AlertNet Blogs

Kyrgyzstan: UNESCO shields environment

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 09:45:12 +0000

Elena reports that Sulamain-Too, the Sacred Mountain, has become the Kyrgyzstans first site to be inscribed on UNESCOs World Heritage List.

Japan: Aokigahara and Suicide

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 16:58:26 +0000

Matt Holland at Feedbackward on Aokigahara, and Meaningful Suicide in Japan - The ubiquitous and accessible nature of trains in Japan make them a logical and effective choice for those attempting suicide, but it is Aokigahara, the forest situated at the base of iconic Mount Fuji that hosts the most suicides of any location in Japan, and is second in the world only to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

Sri Lanka's 'forgotten' city poor need help too

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:11:00 +0000

Over the last couple of months, my aid worker colleagues and I have been so engrossed in the humanitarian crisis affecting war-ravaged Sri Lanka that nothing else seems as important. It is all too easy to get caught up in the immediate disaster, overlooking equally pressing needs.

Sri Lanka's urban poor - or the "forgotten people", as I have called them in a previous blog - are equally deserving of our attention. Yet they get a fraction of our attention in normal times, and during emergencies, none at all.

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Hunger or HIV: the choice facing some mothers

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:06:00 +0000

Michelle Hough, a communication officer with Caritas Internationalis, has recently been to Swaziland and South Africa to gather stories for Caritas Internationalis' HAART for children campaign

Your baby can either die from hunger, or you can give him HIV. Which do you choose?

This was the decision facing Dumsile, 32, a mother in Velebantfu, rural Swaziland. She's HIV positive. She took medication during pregnancy to prevent transmission to her son, Bouginkosi, but now he has HIV all the same.

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Sri Lanka: Eye-witness Account From An IDP Camp

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:49:14 +0000

Groundviews publishes an eye-witness account from an IDP camp in Sri Lanka describing the conditions of the refugees in a post-war situation. Separation of family members, no freedom of movement, corruption, bad hygiene conditions, diseases and epidemic are some of the problems cited in that report.

Climate talks need a dose of top-level political will

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:25:00 +0000

The latest round of U.N. climate negotiations, which took place at the beginning of June in Bonn, marked the start of the negotiating countdown to Copenhagen. The session focused on the first discussions of the 50-page draft negotiating text for a Copenhagen Agreement, which was published two weeks prior to the session.

Bonn II did not bring much substantial debate on the content of this text, but countries raised their reservations, which helped identify gaps in the positions. They were also invited to add text where they felt their views weren't adequately reflected.

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Liberia: One week in Grand Walking County

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:04:00 +0000

Pam Gordon is the assistant to Merlin's Operations Coordinator in Liberia. She is a Canadian working for Merlin, the international medical aid agency, in post-conflict West Africa. Normally based in the capital Monrovia, she joined a week-long Merlin assessment to the remote county of Grand Kru, close to the border with Ivory Coast. Pam visited clinics that have never received international aid and are so inaccessible the Liberian government struggles to get vital drugs and staff to the area. Here is what she found in the rural heart of Liberia

Dickson is both our skilled driver and passionate professor as we explore his home county of Grand Kru. Steering the Land Cruiser carefully over the broken bridges and muddy roads of southeast Liberia, he is eager to express his views on the complex history of this remote, abandoned area. Over hours of bumpy kilometres, listening to looped tracks of Bob Marley and Marvin Gaye, Dickson tells stories of Liberia's 14-year war that ended in 2003.

The scars of conflict are still easy to spot, from empty schools to fallow fields, but Dickson points out others that I don't notice from the backseat of the car. The beautiful grass plains, he says, used to be full of cows, until a corrupt government official had thousands slaughtered so that she could easily land her private plane. Dickson also reminds me that ex-combatants from the war's many factions are not just the muscular men that intimidate the streets of Monrovia. They are also the teenagers (children during the war); mothers who've been raped; and fathers forced to fight to feed their families.

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Israel: Gaza Humanitarian Ferry Intercepted

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:58:11 +0000

Tikun Olams Richard Silverstein, who is based in the US, writes about the capture of a ferry carrying 23 human rights activists who were attempting to break the siege on Gaza by the IDF. Israel had no right to intercept this ship, nor to impound it or detain its passengers. It has no right to forcibly transfer them to Israeli territory, he notes.

Shopping in PNG

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:16:00 +0000

Shopping in PNG is always an adventure. I try to encourage the other expats to go shopping for themselves so they can understand the difficulties that the buyers face. When I first arrived, I suspected that our buyers were taking breaks when shopping because it took them so long. Then I saw how the shops worked - if you want a discount you need to find a good sales person who will give you a formal written quotation for each item. Then, if you accept his price you need to get him to produce a picking list, then you need to negotiate the check out staff who require a code for every item. Its depressing.

So we had a visit from one of the Canadian operations team and I was advised to tidy up the table I share with my 2 assistants in the very small logistics office. Letter trays were the recommended solution. So the next day I go letter tray shopping.

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Pakistan: Struggling to stay but scared to leave

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:05:00 +0000

This blog is written by Niyaz Muhammad, an aid worker for Islamic Relief. He is based in Mardan District where Islamic Relief is working with those who have fled the fighting in Buner, Dir and Swat. In his diary he reports on the situation in anarea that is struggling with more than 2 million displaced people.

Ever since people started fleeing the conflict in Swat and Buner two months ago, there has been incessant talk that they are returning home.

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