfare to Ecuador (which has a no-visa policy) and then trekking through Panama, north through Central America to the US border.

The African migration is indicative of how much larger the humanitarian crisis at the southern border could get.

[New York Post]

From Libya to Texas, tragedies illustrate plight of migrants

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They are trapped in squalid detention centers on Libya’s front lines. They wash up on the banks of the Rio Grande. They sink without a trace — in the Mediterranean, in the Pacific or in waterways they can’t even name. A handful fall out of airplanes’ landing gear.

Migrants are often seen as a political headache in the countries they hope to reach and ignored in the countries they flee. Despite a wave of Syrians, Iraqis and Afghanis pouring into Europe, daily reminders of migrants’ plights are back on front pages.

The U.S.-Mexico border has become a flashpoint amid President Donald Trump’s ambitions to build a wall to keep out migrants. Many children caught crossing are stuck in squalid, unsanitary detention centers. Children have also been separated from parents in custody. Critics call such policies inhumane, heartless and “un-American.”

Around the world, a record 71 million people were forcibly displaced in 2018, according to a report last month by the U.N. refugee agency, in places as diverse as Turkey, Uganda, Bangladesh and Peru.

Despite the rhetoric about migration crises in Europe and the U.S., the top three countries taking in refugees are Turkey, Pakistan and Uganda. Germany comes in a distant fifth.

A 20-year-old who fled war in his homeland in sub-Saharan Africa two years ago survived the airstrikes, gunfire from militia members trying to keep migrants inside the compound, torture for ransom by traffickers and a sinking boat in the Mediterranean. He is now sleeping outside the Tajoura detention center in Libya along with hundreds of other migrants and awaiting a second chance to go to sea.

“I faced death in Libya many times before. I am ready to die again. I already lost my brothers in the war in my country,” he told The Associated Press. He didn’t want his name used because the militia fighters who shot at him are still guarding the compound.

[AP]

Four EU countries to take rescued migrants after Med standoff

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 Four European Union countries have agreed to take in 64 African migrants rescued by the German ship Alan Kurdi and stranded at sea for almost two weeks, the Maltese government announced on Saturday.

The ship, operated by the humanitarian organization Sea-Eye, had been refused entry by Italy and Malta. Both countries had insisted it was Libya’s responsibility to take in the boat, Sea Eye said earlier in the week.

The Maltese government said that through the coordination of the European Commission, the migrants will be redistributed among Germany, France, Portugal and Luxembourg.

In March, Malta received 108 migrants after a small tanker which rescued them was hijacked by some of the migrants themselves. Maltese soldiers stormed the vessel and escorted it to Malta. Three teenagers have since been taken to court and are under arrest. 

[Reuters]

US prosecutors to retry volunteer who gave humanitarian aid to migrants

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Federal prosecutors in Tucson, Arizona announced they will seek to retry Scott Warren on two charges of harboring undocumented immigrants. In lieu of another trial, which is currently slated for November 12, prosecutors also offered Warren a plea deal on Tuesday, offering to drop the harboring charges if he pleads guilty to aiding and abetting illegal entry without inspection.

Warren was arrested in January 2018 and accused of giving two migrants from Central America—Kristian Perez-Villanueva of El Salvador and Jose Arnaldo Sacaria-Goday of Honduras—food, water, and a place to sleep for three nights. He is a volunteer with No More Deaths, an advocacy organization that works to stop migrant fatalities that occur as they cross the dangerous stretch of Arizona desert along the southern border. Warren testified that his crimes amounted to nothing more than human kindness.

Prosecutors argued during the initial proceedings that the case was “not about humanitarian aid,” but that Warren had intentionally worked “to shield illegal aliens from law enforcement for several days.” Border Patrol agents testified that they observed a conversation between the two migrants and Warren in which he pointed to the mountains nearby. Although they admitted they could not hear the contents of the discussion, they said they assumed he was coaching them on how to avoid a Border Patrol checkpoint.

Several founders of No More Deaths provided their own supporting testimonies, explaining that they developed legal protocols for their volunteer work in line with those of the International Red Cross.

[Reason]

Monsoon rains in India cause death and chaos

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During every monsoon season, which runs from June to September, India all too routinely experiences fatal incidents of building and wall collapses as rainfall weakens the foundations of poorly built structures.

This year, more than 300 millimetres (almost 12 inches) of rain fell over 24 hours in some areas of Mumbai, flooding streets and railway tracks, forcing the suspension of some suburban train services, which millions of commuters ride to work each day.

The main runway at Mumbai airport, India’s second biggest, was closed from midnight after a SpiceJet flight overshot while landing, an airport spokeswoman said. The secondary runway was operational, but 55 flights were diverted and another 52 were cancelled due to bad weather.

On Tuesday, heavy rain brought a wall crashing down on shanties built on a hill slope in a western suburb of Mumbai, killing at least 21 people and injuring more than 60 others.

Ten others died elsewhere in Maharashtra state, including three who were killed when a school wall collapsed in the city of Kalyan, 42 kilometres north of Mumbai.

In the nearby western city of Pune, six construction workers died in a wall collapse on Tuesday, a fire brigade official said, after a similar incident on Saturday killed 15.

Mumbai is looking to turn itself into a global financial hub but large parts of the city struggle to cope with annual monsoon rains, as widespread construction and garbage-clogged drains and waterways make it increasingly vulnerable to chaos.

[Australian Broadcasting Corporation]

Warren Buffett donates $3.6bn to Gates’ and family charities

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Warren Buffett is donating roughly $3.6bn of Berkshire Hathaway stock to five charities including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the biggest contribution in Buffett’s plan to give away his fortune.

The donation will boost the total amount Buffett has given to the charities to more than $34.5bn since the 88-year-old billionaire pledged in 2006 to give his shares away. Buffett’s largest previous annual donation was $3.4bn in 2018.

Four-fifths of the donations go to the Gates Foundation. The rest goes to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, named for Buffett’s late first wife, and charities run by his children Howard, Susan and Peter: the Howard G Buffett Foundation, the Sherwood Foundation and the NoVo Foundation.

The Gates and family charities typically sell Buffett’s shares to finance their activities, reflecting his desire that money be spent.

Following the latest donation, Buffett will still own about 15.7% of Berkshire, despite having given away 45% of his 2006 holdings, and have roughly 31% of its voting power. Buffett remains the world’s fourth-richest person, worth $87.5bn according to Forbes magazine.

[The Guardian]