Tháng: Tháng Mười 2023

High-resolution maps show that rubber causes substantial deforestation (in Southeast Asia)

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

SEI.org

Researchers used this data and cloud computing to generate powerful, high-resolution maps of rubber and its associated deforestation in Southeast Asia, where over 90% of global rubber is produced…The mapping showed that forest loss associated with rubber production is more than two to three times greater than indicated by previous research has suggested

A multi-partner team of researchers, led by the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, have used new Earth observation satellite data and advanced computer modelling to show that rubber-related deforestation is far higher than previous estimates have suggested

Almost all tropical deforestation is related to the production of global commodities, but mapping this deforestation through satellite imagery is rare (oil palm and soy are the notable exceptions). Natural rubber ranks among these global commodities but its deforestation impact has proved difficult to measure: globally, 85% of natural rubber is produced by smallholders on scattered plantations which have proved difficult to detect through traditional satellite imaging due to their small size. Moreover, these plantations also have a very similar visual appearance to forest when viewed from space. Previous calculations of rubber deforestation have therefore used model-based data.

Due to recent improvements in the visual quality of Earth observation data, in this paper the authors were able to capture the smallholder plantations in their mapping and address the deforestation knowledge gap. Researchers used this data and cloud computing to generate powerful, high-resolution maps of rubber and its associated deforestation in Southeast Asia, where over 90% of global rubber is produced.

Rubber tapping on a plantation in Thailand.Photo: Pavel Muravev / iStock / Getty Images Plus
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The Interdependence of Climate Security and Good Governance: A Case Study from Pakistan

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ 1 bình luận

Climateandsecurity.org

By Ameera Adil and Faraz Haider

Last year, Pakistan faced the most devastating floods in the history of the country, which is notable because the country lies on a geographical floodplain. The Indus is an ancient and powerful river. The floodplain of the river covers nearly half of Pakistan, where most of the country’s population resides. When the Indus breathes, as rivers do, the lives and livelihoods on the floodplains are quietly absorbed by the water. 

Climate change had a significant role to play in the 2022 floods. The affected areas received 900mm of rainfall between June to August, which is nearly 350 percent more than the long-term average. Tiếp tục đọc “The Interdependence of Climate Security and Good Governance: A Case Study from Pakistan” →

Hong Kong’s teachers are leaving. Is the National Security Law behind it? 

~ Phạm Thu Hương ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

CNA Insider – 26-9-2023

Teachers in Hong Kong are leaving in record numbers. About 6,550 resigned or retired in the last academic year, almost twice the average prior to 2021. One possible reason? The National Security Law. Changes to the curriculum and limits on what can be discussed have left liberal-minded educators feeling stifled. Teachers are also worried that they risk censure should class discussions run afoul of the law. At the same time, thousands of students have also dropped out of Hong Kong schools, as the emigration wave continues. Some classrooms now sit empty. How will Hong Kong schools emerge from this shake up, and what will they look like after?

00:00 Introduction
01:35 Hong Kong teachers are quitting in record numbers
05:06 The National Security Law and how it affected education
14:47 Teachers under pressure
19:42 Recent changes to school curriculum
24:01 Heightened scrutiny in classrooms
27:04 The emigration wave and falling student enrolment
38:15 More mainland students entering Hong Kong
42:49 Future of Hong Kong’s education sector

Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza: 50,000 pregnant women, 5,500 due to give birth, 160 deliveries every day

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

UN Population Fund Updated on 27 October 2023

The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is deepening, as fuel, water, food and life-saving medical supplies run out. The health system is on the brink of collapse.

Among Gaza’s population of 2.2 million people, 1 in 4 are women and girls of reproductive age – around 572,000 – who need access to reproductive health services. An estimated 50,000 pregnant women are caught up in the conflict, with around 5,500 due to give birth within the next 30 days – more than 160 deliveries every day. An estimated 840 women may experience pregnancy or birth-related complications. Many of these women have been cut off from safe delivery services, as hospitals, which are overwhelmed with casualties, run out of fuel for generators, medicines and basic supplies – including for the management of obstetric emergencies.

Around 73,000 women are currently pregnant in the West Bank, with more than 8,120 expected to give birth in the next month as the violence threatens to spill over.

UNFPA is dispatching life-saving reproductive health medicines and supplies to Egypt for stockpiling and transportation across the border into Gaza when possible. As of 26 October, UNFPA has 3,000 dignity kits containing hygiene supplies in Egypt, ready to go into Gaza, as well as life-saving reproductive health supplies, prepositioned and ready to be sent through Egypt. These health kits and supplies save the lives of pregnant women – they are as vital as food, water, shelter.

Among other initiatives, a UNFPA-supported helpline is available for women, youth and other people requiring assistance in Gaza and the West Bank

In the West Bank, the Ministry of Health has redeployed midwives from hospitals to Safe Motherhood Emergency Centres supported by UNFPA, ensuring that midwives are accessible in every community. In addition, online support systems and referral services are helping to ensure women’s continued access to sexual and reproductive health care.

With more than half of Gaza’s population displaced, the risk of gender-based violence has also increased exponentially for women and girls who are on the move, seeking refuge in overcrowded shelters, which lack privacy and sanitation facilities.

UNFPA condemns the violence in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories and echoes the UN Secretary-General’s call for an immediate ceasefire, for the immediate and unconditional release of hostages by Hamas, and for unimpeded access for humanitarian aid and workers within Gaza. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUlCXSf9lvU

Gaza children of war and conflict

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

Gaza is a virtual prison with hardly any way in or out. And it has been so since ten years ago when Al Jazeera entered Gaza to talk to the grandchildren of Fatima al Najar, who had recently achieved a strange kind of fame as the oldest Palestinian suicide bomber.

These children, whose lives had been shaped by the oppressive conditions imposed on the territory by Israel, spoke frankly about the hopes, and fear, for their future. Tehal was just ten at the time, and wanted to be the first female president of Palestine.

She said she had three priorities; to clean up the mess left behind by the Israeli bulldozers, to give children their rights, and “to build a new Gaza”. In contrast, another young girl – Rana – hoped to become a journalist, “So I can tell the people how we suffer here. I am a child, I know what death means, I know what war means, I know what blood means.”

These and other children opened their hearts in a moving show of optimism in the face of the dire conditions in which they lived.

Now, a decade on, Rewind returns to Gaza in search of the children featured in Children of Conflict, now young adults.Once again they speak to Al Jazeera’s cameras contrasting their aspirations of ten years ago with the reality of today.

Gaza and Israel: The cost of war will be counted in children’s lives

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

UNICEF OCTOBER 26, 2023 by UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell

The true cost of the violence in Gaza and Israel will be measured in children’s lives—those lost to the violence and those forever changed by it.

Less than three weeks on from the horrific attack inside Israel and the start of daily bombings of the Gaza Strip, the devastating tally in Israel and Gaza is quickly adding up. More than 2,700 Palestinian children have been killed and nearly 6,000 injured, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, for a shocking average of more than 480 child casualties per day.

More than 30 Israeli children have reportedly been killed, while at least 20 remain hostage in the Gaza Strip, their fates unknown.

Sadly, more suffering and death is on the horizon.  

Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on Earth—home to more than 2 million people, nearly half of whom are children. More than 1 million people in the north have been warned to move south, ahead of what is expected to be a wide-scale military operation. But with near-constant shelling, closed borders, and little room for movement, they have nowhere truly safe to go.   

Meanwhile, what clean water remains is quickly running out, leaving many Gazans with little choice but to rely on polluted wells. This dramatically increases the risk of waterborne-disease outbreaks. Unless access to safe drinking water is restored, people will die from severe dehydration and illness, with children the most vulnerable.  

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Dải Gaza: Một thảm họa nhân đạo chực chờ

~ Phạm Thu Hương ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

SÁNG ÁNH – 29/10/2023 11:25 GMT+7

TTCT – Israel đang triển khai một sách lược rất kiểu “tát nước bắt cá” có nguy cơ gây ra một thảm họa nhân đạo tại Dải Gaza trong cuộc chiến Trung Đông hiện giờ.

Trẻ em Palestine trên xe cứu thương, ngay sau vụ tấn công bệnh viện Al-Ahly ở Gaza ngày 17-10. Ảnh: Reuters
Trẻ em Palestine trên xe cứu thương, ngay sau vụ tấn công bệnh viện Al-Ahly ở Gaza ngày 17-10. Ảnh: Reuters

Sau hai tuần chiến tranh, ngày 21-10, 20 xe tải, tức 400 tấn hàng cứu trợ, được cho phép vào Dải Gaza bị Israel vây hãm. Đây là kết quả sau khi thương thuyết, thảo luận tới lui và Israel lúc thuận lúc không. 

Nguyên tắc của Israel là nếu Hamas buông súng đầu hàng thì Gaza sẽ được tiếp tế. Trừng trị tập thể, như ta biết, là vi phạm quy ước quốc tế. Không thể vì 2.000 du kích mà đánh bom và bỏ đói tập thể hơn 2 triệu người dân tại Gaza.

Đây chẳng phải là việc lén lút, mà là chính sách công khai của Israel mang tên “Sách lược Dahiya”, do tham mưu trưởng Gadi Eizenkot (2015-2019) chủ trương từ lúc ông là tư lệnh mặt trận miền bắc đối diện Lebanon. Trong chiến tranh với Hezbollah tại Lebanon (2006), Dahiya là khu ngoại ô Beirut do Hezbollah quản lý.

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Allies Fear US Is Overextended as Global Conflicts Spread

~ Trần Đình Hoành ~ Bình luận về bài viết này


European and Asian allies of the United States increasingly doubt Washington’s ability to simultaneously help Israel and Ukraine – Bloomberg writes, citing sources.

The United States was confident in the normalization of relations between Israel and the Arab countries, so it moved resources from the Middle East to direct them to fight Russia or China, and is now forced to ask Tel Aviv to postpone the operation in the Gaza Strip in order to increase its forces in the region, the agency writes .

At the same time, Ukraine has exhausted its reserves of artillery shells from the United States and its allies, and attempts to increase ammunition production are facing various obstacles.

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Israel-Hamas War: “Enough Of The Bigotry Against Palestinians!”

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

Cenk Uygur, a Turkish-American political commentator and media host. He is the creator of The Young Turks

“We have to have two state solution immediately. I’m asking Israeli not out of hate….So many of my friends I grew up with are Jewish. This is not good for them. This is not good for any body. Please look into your hearts. Look. Be the moral that I know you can be. I’ve been to the Passover dinner where you pray for your oppressors. Now I breaks my heart. But I have to tell you, you have to pray for those you’re oppressing. And saying you’re not oppressing them after brutalizing them for 56-long years. You’re kidding yourself. And as a friend and an ally, I’m trying to get you wake up. You can not keep doing this.

‘Not in our name’: Jewish peace activists across the US call for immediate ceasefire and justice for Palestinians

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

CNN.com By Alaa Elassar, CNN Updated 11:38 AM EDT, Mon October 23, 2023

https://edition.cnn.com/media/sites/cnn/cnn-fallback-image.jpg

Jewish peace activists staged a sit-in on Capitol Hill, where they called for an immediate ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza war on October 18.Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA-EFE/ShutterstockCNN — 

As Rabbi Alissa Wise scrolls through social media, her feed is littered with videos of dead Palestinian children, parents holding their lifeless bodies with screams caught in their throats and eyes sunken with grief.

Like millions around the world, she has been haunted by the gruesome scenes flooding out of Gaza, where civilians have endured more than two weeks of an Israeli siege and bombing campaign that has collapsed homes, destroyed vital infrastructure and sparked a humanitarian crisis.

The airstrikes have killed more than 4,600 Palestinians so far, including an estimated 1,900 children, and wounded at least 14,000 others, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza. Another 1.4 million people have been internally displaced, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.

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This is the moment of Truth. History will judge us all.

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

U.N. secretary general: I repeat my call for a humanitarian ceasefire in the Middle East, the unconditional release of all hostages, and the delivery of life-saving supplies at the scale needed. Everyone must assume their responsibilities. This is a moment of truth. History will judge us all.

How the U.S. media protects Israel

~ Phạm Thu Hương ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

AJ+ – 24-10-2023

It’s been over two weeks since the October 7 Hamas attacks and Israel’s subsequent bombardment and siege of Gaza, which has taken thousands of Palestinian lives. The United States has stood firmly behind Israel, giving it a carte blanche to do whatever it wishes – without critique and consequence. And U.S. news media has followed suit. In this special episode of Backspace, Sana Saeed looks at how the U.S. news media protects Israel from criticism and condemnation.

Turkey, the United States, and the Israel-Hamas War

~ Trần Đình Hoành ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

President Erdogan’s recent troubles with the United States have prevented Turkey from playing a potentially constructive role in the early phases of the Israel-Hamas war.

Article by Henri J. Barkey

October 25, 2023 2:17 pm (EST)

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivers remarks at a youth organization’s convention in Ankara, Turkey.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivers remarks at a youth organization’s convention in Ankara, Turkey. Murat Kula/Anadolu/Getty Images

The timing and scope of the war between Israel and Hamas have put Turkey and its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in a challenging situation.

At first, shocked by the violence perpetrated by Hamas, Erdogan reached out to his Israeli counterpart, Isaac Herzog. However, the strength of public support for Hamas in Turkey, the mobilization of the Israeli military, and the start of the Israeli aerial offensive in the Gaza Strip almost immediately made him shift his position. The tone of his criticism of Israel for its campaign in the Gaza Strip has progressively become more strident.

This has not prevented Erdogan from seeking to play a mediation role; he initiated several phone calls to regional leaders, UN Secretary-General António Guterres, and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Missing was U.S. President Joe Biden. Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken launched a whirlwind tour of regional capitals as soon as the crisis erupted, seeking ways to prevent further deterioration. He appears to have deliberately sidestepped a visit to Ankara, preferring to confer with the Turkish foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, by telephone. The Biden-Erdogan relationship has been strained for some time; Biden, too, has limited his contacts with Erdogan and been unwilling to invite him, for instance, for a state visit to Washington.

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