Mar222017
The Ministry of Home Affairs has issued an Advisory to the Chief Secretaries/Administrators of all State Governments/UT Administrations,
Mar222017
I see Mr Blair and others are out and about complaining that the centre is not strong enough. He thinks the centre ground needs reinforcing, as he dislikes the way it is assailed by Brexiteers of all persuasions, and by the Corbyn tendency in the Labour party. He still sees new Labour as ideal, as the perfect balance between “the extremes”. It is high time this piece of self serving nonsense was exposed to some criticism.
The problems with New Labour were their three main extremisms.
They took an extreme view about UK intervention in Middle Eastern wars, believing we could use military force to create liberal democracies in various Middle Eastern countries. The public disagreed, and the results of their military actions despite much bravery and heroic effort by our forces were disappointing. They did not understand or manage the politics of the MIddle Eastern countries well, relying too much on force.
They took an extreme view about the ability of the economy to withstand a huge build up in public and private debt and credit, before making an even more extreme judgement to bring some banks crashing down for no good reason. They told us they had abolished the boom-bust cycle, only to preside over the biggest boom-bust since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
They took an extreme view about EU integration and government. Whilst telling us each Treaty was a mild tidying up exercise with all the potency of the Beano, they signed the UK up to a comprehensive cradle of laws and controls making democratic government in the UK difficult. They always denied the public a referendum vote on their centralising tendencies, always denied their significance, and always claimed when challenged that EU laws were for the best regardless of what they said. Their EU actions led directly to the referendum which they helped lose.
Mr Blair needs to grasp that the world has moved on from New Labour. We now know their economic claims were false, as their era ended with major recession and banking crash. We know their EU policy was based on the lie that the EU was only of interest to Conservatives, and that nothing important was happening. We know their policy of favouring large corporations and encouraging cheap labour from the continent to take the low paid jobs they created was not popular with many voters.
Mar222017
22 March 2017 – Warning that as many as 600 million children – one in four worldwide – will be living in areas with extremely scare water by 2040, the United Nations children’s agency has called on governments to take immediate measures to curb the impact on the lives of children.
In its report, Thirsting for a Future: Water and children in a changing climate, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) explores the threats to children’s lives and wellbeing caused by depleted sources of safe water and the ways climate change will intensify these risks in coming years.
“This crisis will only grow unless we take collective action now,” said UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake in a news release announcing the report, launched on World Water Day.
“But around the world, millions of children lack access to safe water – endangering their lives, undermining their health, and jeopardizing their futures,” he added.
According to the UN agency, 36 countries around the world are already facing extremely high levels of water stress.
Warmer temperatures, rising sea levels, increased floods, droughts and melting ice affect the quality and availability of water as well as sanitation systems. These combined with increasing populations, higher demand of water primarily due to industrialization and urbanization are draining water resources worldwide. On top of these, conflicts in many parts of the world are also threatening access to safe water.
According to a recent UN-Water report, about two-thirds of the world’s population currently live in areas that experience water scarcity for at least one month a year. Source: World Water Development Report 2017
All of these factors force children to use unsafe water, exposing them to deadly diseases like cholera and diarrhoea.
Many children in drought-affected areas spend hours every day collecting water, missing out on a chance to go to school. Girls are especially vulnerable to attack and sexual violence during these times.
However, the impact of climate change on water sources is not inevitable, noted the report, recommending actions to help curb the impact of climate change on the lives of children.
One of the points it raised is for governments to plan for changes in water availability and demand in the coming years and to prioritize the most vulnerable children’s access to safe water above other water needs to maximize social and health outcomes.
It also called on businesses to work with communities to prevent contamination and depletion of safe water sources as well as on communities to diversify water sources and to increase their capacity to store water safely.
“Water is elemental – without it, nothing can grow,” said Mr. Lake, urging for efforts to safeguard children’s access to water.
“One of the most effective ways we can do that is safeguarding their access to safe water.”
Mar222017
22 March 2017 – Intercommunal violence in south-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo has forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes, a top United Nations aid official in the country has said, warning that the current response is being outstripped by the needs.
“Unless peaceful coexistence is fully restored between the two communities, humanitarian needs will continue to spiral out of control,” said the Humanitarian Coordinator in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Mamadou Diallo, wrapping up a three-day visit to the region on 20 March.
Some 370,000 people have fled the cascading violence across all six territories that make up the province, in the last nine months, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated.
The insecurity has disrupted aid operations resulting in what Mr. Diallo called “among the most urgent humanitarian hotspots in a country experiencing a worsening humanitarian situation.”
The UN Humanitarian Coordinator led a group that included representatives from UN agencies, donors and non-governmental organizations to Tanganyika’s Kalemie and Manono territories.
In Kalemie, the delegation visited the Kalunga site, home to some 17,000 people, where UN partners are providing emergency water and health care services amidst ongoing shelter concerns.
“Speaking to the delegation, a displaced woman pleaded for education projects for the thousands of children living in the site, to avoid their further marginalization,” OCHA said.
The group then visited the Kamala site in Manono – considered “the cradle of the intercommunal conflict” where “the delegation saw first-hand the burned, destroyed huts” of people forced to flee.
On behalf of the international humanitarian community, the UN asked for $40 million to cover all the humanitarian needs, including $20 million for the most urgent, life-threatening needs for the displaced families.
The DR Congo Common Humanitarian Fund and the UN Central Emergency Response Fund have recently allocated $5 million each for the response, with the Humanitarian Fund planning an additional allocation of $2 million.
The humanitarian concerns came as the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for DRC, Maman Sidikou, briefed the Security Council about the deteriorating security situation and the need to implement the 31 December agreement on the electoral process.
Under the agreement, President Joseph Kabila would stay in office until elections are held by the end of 2017. During this period, a ‘National Council for Overseeing the Electoral Agreement and Process (CNSAP)’ would be set up, and a new prime minister named from opposition ranks.
Mar222017
22 March 2017 – Cancer can be a death warrant in some developing countries, spurring the United Nations atomic agency and the international community today to hold a high-level discussion on how to get more funding and support for treatment to parts of Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.
“The rising tide of cancer calls for additional human and financial resources, as well as infrastructure,” Nelly Enwerem-Bromson, Director of the Programme of Action for Cancer Therapy at the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said at the meeting in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. He spoke alongside Sudanese Vice-President Hassabo Mohammed Abdalrahman, who opened the meeting.
The event, co-organized by the IAEA and the Sudanese Government, brought together health and finance representatives from 16 Governments to discuss their funding proposals on how to better detect and treat breast and cervical cancer, and develop nuclear medicine and radiotherapy as part of national cancer control programmes.
Each year, 8.8 million people die from cancer, mostly in low- and middle-income countries, according to figures from the World Health Organization (WHO). The figure is so high that is accounts for two and a half times more people killed than those who die from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined.
Cervical cancer is particularly deadly and disproportionally affects women in developing countries, where 83 per cent of all new cases occur, IAEA reported.
One of the plans discusses proposes to establish a permanent screening centre in Cameroon, where 1,400 new women are diagnosed with cervical cancer each year, and 700 die.
The meeting also reviewed a proposal to expand cancer services for low-income people in Jordan, including refugees. The only public radiotherapy facility is in the capital, Amman, which treats around 50 patients per day.
The Governments represented at today’s meeting are members of the IAEA, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), and the Islamic Development Bank.
Other institutions present included the African Development Bank, the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa and the WHO.