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Food Security Slipping Ever Further Away - Global Monitoring Report 2012: Food Prices, Nutrition, and the Millennium Development Goals

 

CLICK HERE - Global Monitoring Report 2012: Food Prices, Nutrition, and the Millennium Development Goals

ipsnews.net

WASHINGTON, Apr 20, 2012 (IPS) - Continuing near-record high food prices around the world are highlighting international inattention to a looming threat, observers here warned on Friday.

According to speakers at the launch of the World Bank-International Monetary Fund (IMF) Global Monitoring Report 2012, on the sidelines of the Bank-IMF spring meetings, a lack of focus on agriculture and nutrition in development priorities could prove disastrous in the event of another spike in food prices.

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World Health Organization (WHO) - World Health Statistics 2012

 

World Health Organization (WHO) - who.int

World Health Statistics 2012 contains WHO’s annual compilation of health-related data for its 194 Member States, and includes a summary of the progress made towards achieving the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and associated targets.

This year, it also includes highlight summaries on the topics of noncommunicable diseases, universal health coverage and civil registration coverage.

CLICK HERE - World Health Statistics 2012

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Climate Change, Disaster Risk, and the Urban Poor - Cities Building Resilience for a Changing World

scribd.com/WorldBankPublications - April 2012

Poor people living in slums are at particularly high risk from the impacts of climate change and natural hazards. They live on the most vulnerable lands within cities, typically areas that are deemed undesirable by others and are thus affordable. Residents are exposed to the impacts of landslides, sea-level rise, flooding, and other hazards.

Exposure to risk is exacerbated by overcrowded living conditions, lack of adequate infrastructure and services, unsafe housing, inadequate nutrition, and poor health. These conditions can turn a natural hazard or change in climate into a disaster, and result in the loss of basic services, damage or destruction to homes, loss of livelihoods, malnutrition, disease, disability, and loss of life.

This study analyzes the key challenges facing the urban poor given the risks associated with climate change and disasters, particularly with regard to the delivery of basic services, and identifies strategies and financing opportunities for addressing these risks.

Several key findings emerge from the study and provide guidance for addressing risk:

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Africa is Experiencing Some of the Biggest Falls in Child Mortality Ever Seen, Anywhere

 

 

 

 

economist.com - May 19, 2012

IT IS, says Gabriel Demombynes, of the World Bank’s Nairobi office, “a tremendous success story that has only barely been recognised”. Michael Clemens of the Centre for Global Development calls it simply “the biggest, best story in development”. It is the huge decline in child mortality now gathering pace across Africa.

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A Stem-Cell-Based Drug Gets Approval in Canada

Photo - Prochymal - osiris.com

submitted by Luis Kun

The New York Times - by Andrew Pollack - May 17, 2012

In a boost for the field of regenerative medicine, a small biotechnology company has received regulatory approval in Canada for what it says is the first manufactured drug based on stem cells.

The company, Osiris Therapeutics of Columbia, Md., said Thursday that Canadian regulators had approved its drug Prochymal, to treat children suffering from graft-versus-host disease, a potentially deadly complication of bone marrow transplantation.

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Sierra Leone: Taylor Verdict a Warning to War Crimes Perpetrators

Former Liberian President Charles Taylor takes notes in court. RNW

allafrica.com - April 26, 2012

Dakar — The landmark guilty verdict today against former Liberian President Charles Ghankay Taylor is a warning to those most responsible for atrocity crimes that they can be held accountable.

A decade after the war in Sierra Leone, the Special Court's ruling marks the first time that a former head of state has been found guilty of war-time atrocities by an internationally-backed court since the Nuremberg trials.

The verdict is a fresh lesson to all those in power that they do not enjoy impunity and a sign of hope in Sierra Leone that those most responsible for the heinous crimes of the eleven-year civil war (1991-2002) are being brought to book.

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Fish from the Sky with Vegetables. Globe / Hedron a Rooftop Farm.

submitted by Albert Gomez

conceptualdevices.com

GLOBE / HEDRON is a bamboo greenhouse designed to organically grow fish and vegetables on top of generic flat roofs. The design is optimized for aquaponic farming techniques: the fish’s water nourishes the plants and plants clean the water for the fish. Using this farming technique, GLOBE / HEDRON is optimized to feed four families of four all year round.

GLOBE / HEDRON is designed to be manufactured and retailed at a low cost. Easy-to-set-up units can be combined to scale up food production capacity.

Using a geodesic dome, the load of the fish tank rests on the frame of the greenhouse and is redistributed to a larger surface. Because of this design, the aquaponic farm can be housed on more roofs without any structural building adaptation. The dome structure is designed to be built with bamboo, so that it is biodegradable and organically farmed.

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Plastic-Eating Fungi Found in Amazon May Solve Landfill Problems

               

digitaljournal.com - by Anne Sewell - March 10, 2012

Just when you thought that plastic waste was never going to break down in the environment, along comes Mother Nature to solve the problem.

The Amazon contains more species of flora and fauna than virtually anywhere else on earth.

In a report by NZ Herald it was stated that a group of students from Yale University found a species which appears to be happy eating plastic in airless landfills.

Their findings were published in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology last year with the conclusion that the microbe is "a promising source of biodiversity from which to screen for metabolic properties useful for bioremediation."

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Biodegradation of Polyester Polyurethane by Endophytic Fungi

http://aem.asm.org/content/77/17/6076.short?rss=1&amp%3bssource=mfr

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Tilapia Aquaculture Training for Healthier and More Sustainable Communities

May 14 - 23, 2012

Aquaculture, the farming of aquatic species, is the world fastest growing food sector.  Aquaculture is also called the “blue revolution” because it has demonstrated its ability to decrease malnutrition, reduce poverty, generate wealth and contribute to economic growth in many countries.  Tilapia is the most farmed aquaculture product and its world production has gone from 830,000 tones in 1990 to 1.6 million tones in 1999 and 3.5 million tones in 2008. The overwhelming success of tilapia farming is because the fish is very hardy, prolific, fast growing, disease resistant and does not require extensive knowledge to breed and grow.

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Little of Earth’s Water is Usable in Everyday Life

(CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE)

Picture of Earth showing if all Earth's water (liquid, ice, freshwater, saline) was put into a sphere it would be about 860 miles (about 1,385 kilometers) in diameter. Diameter would be about the distance from Salt Lake City, Utah to Topeka, Kansas, USA.
Credit: Illustration by Jack Cook, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; Howard Perlman, USGS.

submitted by Samuel Bendett

Homeland Security News Wire - May 9, 2012

Very little of Earth’s water is usable in everyday life; about 96 percent of water on Earth is saline; of the total freshwater, over 68 percent is locked up in ice and glaciers; another 30 percent of freshwater is in the ground; rivers are the source of most of the fresh surface water people use, but they only constitute about 300 mi3 (1,250 km3), about 1/10,000th of one percent of total water

How much water exists on, in, and above Earth?

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