Empty apartment developments stand in the city of Ordos, Inner Mongolia on September 12, 2011. MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images) | MARK RALSTON via Getty Images

huffingtonpost.com - by Robert Hockett - January 8, 2016

World attention has focused in recent months on an acute refugee crisis occasioned by the mass migration to Europe of hundreds of thousands now fleeing the Syrian civil war. Less noticed has been another refugee crisis at least as ominous as that underway in the Middle East and Europe -- the fleeing of money from China.

What's going on, and why is it ominous? . . .

. . . where Chinese money is going -- to U.S. real estate and other asset markets. . . .

. . . First, it is fueling new real estate bubbles in the U.S. . . .

. . . Second, the shift of investment flows from Chinese to American assets is placing downward pressure on Chinese currency values, and will place upward pressure on the dollar -- yet again. This will ultimately worsen America's trade balance with China, harming America's own economic recovery and fueling mutual Chinese-American resentments -- possibly culminating in financially destabilizing competitive currency devaluations, trade war, or both. . . .

File photo of workers unloading emergency medical aid from Medecins Sans Frontieres from a plane at Sanaa airport, April 13, 2015.  Reuters/Mohamed al-Sayaghi

CLICK HERE - MSF - Yemen: Another MSF supported hospital bombed

reuters.com - reporting by Noah Browning; editing by William Maclean and Mark Heinrich - January 10, 2016

A "projectile" struck a clinic supported by international medical group Medecins Sans Frontieres in north Yemen on Sunday, killing four people, MSF said, another in a series of attacks on its facilities in the war-torn country.

MSF said it was not clear who was behind the attack that also wounded 10 other people in Shiara Hospital in the Razeh district, where the group has worked since November last year.

In a statement on its Twitter account, MSF did not identify who was killed in the attack but said that three of the wounded were staff members, of whom two were in critical condition.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

newirin.irinnews.org - 2 November 2015

The Boko Haram insurgency has claimed more than 25,000 lives in the past six years.

Since 2014, it has escalated and splintered across a wider swathe of West and Central Africa, uprooting millions of people in the process. Where should they go? This special feature examines the options and explores what the future holds. . . .

. . . Millions of Nigerians have fled Boko Haram, but the violence follows them.

Scores of people have been killed in the last few weeks in a string of suicide bombings in the main northeastern cities where they seek refuge. Border areas where refugees flee in Cameroon, Chad, and Niger are increasingly under attack. So pervasive is the insurgency, it is even starting to strike the displacement camps where the most desperate seek help.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

THE WASHINGTON POST VIA GETTY IMAGES

huffingtonpost.com - by John Feffer - January 7, 2016

The market was supposed to save the planet.

That, at least, was the argument of many economists grappling with the problem of climate change. As fossil fuels became scarcer, they pointed out, the price of oil and natural gas would go up. And then other options, like solar and wind, would become cheaper, particularly as investment flowed into that sector and drove down the cost of new technologies.

And voila: The invisible hand would gradually turn down the global thermostat.

It’s a ridiculous argument.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

PHOTO: A boy in Madaya is heard saying he has not eaten properly for seven days during the video.  ABC News

U.N. to send food to Syria's town facing starvation

CLICK HERE - UNOCHA - Joint Statement on hard-to-reach and besieged communities in Syria

CLICK HERE - MSF - Syria: Siege and starvation in Madaya; immediate medical evacuations and medical resupply essential to save lives

cnn.com - Khushbu Shah, Nick Paton Walsh and Peter Wilkinson
January 7, 2016

Children and skeletal old men drinking soup made from leaves and grass. A kilo of rice costing more than $100. People said to be dying from starvation. The accounts could be of a World War II death camp, but they are not. This is Syria in 2016.

THE NEW YORK TIMES   By Sheri Fink, MD             January 7, 2007

A treatment once considered among the most promising for Ebola patients was not found to be effective in a study performed in Guinea, researchers reported Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine.

A small girl feeds her parents cows in Kaduna State, where thousands of people displaced by Boko Haram are now shivering through the seasonal Harmattan winds.  Photo: Mohammad Ibrahim/IRIN

irinnews.org - BY Mohammad Ibrahim

KADUNA, 5 January 2016 (IRIN) - The temperature is dropping across northern Nigeria as the seasonal Harmattan winds blow in a haze of dust from the Sahara, blotting out the sun for days on end. It’s miserable at the best of times, worse still if you’ve been made homeless by Boko Haram violence and don’t have decent shelter.

“It has not been easy since we came to this camp 11 months ago,” said Mama Aisha, who fled Maiduguri, the main city in the northeast, and now lives 800 kilometres away in north-central Kaduna State. “We don’t have blankets to keep us warm.”

Aisha is just one of hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) who have set up informal camps throughout the northern region, with little to no protection from the low temperatures.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

The UN's new High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi.  
Photo: Amanda Voisard/UNHCR

irinnews.org - BY Kristy Siegfried

OXFORD, 5 January 2016 (IRIN) - Getting back to work following the end-of-year break can be tough. But spare a thought for Filippo Grandi, who arrived in Geneva this week to begin his five-year term as head of the UN’s refugee agency.

Not only is he replacing António Guterres, who held the office of High Commissioner for the past 10 years and was widely revered, but he is doing so at a time when record numbers of people around the world are fleeing persecution and conflict and in need of UNHCR’s protection and support. . . .

. . . Here are five of the greatest challenges likely to preoccupy him in the coming months:

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Rio de Janeiro, which will be the host of the 2016 Olympic Games, is one of the areas in Brazil where the Zika virus has been found, and local officials have been aggressive about trying to eradicate mosquito breeding grounds. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

washingtonpost.com - by Ariana Eunjung Cha - December 23, 2015

Brazilian health authorities are sounding the alarm about a mosquito-borne virus that they believe may be the cause of thousands of infants being born with damaged brains.

The pathogen, known as Zika and first discovered in forest monkeys in Africa over 70 years ago, is the new West Nile -- a virus that causes mild symptoms in most but can lead to serious neurological complications or even death in others. Brazil's health ministry said on Nov. 28 that it had found the Zika virus in a baby with microcephaly — a rare condition in which infants are born with shrunken skulls — during an autopsy after the child died. The virus was also found in the amniotic fluid of two mothers whose babies had the condition.

"This is an unprecedented situation, unprecedented in world scientific research," the ministry said in a statement on its website, according to CNN.

Some aid organisations are helping residents of Homs' Old City start over.  Photo: B. Diab/UNHCR

CLICK HERE - REPORT - UNDP - March 2015 - Syria - Alienation and Violence - Impact of Syria Crisis Report 2014 (66 page .PDF report)

irinnews.org - by Charlotte Bailey

BEIRUT, 4 January 2016 (IRIN) - Given the brutality that has come to characterise Syria’s four-year war, it is understandable that discussion of the conflict has focused on violent deaths.

But there is another scourge destroying lives in the country: economic ruin and crippling poverty – what a UN-backed report called “an equally horrendous but silent disaster.”

Some aid organisations and policy experts are finding that with more than four out of five Syrians in poverty, traditional humanitarian aid, while necessary, just isn’t enough. So they’re advocating for, and implementing, livelihood projects – intervention to assist people’s abilities to support themselves.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

The index was at the lowest level in nearly three months.  Associated Press

Wall Street has continued the rout on global share markets, with the Dow Jones, S&P 500 closing down more than 1.5% and Nasdaq down 2%.

bbc.com - January 4, 2016

It followed sharp falls in China, where trading on the main stock markets was halted early after indexes tumbled 7%.

A survey indicating China's manufacturing sector contracted again last month was blamed for the falls. . . .

. . . On Wall Street, all 10 major S&P sectors were lower, led by the 2.4% fall in the technology sector. Bank stocks were also hard hit, with JP Morgan down 3.65%.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

(ALSO SEE RELATED ARTICLES WITHIN THE LINKS BELOW)

CLICK HERE - The Guardian - US stock markets open with worst performance since 2008

CLICK HERE - Huffpost Business - China Halts Trading After 7 Percent Plunge

whitehouse.gov - by Amy Pope - December 30, 2015

Summary: The world has now gone over 40 consecutive days without a single reported Ebola case. Here's how we helped make that possible.

For the first time since this outbreak was detected in West Africa in early 2014, the world has now gone over 40 consecutive days without a single reported Ebola case.

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced that Guinea has successfully halted Ebola transmission and now joins Sierra Leone and Liberia in recovering from this devastating disease. This represents a significant milestone for Guinea, West Africa, and the international community.

Today we reflect on what is possible when partners around the world come together to solve a common problem. Through the undaunted courage of local communities and heroes from around the world, West Africa was able to halt Ebola. The United States was proud to offer help along with partners around the world.

Today we remember Ebola’s victims, and embrace the communities, families, healthcare workers, and survivors.

bbc.com - December 17th, 2015 - James Gallagher

Cancer is overwhelmingly a result of environmental factors and not largely down to bad luck, a study suggests.

Earlier this year, researchers sparked a debate after suggesting two-thirds of cancer types were down to luck rather than factors such as smoking.

The new study, in the journal Nature, used four approaches to conclude only 10-30% of cancers were down to the way the body naturally functions or "luck".

(VIEW COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Houses inundated in York, England after torrential rain caused rivers to burst banks. Damages are set to run into the billions of pounds (Flickr/ Alh1)

CLICK HERE - The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) - Facing the new abnormal

After severe flooding and shock tornadoes, now is time get serious about precautionary steps to counter climate impacts says UN disaster chief

climatechangenews.com - by Alex Pashley - December 30, 2015

Governments have been told to face a “new abnormal” of extreme weather after a wave of natural disasters wrought death and economic damage around the world in recent days.

Heavy flooding in Britain and South America, and devastating tornadoes in the US has laid bare the lack of official preventative measures, Margareta Wahlstrom, head of the UN’s disaster risk reduction agency said on Tuesday.

They highlighted how climate change-linked events were becoming harder to predict as the planet overheats, she said.

Implementing an UN-backed framework to protect people against climate impacts agreed by 187 states earlier this year was “critical”, the official at the Geneva-based agency said.

journals.plos.org - Fallah MP, Skrip LA, Gertler S, Yamin D, Galvani AP (2015) Quantifying Poverty as a Driver of Ebola Transmission.
December 31, 2015 - PLoS Negl Trop Dis 9(12): e0004260. doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0004260

Abstract

Background

Poverty has been implicated as a challenge in the control of the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Although disparities between affected countries have been appreciated, disparities within West African countries have not been investigated as drivers of Ebola transmission. To quantify the role that poverty plays in the transmission of Ebola, we analyzed heterogeneity of Ebola incidence and transmission factors among over 300 communities, categorized by socioeconomic status (SES), within Montserrado County, Liberia.

CLICK HERE - Quantifying Poverty as a Driver of Ebola Transmission