Displaced persons in Colombia and Venezuela

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With a shared border more than 2.000 kilometres long, Colombia and Venezuela are facing a serious challenge with the massive forced migration of people coming from Venezuela.

According to United Nations estimates, more than two million people have fled Venezuela as a result of the internal crisis and the government’s economic policies. It is estimated that there are already close to one million forced migrants in Colombia, in different cities of the country, although some are returned Colombians.

A large part of the migratory flow of those crossing to Colombia by land, as walking migrants are forced to leave everything behind to seek new and better conditions of life in Colombia or other countries in the region. This is the case in the border crossing between Apure, Venezuela and Arauca, Colombia.

The Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) is working to cover their basic needs and provide fundamental rights for thousands of forced, displaced, and refugee migrants in the region. JRS strives to provide legal, psychosocial, and humanitarian assistance in this important area of the broad, binational border.

[Jesuit Refugee Service]

Bill Gates reinventing the toilet

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Bill Gates thinks toilets are a serious business, and he’s betting big that a reinvention of this most essential of conveniences can save a half million lives and deliver $200 billion-plus in savings.

The billionaire philanthropist, whose Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation spent $200 million over seven years funding sanitation research, showcased some 20 novel toilet and sludge-processing designs that eliminate harmful pathogens and convert bodily waste into clean water and fertilizer.

The Microsoft Corp. co-founder explained that new approaches for sterilizing human waste may help end almost 500,000 infant deaths and save $233 billion annually in costs linked to diarrhea, cholera and other diseases caused by poor water, sanitation and hygiene.

One approach from the California Institute of Technology that Gates said he finds “super interesting” integrates an electrochemical reactor to break down water and human waste into fertilizer and hydrogen, which can be stored in hydrogen fuel cells as energy.

Without cost-effective alternatives to sewers and waste-treatment facilities, urbanization and population growth will add to the burden. In some cities, more than half the volume of human waste escapes into the environment untreated. Every dollar invested in sanitation yields about $5.50 in global economic returns, according to the World Health Organization.

Gates, who with wife Melinda has given more than $35.8 billion to the foundation since 1994, said he became interested in sanitation about a decade ago.

[Bloomberg]

One of the few ships still rescuing refugees in the Mediterranean

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Since its launch in 2016, the Aquarius, has put out to sea 44 times. According to the ship’s records, it has saved the lives of 29,523 people trying to cross the sea. — and in doing so has become synonymous with the refugee crisis, both provoking hate and earning respect every time it sets out.

Politically, European nations are ignoring the deaths in the central Mediterranean, outsourcing the problem to the Libyans. Culturally, Europeans are tired of the arrival of refugees and migrants — as demonstrated by the shift to the right in elections across the continent.

This has translated into the life-saving mission of the ship becoming harder and harder. The International Organization for Migration states that 128,082 successfully made the journey in 2017, but only 39,145 have done so this year. The journey has never been so dangerous: In July of this year, the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) put the figure at one person drowning for every seven who cross the Mediterranean. Approximately 14,743 men, women, and children have died attempting to cross the sea from starting points in Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia since 2014, according to the Missing Migrants project.

The Aquarius is one of the few NGO boats still working to save lives in the central Mediterranean. The 2,000-ton ship costs approximately $12,600 daily to run — split between SOS Méditerranée and Doctors Without Borders (also known as Médecins Sans Frontières, or MSF) — and operates in international waters off the Libyan coast, where the majority of rubber and wooden boats depart. When a boat is located, SOS Méditerranée teams launch two inflatable motorboats to scoop people from the water and transfer them back to the Aquarius. MSF’s onboard medical team — a doctor, a midwife, and two nurses — immediately triage and treat the rescued people. Then, the Aquarius takes those it has rescued to Europe and immediately returns to international waters to continue working.

At least, that’s how it used to work. Now whenever the Aquarius enters the waters off Libya, it now faces another problem: The radios go silent. Speaking to BuzzFeed News, the crew were unable to explain why since their last mission (more than a month previously) the ship has no longer been receiving the standard radio messages — usually transmitted across a channel available to all vessels in the area — once it enters the seas under the authority of the Libyan coast guard.

An agreement with the Libyan government was negotiated by the Italian politician Marco Minniti in 2017, whereby the Libyans receive 43 million euros of EU funds to tackle Europe’s refugee crisis from their shores. The number of boats towed back to Libya increased by an estimated 194%, or roughly 13,000 people, since the agreement.

Germany, once seen as the continent’s cheerleader for migration, has witnessed the far right marching against and attacking migrants, turbo-charged by rumors online. France tightened its immigration rules in July, including a measure that would allow unauthorized migrants to be detained for up to a year, much to the dismay of human rights groups. Spain has taken only 11% of its EU quota of refugees, and the new leader of the country’s right-wing Popular Front recently promised to “defend the borders” against “millions” of migrants.

 [Buzzfeed]

Children in less wealthy nations often perform better at school – UNICEF

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Living in a rich country does not guarantee equal access to quality education, according to a UNICEF report. Children in less wealthy countries often perform better at school despite fewer national resources, the report says.

An Unfair Start: Inequality in Children’s Education in Rich Countries ranks 41 member countries of the European Union and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development on the extent of educational inequalities at preschool, primary and secondary school levels. It uses the latest available data to examine the link between children’s achievement and factors such as parents’ occupation, migration background, gender and school characteristics.

In 16 of 29 European countries for which data are available, children from the poorest fifth of households have a lower preschool attendance rate than children from the richest fifth. The patterns persist throughout a child’s schooling.

Among children aged 15 who are doing equally well at school, those with parents in high-status jobs are much more likely to continue into higher education than those with parents in low-status jobs.

In 21 out of 25 countries with substantial levels of immigration children who are first-generation immigrants tend to do less well at school at age 15 than non-migrant children. In 15 countries, second-generation immigrant children also do less well than non-migrant children.

“What our report shows is that countries can offer their children the best of both worlds: They can achieve standards of excellence in education and have relatively low inequality,” said Dr Priscilla Idele, Director of UNICEF Innocenti. “But all rich countries can and must do much more for children from disadvantaged families as they are the most likely to fall behind.”

[Read full UNICEF article]

UN to lift sanctions on Eritrea after US shift

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The UN Security Council is preparing to lift sanctions on Eritrea after the United States dropped its insistence on prolonging the measures despite a peace deal with Ethiopia, diplomats said on Friday.

Britain circulated a draft resolution to the council that calls for lifting the arms embargo and all travel bans, asset freezes and targeted sanctions on Eritrea, according to the text seen by AFP. The council is to vote on the proposed resolution on November 14. Diplomats said they expected the measure to be adopted after the US change in position.

Eritrea and Ethiopia signed a peace deal in July, but the United States, backed by France and Britain, insisted that Eritrea would first have to show progress on respect for human rights before sanctions could be lifted. That position however recently changed.

The council slapped sanctions on Eritrea in 2009 for its alleged support to Al-Shabaab jihadists in Somalia. The draft resolution acknowledged that UN monitors had “not found conclusive evidence that Eritrea supports Al-Shabaab.” The sanctions caused “considerable economic damage” to Eritrea and “unnecessary hardships,” said the foreign minister.

The peace declaration signed in July by the prime ministers of Eritrea and Ethiopia ended two decades of hostility and triggered a thaw in relations with Djibouti and Somalia that shored up stability in the Horn of Africa.

[AFP]

Oceans heating up faster than expected

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The ocean is warming much faster than previously thought, new research has found. The new study published in the journal Nature concluded that the global oceans may be absorbing up to 60 percent more heat since the 1990s than older estimates had found.

This suggests that the Earth, as a whole, is more sensitive to climate change than previous estimates would imply. And that means the planet may respond more strongly to future greenhouse gas emissions than expected.

This may have some grave implications for global efforts to meet the climate targets outlined under the Paris Agreement. Currently, world nations are striving to keep global temperatures within 2 degrees Celsius of their preindustrial levels, or a more ambitious 1.5 C if possible. If the Earth is more sensitive to climate change than previously thought, those temperature targets could approach more quickly. That means nations may have to work harder or cut emissions more quickly to stay on track.

Scientists know the ocean plays a critical role in the global climate, helping to absorb excess heat from the warming atmosphere. Oceans may store as much as 90 percent of the globe’s extra heat. There’s a strong relationship between ocean heat and the amount of dissolved gas from the atmosphere that oceans can hold. As the ocean warms, its ability to take in oxygen and carbon dioxide decreases, and more of those gases remain in the atmosphere.

Kevin Trenberth, one of that study’s co-authors, noted that the findings “have implications, because the planet is clearly warming and at faster rates that previously appreciated, and the oceans are the main memory of the climate system (along with ice loss). The oceans account for about 92% of the Earth’s energy imbalance. This is why we are having increased bouts of strong storms (hurricanes, typhoons) and flooding events.”

While the exact values of ocean heat uptake may be up for debate, more studies are all coming to the same general conclusion—that it’s a bigger problem than scientists previously thought. And that’s something to be taken seriously, the authors say.

[Scientific American]

Tsunami Awareness Day on November 5

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In modern times, nine of the 10 strongest earthquakes ever recorded were accompanied by tsunami that often resulted in death and devastation for many communities taken completely unawares. One of the most striking things about this list is that eight of these earthquake/tsunami events have occurred within living memory. And the deadliest of these have all occurred within the last 20 years.

This review puts lives lost from tsunami at 251,770, and economic losses at $280 billion between 1998 and 2017. (This compares with 998 deaths and $ 2.7 billion in economic losses for the previous two decades, 1978 to 1997.)

One estimate is that tsunami average more than 4,600 deaths for each occurrence, a much higher mortality rate than any other natural hazard. These coastlines are also home to much critical infrastructure including sea ports, airports, nuclear power plants, large cities and towns.

World Tsunami Awareness Day, November 5, falls 33 days after the tsunami and earthquake that recently claimed over 2,000 lives in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, with many more still missing. This served as a grim reminder that exposure to tsunami risk is in lock-step with population growth in coastal areas around the world’s major oceans, including the Pacific, the Indian, Atlantic Oceans, and the Mediterranean and its connecting seas.

It is important that robust early warning systems are put in place. However, we cannot become over-reliant on technology. People living in tsunami zones, once they experience an earthquake, should have the engrained instinct to flee to higher ground immediately and remain there until the danger has passed. It requires continued advocacy and education in order to bring about behavioral change but this is what will save lives.

In Hawaii, which has experienced over 100 recorded tsunami, they have a proverb: “Never turn your back on the sea. Unlike hurricanes, a tsunami has no season. It can strike at any time, both day and night, without warning, or little warning.”

[The Japan Times]

Typhoons in the Pacific

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It’s been a busy tropical weather season north of the equator this year with a dozen typhoons in the western Pacific, 13 hurricanes in the eastern Pacific, and eight hurricanes in the Atlantic basin which includes the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean.

The most recent storm to make landfall was Typhoon Yutu, which has just hit the northern Philippines. Last Thursday it struck the northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory, as a Super Typhoon with 180 mph winds, destroying buildings and killing at least two people.

In the Philippines, where locals call Yutu “Rosita”, the storm has killed at least six people, according to a Washington Post report. Several other people have been reported missing as the storm knocked out power to entire provinces and caused major flooding. Officials say Yutu blew down trees and power lines, and tore roofs off of buildings.  More than 10,000 villagers moved to emergency shelters in several northern provinces.

Yutu is now a weaker tropical storm and could brush the east coast of China later this week, according to the forecast from the Joint Typhoon Warning Center.

[Freight Waves]

Hurricane Michael one of strongest hurricanes ever to hit US

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Hurricane Michael clobbered and flooded neighborhoods in Florida that were in its path after the Category 4 storm made landfall Wednesday afternoon as one of the strongest hurricanes ever to hit the U.S. According to meteorologists, no Category 4 or 5 hurricane has made landfall in the Florida Panhandle since record-keeping began in 1851.

Shortly before slamming Florida’s Panhandle, Hurricane Michael had strengthened to a Category 4 storm with sustained winds of 150 mph that was expected to flood the coast with deadly storm surge. The National Weather Service said the hurricane made landfall just 2 mph away from being classified as a Category 5 storm.

Emergency officials across the region, in fear of their own safety, temporarily stopped responding to 911 calls from residents who hadn’t evacuated. Some area newsrooms lost power, cutting off the flow of information from local journalists covering the storm.

“This is the worst storm that our Florida Panhandle has seen in a century,” Florida Gov. Rick Scott said at a news conference at the state’s emergency operations center in Tallahassee.

The storm’s central pressure had plunged the lowest recorded for any hurricane to hit the U.S. except for Hurricane Camille in 1969 and an unnamed hurricane in 1935, which were both storms with Category 5 winds.

Michael is forecast to lash coastal areas of Florida, Alabama and Georgia with as much as 12 inches of rain. Farther inland, damaging winds, torrential rain and life-threatening flash floods are forecast for parts of Georgia and Alabama.

One of the biggest concerns on the coast is storm surge. If the storm moves ashore during high tide, a 130-mile stretch of the coast could see storm surges as high as 14 feet.

Michael could cause as many as 1.8 million customers to lose power in Florida and southern Georgia.

[Los Angeles Times]

12 years to curb climate change

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The latest United Nations report warns that we have just 12 years to curb climate change!

The UN report, which is based on more than 6,000 scientific references from 91 authors across 40 countries, outlines the impacts of global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

It warns that the world is rapidly running out of time before catastrophic effects on the planet take place. Drafted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN’s climate change body, the report calls for “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society.”

Without action, by the year 2040 ours will be a world of increasing wildfires and droughts, inundated coastlines, the mass die-off of coral reefs, and massive food shortages. Put together, this compendium of global cataclysms will put the lives of “several hundred million” people at risk.