Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi (C), Defence Minister Abdelfatah al-Sissi (R) and Prime Minister Hisham Qandil (L) arrive at Almaza military Airbase in Cairo on May 22, 2013 to attend the welcoming of the policemen and soldiers who were seized in Sinai by kidnappers following their release. (AFP)

huffingtonpost.com - by Hamza Hendawi - June 23, 2013

CAIRO — Wading into an increasingly volatile fray, Egypt's military on Sunday gave the nation's Islamist rulers and their opponents a week to reach an understanding before planned June 30 opposition protests aimed at forcing out the president, in a toughly worded warning that it will intervene to stop the nation from entering a "dark tunnel."

The powerful military also gave a thinly veiled warning to President Mohammed Morsi's hard-line backers that it will step in if the mostly secular and liberal protesters, who have vowed to be peaceful, are attacked during the planned demonstrations.

mashable.com - May 21st, 2013 - Zoe Fox

Nearly one million people are affected by natural disasters each year. In the U.S. alone, some 400 people die from disasters that cost the economy $17.6 billion. Helping respond to these cataclysmic events, social media is now a go-to tool for those effected by disasters.

(VIEW COMPLETE ARTICLE)

huffingtonpost.com - June 9th, 2013

Climate change is likely to worsen floods on rivers such as the Ganges, the Nile and the Amazon this century while a few, including the now-inundated Danube, may become less prone, a Japanese-led scientific study said on Sunday.

The findings will go some way to help countries prepare for deluges that have killed thousands of people worldwide and caused tens of billions of dollars in damage every year in the past decade, experts wrote in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Given enough warning, governments can bring in flood barriers, building bans on flood plains, more flood-resistant crops and other measures to limit damage.

(VIEW COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Image: Chart showing that farmed fish production is overtaking beed production

earth-policy.org - June 12th, 2013 - Janet Larsen and J. Matthew Roney

The world quietly reached a milestone in the evolution of the human diet in 2011. For the first time in modern history, world farmed fish production topped beef production. The gap widened in 2012, with output from fish farming—also called aquaculture—reaching a record 66 million tons, compared with production of beef at 63 million tons.

(VIEW COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Image: People work on a GMO protest sign.

treehugger.com - June 13th, 2013 - Margaret Badore

Yesterday, Maine's state senate easily passed a bill that may one day mandate the labeling of foods containing genetically modified organisms. The law passed 35-0, but before labels are required, five consecutive states must also pass labeling laws.

For Maine, that means the GMO labeling will only go into effect if New Hampshire, the only state with which it shares a border, passes a similar law.

(VIEW COMPLETE ARTICLE)

submitted by Alexander Fekete

Mass Population Response to Critical Infrastructure Failure

Experts and advisory board meeting 4-­5th June 2013, London

Critical infrastructures (CI) are
organizational and physical structures and
facilities of such vital importance to a
nation's society and economy that their
failure or degradation would result in
sustained supply shortages, significant
disruption of public safety and security, or
other dramatic consequences.

Source: Ministry of the Interior 2009: National CIP Strategy

Key Research Areas

1. Human and Natural Risks and Changes
2. Urban Resilience
3. Critical Infrastructure
4. Civil Security and Risk Governance
5. GIS & Remote Sensing

(SEE SLIDE PRESENTATION IN ATTACHMENT BELOW - 65 PAGE .PDF FILE)

http://www.f09.fh-koeln.de/fakultaet/personen/profs/alexander.fekete/index.html

http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alexander_Fekete/

Image: Flickr/John

submitted by Robyn Wyrick

Congress is grappling with the benefits and risks of using Facebook, Twitter and other social media during emergencies

scientificamerican.com - by Dina Fine Maron - June 7, 2013

When Hurricane Katrina ravaged the U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005, Facebook was the new kid on the block. There was no Twitter for news updates, and the iPhone was not yet on the scene. By the time Hurricane Sandy slammed the eastern seaboard last year, social media had become an integral part of disaster response, filling the void in areas where cell phone service was lost while millions of Americans looked to resources including Twitter and Facebook to keep informed, locate loved ones, notify authorities and express support.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Image: 'Our findings prove that there is a strong scientific agreement about the cause of climate change, despite public perceptions to the contrary'. Photograph: John McConnico/AP

guardian.co.uk - May 15th, 2013 - Suzanne Goldenberg

A survey of thousands of peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals has found 97.1% agreed that climate change is caused by human activity.

Authors of the survey, published on Thursday in the journal Environmental Research Letters, said the finding of near unanimity provided a powerful rebuttal to climate contrarians who insist the science of climate change remains unsettled.

The survey considered the work of some 29,000 scientists published in 11,994 academic papers.

(VIEW COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Image: It is crunch time on tar sands. (photo: Greenpeace)

readersupportednews.org - May 11th, 2013 - Dr. James Hansen

Today 36 Norwegian organizations sent an open letter to Prime Minister Stoltenberg expressing opposition to development of Canadian tar sands by Statoil (the Norwegian state is majority shareholder of Statoil). Signatories include not only environmental organizations, but a broad public spectrum, including, appropriately, many youth organizations. It is encouraging that Norwegian youth press their government to stop supporting tar sands development, given the fact that Norway saves much of its oil earnings for future generations and given the fact that Norway is not likely among the nations that will suffer most from climate change.

(VIEW COMPLETE ARTICLE)

A human shadow is seen on a dried out field after drought in Germany. Photograph: Patrick Pleul/EPA

guardian.co.uk - by Fiona Harvey - May 19, 2013

Some of the most extreme predictions of global warming are unlikely to materialise, new scientific research has suggested, but the world is still likely to be in for a temperature rise of double that regarded as safe.

The researchers said warming was most likely to reach about 4C above pre-industrial levels if the past decade's readings were taken into account.

That would still lead to catastrophe across large swaths of the Earth, causing droughts, storms, floods and heatwaves, and drastic effects on agricultural productivity leading to secondary effects such as mass migration.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Study - Energy budget constraints on climate response
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n6/full/ngeo1836.html

who.int

World Health Statistics 2013 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 reducing the gaps between the world’s most-advantaged and least-advantaged countries, and on current trends in official development assistance (ODA) for health.

For additional information, see link below:
http://who.int/gho/publications/world_health_statistics/2013/en/index.html

World Health Statistics 2013 - (Full Report - 172 page .PDF report)
http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/81965/1/9789241564588_eng.pdf