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"It's a Slow Death"- The world's worst humanitarian crisis

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"It's a Slow Death"- The world's worst humanitarian crisis

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After 2½ years of war, little is functioning in Yemen. Repeated bombings have crippled bridges, hospitals and factories. Many doctors and civil servants have gone unpaid for more than a year. Malnutrition and poor sanitation have made the Middle Eastern country vulnerable to diseases that most of the world has confined to the history books.

In just three months, cholera has killed nearly 2,000 people and infected more than half a million, one of the world's largest outbreaks in the past 50 years. "It's a slow death," said Yakoub al-Jayefi, a Yemeni soldier who has not collected a salary in eight months, and whose 6-year-old daughter, Shaima, was being treated for malnutrition at a clinic in the Yemeni capital, Sana'a.

Since the family's savings ran out, they had lived mostly off milk and yogurt from neighbours. But that wasn't enough to keep his daughter healthy, and her skin went pale as she grew thin. Like more than half of Yemenis, the family did not have immediate access to a working medical centre, so Jayefi borrowed money from friends and relatives to take his daughter to the capital.

"We're just waiting for doom or for a breakthrough from heaven," he said. How did a country in a region with such great wealth fall so far and so fast into crisis?

A nation split in two

Yemen has long been the Arab world's poorest country and suffered from frequent local armed conflicts. The most recent trouble started in 2014, when the Houthis, rebels from the north, allied with parts of the Yemeni military and stormed the capital, forcing the internationally recognised government into exile.

In March 2015, Saudi Arabia and a coalition of Arab nations launched a military campaign aimed at pushing back the Houthis and restoring the government. The campaign has so far failed to do so, and the country remains split between Houthi-controlled territory in the west and land controlled by the government and its Arab backers in the south and east.

A collapsed state

Many coalition air strikes have killed and wounded civilians, including strikes on Wednesday around the capital. The bombings have also heavily damaged Yemen's infrastructure, including a crucial seaport and important bridges as well as hospitals, sewage facilities and civilian factories.

Services that Yemenis have depended on are gone, and the destruction has undermined the country's already weak economy. It has also made it harder for humanitarian organisations to bring in and distribute aid. The Saudi-led coalition has also kept Sana'a's international airport closed to civilian air traffic for more than a year, meaning that merchants cannot fly goods in, and sick and wounded Yemenis cannot fly abroad for treatment. Many of them have died.

Neither of Yemen's two competing administrations has paid regular salaries to many civil servants in over a year, impoverishing their families as there is little other work to be found. Among those affected are professionals whose work is essential to dealing with the crisis, such as doctors, nurses and sewage system technicians, leading to the near collapse of their sectors.

The devastation of cholera

Damage from the war has turned Yemen into a fertile environment for cholera, a bacterial infection spread by water contaminated with faeces. As garbage has piled up and sewage systems have failed, more Yemenis are relying on easily polluted wells for drinking water. Heavy rains since April accelerated the wells' contamination.

In developed countries, cholera is not life-threatening and can be easily treated, with antibiotics if severe. But in Yemen, rampant malnutrition has made many people, particularly children, especially vulnerable to the disease. "With the malnutrition we have among children, if they get diarrhoea, they are not going to get better," said Meritxell Relano, the United Nations Children's Fund representative in Yemen.

Outside a cholera clinic in Sana'a, Muhammad Nasir was waiting for news about his 6-month-old son, Waleed, who had the disease. A poor agricultural laborer, Nasir had borrowed money to take his son to the hospital but did not have enough to return home even if the baby recovered. "My situation is bad," he said.

Five tents had been erected in the backyard of the cholera ward to cope with the sudden increase in patients. All day, families brought sick relatives. Most were elderly, or children carried on their parents' backs. If infection numbers continue to rise, researchers fear that the cases could ultimately rival the largest outbreak, in Haiti, which infected at least 750,000 people after a devastating earthquake in 2010.

Aid organisations say they cannot replace the services that the government is supposed to provide. That means there is little chance for significant improvements unless the war ends. "We are almost in the third year of the war and nothing is getting better," said Relano of Unicef. "There are limits to what we can do in such a collapsed state."

The United Nations has called the situation the world's largest humanitarian crisis, with more than 10 million people who require immediate assistance. And the situation could become even worse. Peter Salama, the executive director of the World Health Organisation's health emergencies programme, warned that as the state fails, "the manifestation of that now is cholera, but there could be in the future other epidemics that Yemen could be at the centre of".

International involvement

There appears to be no end in sight for the conflict. Peace talks brokered by the United Nations have stalled, and none of the warring parties have indicated much willingness to back down. The Houthis and their allies firmly control the capital, and Saudi leaders have said they will keep fighting until the other side gives in.

The United Nations says that Yemen needs $2.3 billion (€1.95 billion) in humanitarian aid this year, but that only 41 per cent of that amount has been received. The warring parties are among the greatest aid donors, with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates both giving significant sums. But critics note that the countries spend much more on the war effort and that their closing of Sana'a's airport has been devastating for civilians.

The United States is also a major donor, as well as a primary supplier of arms to the members of the Saudi-led coalition. Although the United States is not directly involved in the conflict, it has provided military support to the Saudi-led coalition, and Yemenis have often found the remnants of American-made munitions in the ruins left by deadly airstrikes.

None of this bodes well for civilians. "The war still haunts us from all directions," said Saleh al-Khawlani, who fled his home in northern Yemen with his wife and six children after the Saudi-led coalition began its bombings. They then fled again, to Sana'a, after an air strike hit the camp where they had sought shelter, and killed a number of his relatives.

They lived on the street for a while and had to beg for most of their food. "Most of the time, we had only lunch and sometimes we don't," he said. "If we have lunch at noon, we don't have dinner at night."
New York Times

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'It's a slow death': The world's worst humanitarian crisis

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After 2½ years of war, little is functioning in Yemen. Repeated bombings have crippled bridges, hospitals and factories. Many doctors and civil servants have gone unpaid for more than a year. Malnutrition and poor sanitation have made the Middle Eastern country vulnerable to diseases that most of the world has confined to the history books.

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The wealthiest 1% will soon own more than the rest of the world's population, according to a study by anti-poverty charity Oxfam.

The charity's research shows that the share of the world's wealth owned by the richest 1% increased from 44% in 2009 to 48% last year.

On current trends, Oxfam says it expects the wealthiest 1% to own more than 50% of the world's wealth by 2016.

The research coincides with the start of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

The annual gathering attracts top political and business leaders from around the world.

Oxfam's executive director Winnie Byanyima, who will co-chair the Davos event, said she would use the charity's high-profile role at the forum to demand urgent action to narrow the gap between rich and poor.

In a statement ahead of the gathering, Ms Byanyima said the scale of global inequality was "simply staggering".

$1.9tn wealth of 80 top billionaires - equal to bottom 50% of rest of world

$600bn increase in wealth for 80 top billionaires in 4 years - or 50% rise

$750bn drop in wealth for the poorest 50% of the world in 4 years

AFP

"It is time our leaders took on the powerful vested interests that stand in the way of a fairer and more prosperous world.

"Business as usual for the elite isn't a cost-free option - failure to tackle inequality will set the fight against poverty back decades. The poor are hurt twice by rising inequality - they get a smaller share of the economic pie and because extreme inequality hurts growth, there is less pie to be shared around," she added.

Figures in focus

Oxfam based its prediction on data from the annual Credit Suisse Global Wealth datebook, which gives the distribution of global wealth going back to 2000. It uses the value of an individual's financial and non-financial assets, mainly property and land, minus their debts to determine what individuals "own".

The data excludes wages or income.

The BBC's head of statistics, Anthony Reuben, said in order to be part of the wealthiest 1% of the world's population, an individual would need to be worth just over half a million pounds.

"So it is not necessarily talking about people who own yachts and ski chalets. Owning an average house in London (without a mortgage) would just about put you in the 1%. "

He also noted that Oxfam had chosen to use figures which showed the disparity between the 1% and the rest of the world in the worst light.

"From 2000 until 2009, the proportion of wealth held by the wealthiest 1% fell every year. From 2010 until 2014 it rose every year. Oxfam has taken the figures since 2010 and used them to extrapolate what will happen in the coming years. Clearly, that is the methodology that will make inequality look the most severe," he added.

Rich getting richer

Oxfam is calling on governments to adopt a seven-point plan to tackle inequality, including a clampdown on tax evasion by companies and the move towards a living wage for all workers.

Oxfam made headlines at Davos last year with the revelation that the 85 richest people on the planet have the same wealth as the poorest 50% (3.5 billion people).

It said that that comparison had now become even more stark, with the 80 richest people having the same wealth as the poorest 50%.

Analysis: Robert Peston, BBC Economics editor

To be clear, Oxfam's claim today that by 2016 the richest 1% could own as much or the same as the bottom 99% is not wildly implausible.

There are all sorts of reasons why such increases in inequality are troubling, and not just for those at the bottom of the income and wealth pyramid.

One is that aspirational people on lower incomes have massive incentives to take on too-great debts to support their living standards - which exacerbates the propensity of the economy to swing from boom to financial-crisis bust.

Another is that the poor in aggregate spend more than the rich (there are only so many motor cars and yachts a billionaire can own, so much of the super-rich's wealth sits idle. as it were), and therefore growth tends to be faster when income is more evenly distributed.
Robert Peston: Why extreme inequality hurts the rich
The charity said the research, published on Monday, showed that 52% of global wealth not owned by the richest 1% is owned by those in the richest 20%.

The remaining population accounts for just 5.5% of global wealth, and their average wealth was $3,851 (£2,544) per adult in 2014, Oxfam found.

That compares with an average wealth of $2.7m per adult for the elite 1%.

The study comes just a day before US President Barack Obama's State of the Union address, in which he is expected to call for tax increases on the wealthy to help the middle class.

In October, a report from banking giant Credit Suisse also said that the richest 1% of people own nearly half of the world's wealth.

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The wealthiest 1% will soon own more than the rest of the world's population, according to a study by anti-poverty charity Oxfam. The charity's research shows that the share of the world's wealth owned by the richest 1% increased from 44% in 2009 to 48% last year.

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READ THE 2022 IMPACT REPORT

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It's not the arrests that convinced me that "Occupy Wall Street" was worth covering seriously. Nor was it their press strategy, which largely consisted of tweeting journalists to cover a small protest that couldn't say what, exactly, it hoped to achieve. It was a Tumblr called, " We Are The 99 Percent," and all it's doing is posting grainy pictures of people holding handwritten signs telling their stories, one after the other.

"I am 20K in debt and am paying out of pocket for my current tuition while I start paying back loans with two part time jobs."

These are not rants against the system. They're not anarchist manifestos. They're not calls for a revolution. They're small stories of people who played by the rules, did what they were told, and now have nothing to show for it. Or, worse, they have tens of thousands in debt to show for it.

"I am a 28 year old female with debt that had to give up her apartment + pet because I have no money and I owe over $30,000."

College debt shows up a lot in these stories, actually. It's more insistently present than housing debt, or even unemployment. That might speak to the fact that the protests tilt towards the young. But it also speaks, I think, to the fact that college debt represents a special sort of betrayal. We told you that the way to get ahead in America was to get educated. You did it. And now you find yourself in the same place, but buried under debt. You were lied to.

"Married mother of 3. Lost my job in 2009. My family lost our health insurance, our savings, our home, and our good credit. After 16 months, I found a job -- with a 90 mile commute and a 25 percent pay cut. After gas, tolls, daycare, and the cost of health insurance, i was paying so my kids had access to health care."

Let's be clear. This isn't really the 99 percent. If you're in the 85th percentile, for instance, your household is making more than $100,000, and you're probably doing okay. If you're in the 95th percentile, your household is making more than $150,000. But then, these protests really aren't about Wall Street, either. There's not a lot of evidence that these people want a class war, or even particularly punitive measures on the rich. The only thing that's clear from their missives is that they want the economy to start working for them, too.

"I am young. I am educated and hard working. I am not able to pay my bills. I am afraid of what the future holds."

I don't imagine that too many members of, say, the 97th percentile are writing in to this Web site. But imagine yourself as a young person who took out loans to go to college, got good grades, and has graduated into an economy that doesn't seem to want you. You did everything you were told to do, and it didn't work out. That hurts, of course, but it's a bad economy, and everybody is suffering. At least, that's what they say.

"i am a 19 year old student with 18 credit hours and 2 part time jobs. i am over 4000 dollars in debt but my paychecks are just enough to get me to school and back. next year my plan was to attend a 4 year college and get my bfa, but now i am afraid that without a co-signer i will have no shot at a loan and even if i can get a loan i am afraid that i will leave college with no future and a crippling debt."

But you look around and the reality is not everyone is suffering. Wall Street caused this mess, and the government paid off their debts and helped them rake in record profits in recent years. The top 1 percent account for 24 percent of the nation's income and 40 percent of its wealth. There are a lot of people who don't seem to be doing everything they're supposed to do, and it seems to be working out just fine for them.

"I went to graduate school believing that there might be some financial security afforded by a higher degree, and that with that security I could finally buy my mom her own house and take care of her. Instead, I have wasted six years of my life."

Perhaps that's part of the reason that the movement doesn't have clear demands. It's easy to explain how to punish the rich. You can tax them, or regulate their activities. It's a bit hard to say how to make the economy work better for average people. There's an intuition out there that part of the reason it's not working better is that the rich hold too much political power, and so there's a clear desire to reduce that political power, but it's not clear how far that actually gets you in terms of bringing wages up.

"I am a 27 year old with a bachelor degree. I ran out of my student loans while trying to find a job. I am 'living' with my mother again to get back on my feet. So far, the best I can do is a part time retail job paying $8 an hour. I am hearing impaired with cochlear implant. My cochlear implant warranty expired. I do not have the money to renew it. How can I work at my new minimum wage job when my implant is broken? I need it to HEAR."

But this is why I'm taking Occupy Wall Street -- or, perhaps more specifically, the 'We Are The 99 Percent' movement -- seriously. There are a lot of people who are getting an unusually raw deal right now. There is a small group of people who are getting an unusually good deal right now. That doesn't sound to me like a stable equilibrium.

The organizers of Occupy Wall Street are fighting to upend the system. But what gives their movement the potential for power and potency is the masses who just want the system to work the way they were promised it would work. It's not that 99 percent of Americans are really struggling. It's not that 99 percent of Americans want a revolution. It's that 99 percent of Americans sense that the fundamental bargain of our economy -- work hard, play by the rules, get ahead -- has been broken, and they want to see it restored.

Related Links

Who are the 99 percent? Part 2

What Occupy DC wants: Less corporate money in politics

How Occupy Wall Street could succeed

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It's not the arrests that convinced me that "Occupy Wall Street" was worth covering seriously. Nor was it their press strategy, which largely consisted of tweeting journalists to cover a small protest that couldn't say what, exactly, it hoped to achieve.

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Cool song (despite the autotuning) about Trump's election.

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This is a Netflix documentary on how mainstream media and society are influencing the low representation of women in positions of power. It won a lot of awards and is a good watch.

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Miss Representation Trailer (2011 Sundance Film Festival Official Selection)

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Oscar winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Blank put together a miniseries based on the history of the LGBTQ Movement. It's a good one to watch if you have a few hours to kill.

Alternatively, Stonewall (2015) was a movie brought out two years ago which is meant to be good.

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'The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics.'- John B. Judis

'Age of Anger: A History of the Present.' - Pankaj Mishra

'To Kill a Mockingbird.' - Harper Lee

'We Should All Be Feminists'- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

'I am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban'- Malala Yousafzai

'Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics.' - bell hooks

'When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor... or Yourself."- Steve Corbett

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When Colin Stokes' 3-year-old son caught a glimpse of "Star Wars," he was instantly obsessed. But what messages did he absorb from the sci-fi classic? Stokes asks for more movies that send positive messages to boys: that cooperation is heroic, and respecting women is as manly as defeating the villain.

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Andrew Mwenda: Aid for Africa? No thanks.

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In this provocative talk, journalist Andrew Mwenda asks us to reframe the "African question" -- to look beyond the media's stories of poverty, civil war and helplessness and see the opportunities for creating wealth and happiness throughout the continent.

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There are a series of podcasts that are really interesting for learning about things. On Apple phones, you can use the pre-installed Podcast app or Spotify also does most podcasts. For Android, you can use Spotify or CastBox is good either. Podcasts are a good way of learning about things such as social justice and opening your mind. It can be a good alternative to music and I like to run while listening to them (but that might just be me!)

1. Pod Save the World

2. Pod Save America

3. Global development- The Guardian

4. The Guilty Feminist

5. TED Radio Hour

6. How I Built This

7. TED Talks Audio

8. Stuff You Missed in History Class

9. Stuff You Should Know

10. The Irish Times Inside Politics

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The Lazy Person's Guide to Saving the World

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The Lazy Person's Guide to Saving the World

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This is a list of things you can do in affiliation with the Sustainable Development Goals that was written by the UN. They can be big changes or little ones but it's just important to do something you can to help and make the world a better place.

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The Lazy Person's Guide to Saving the World

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End extreme poverty. Fight inequality and injustice. Fix climate change. Whoa. The Sustainable Development Goals are important, world-changing objectives that will require cooperation among governments, international organizations and world leaders. It seems impossible that the average person can make an impact. Should you just give up? No! Change starts with you.

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Beautiful Trouble- A toolbox for revolution

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Beautiful Trouble- A toolbox for revolution

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This is a really cool website which is based on a book known as Beautiful Trouble. If you follow them on Facebook, they occasionally post cool movements that have been going on in the world.

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"Anyone who is interested in passionate, exciting, inspiring social movements should have a look."
Inter Pares

Beautiful Trouble exists to make nonviolent revolution irresistible by providing an ever-growing suite of strategic tools and trainings that inspire movements for a more just, healthy, and equitable world.Start browsing the Web Toolbox "

Video Trailer

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"Anyone who is interested in passionate, exciting, inspiring social movements should have a look." Inter Pares Beautiful Trouble exists to make nonviolent revolution irresistible by providing an ever-growing suite of strategic tools and trainings that inspire movements for a more just, healthy, and equitable world.Start browsing the Web Toolbox "

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This is a fantastic TED Talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Nigerian woman. It's really witty and funny and she speaks a lot about gender stereotypes (both men and women) and the impact that they have on us as humans.
She always wrote a book of the same title which I will add to the book list adjacent.

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We teach girls that they can have ambition, but not too much ... to be successful, but not too successful, or they’ll threaten men, says author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. In this classic talk that started a worldwide conversation about feminism, Adichie asks that we begin to dream about and plan for a different, fairer world -- of happier men and women who are truer to themselves.

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Taking Action for Change Presentation VP17

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Taking Action for Change Presentation VP17

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Taking Action for Change Suas GP Week VP17

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The Yes Men Andy Bichlbaum is interviewed after the media finds out about his Dow Chemical impersonation -- for more info go to www.theyesmen.org

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This is the BBC World News interview with the spokesperson from Dow Chemical. There was a lot of controversy over what they did and you can see the adjoining video on the outcome as well.

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The Yes Men strike again. Impersonating a Dow Chemical spokesman on BBC, "Jude Finisterra" promises a huge compensation for the thousands of victims of the Bhopal disaster in which Dow Chemical's subsidiary Union Carbide India was responsible for in 1984.

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This is the second part of the campaign. It went viral on social media and there was a treasure hunt for "chainsaw Barbie" around the UK. Ultimately, after the campaign, Mattel (the makers of Barbie) promised to remove any sort of packaging that had been formed from rainforests from their supply chain.

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This is the beginning of another campaign that Greenpeace ran which targeted a packaging company that were being used by Barbie. It was a paper and packaging giant called APP (Asia Paper and Pulp) who were notorious for their chronic use of deforestation. This is the first part of the campaign that they ran where Barbie's boyfriend Ken finds out she's involved in deforestation.

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Barbie's rainforest destruction habit REVEALED!

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http://www.greenpeace.org/ken In a recent interview Ken learns of Barbie's scandalous deforestation habit ... she's been wrapping herself in rainforest destruction and pushing endangered Sumatran tigers to the brink of extinction ...

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This is a video from Greenpeace's Lego Campaign. Lego had a partnership with Shell who were drilling in the Arctic still despite pressure. So Greenpeace released this video based on The LEGO Movie to put pressure on them to end the deal. LEGO did not renew the partnership.

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/sep/01/how-to-reduce-emissions-10-10

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8MPgDim0fo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6CyeQS6Nj4

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https://www.evecork.com/collections/backpacks/products/pembrooke-backpack-blue

https://mafiabags.com/collections/backpacks/products/the-discover-pack?variant=27255446342

https://baggu.com/collections/category-backpacks/products/drawstring-backpack-sailor-stripe?variant=30968907015

https://www.fjallraven.com/re-kanken

http://www.inconnulab.com/product/rucksack-101

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http://www.coffeeshop.ie/Keepcup-Ireland