Australia turns down New Zealand offer to take asylum seekers from Manus Island camp – PM Turnbull urges refugees to leave – PNG Supreme Court rejects bid to restore electricity, food, medical care, and water supplies

SYDNEY,  6 November 2017 (Reuters) – Australia turned down on Sunday an offer to take 150 asylum seekers being held in an Australian-run detention centre in Papua New Guinea, where UN officials have warned a humanitarian emergency is unfolding. About 600 men have barricaded themselves inside the camp on remote Manus Island in Papua New […]

Death toll in Vietnam from Typhoon Damrey rises to 69

7 November 2017 (VOA News) – Vietnamese officials say the death toll from a powerful typhoon that struck the country’s south-central coast last week has risen to 69. The Disaster Management Authority says another 30 people are still missing in the aftermath of Typhoon Damrey, which caused extensive damage throughout Khanh Hoa province. More than […]

The Paradise Papers: Trump-Russia links and offshore piggy banks of the 1 percent exposed

5 November 2017 (ICIJ) – The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists today releases The Paradise Papers, a global investigation that reveals the offshore activities of some of the world’s most powerful people and companies.ICIJ and 95 media partners explored 13.4 million leaked files from a combination of leaked files of offshore law firms and the […]

The India-Bangladesh wall: Lessons for Trump – Border fences are not particularly effective, but they are enormously expensive

By Sudha Ramachandran 15 February 2017 (The Diplomat) – United States President Donald Trump’s plans to build a “great, great wall” along the United States’ 3,200 kilometer long border with Mexico to keep out what he calls “criminals, drug dealers, [and] rapists” is hardly a new idea. Several other countries, many motivated by Islamophobia, have […]

Trump/Russia: Big Carbon’s last monstrous grasp

By Peter Sinclair 1 November 2017 (Climate Denial Crock of the Week) – I’m not a huge Chris Mathews fan, but he’s the first “mainstream” journalist I’ve heard put his finger on what I’ve been saying since the election.  Caught Chris on Colbert’s late show last night. Last time I looked, the Russian mob-ocracy is […]

UN implores Australia to resume feeding “starving” refugees at remote camp – “It’s unbearable to watch this crisis unfold”

3 November 2017 (Thomson Reuters) – The United Nations human rights office called on Australia on Friday to restore food, water, and health services to about 600 interned refugees and asylum seekers in Papua New Guinea, which Canberra cut off three days ago. The detainees in the Manus Island Centre have defied attempts by the […]

The three-degree world: the cities that will be drowned by global warming – “We are not doing nearly enough to save hundreds of millions of people from a miserable future”

By Josh Holder, Niko Kommenda, and Jonathan Watts 3 November 2017(The Guardian) – When UN climate negotiators meet for summit talks this month, there will be a new figure on the table: 3C. Until now, global efforts such as the Paris climate agreement have tried to limit global warming to 2C above pre-industrial levels. However, […]

At least 19 dead as Typhoon Damrey sweeps into Vietnam – Damrey is strongest typhoon to make landfall in southern Vietnam in 16 years

By Mai Nguyen 4 November 2017 HANOI (Reuters) – Typhoon Damrey killed at least 19 people in central and southern Vietnam on Saturday, the government said, after the storm swept into the country just days ahead of the APEC summit of Asia-Pacific leaders. Damrey reached land at 4 a.m. local time (2100 GMT on Friday) […]

Smuggled, beaten and drugged: The illicit global ape trade – “What we’re looking at is endgame conservation”

By Jeffery Gettleman 4 November 2017 MBANDAKA, Democratic Republic of Congo (The New York Times) – The sting began, as so many things do these days, on social media. Daniel Stiles, a self-styled ape trafficking detective in Kenya, had been scouring Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp for weeks, looking for pictures of gorillas, chimps or orangutans. […]

Sumatra region heats up as rainforests are razed for palm oil plantations – “The land use change does not only impact biodiversity and stored carbon, but also has a surface warming effect, adding to climate change”

By Hans Nicholas Jong 29 October 2017(Mongabay) – The wholesale destruction of rainforests across parts of Indonesia’s Sumatra island to make way for cash-crop plantations has not just devastated animal and plant biodiversity in the region, but may also be driving an alarming rise in temperatures on the ground, a new study suggests. Average temperatures […]

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