Monday, April 21, 2014
Monday, April 14, 2014
U.N. Has to Cut Syria Food Rations for Lack of Donor Funds
Mon
Apr 7, 2014 11:02am EDT
* WFP rations cut by 20 percent due to
funding shortfall
* Only $1.1 billion of $2.3 billion
pledged to U.N. received
* Nearly half of all Syrians now displaced by conflict
By Stephanie Nebehay
* Nearly half of all Syrians now displaced by conflict
GENEVA, April 7 (Reuters) - The United Nations has
been forced to cut the size of food parcels for those left hungry by Syria's
civil war by a fifth because of a shortage of funds from donors, a senior
official said on Monday.
Nevertheless, the United Nations' World Food Programme managed to get food to a record 4.1 million people inside Syria last month, WFP deputy executive director Amir Abdulla told a news conference, just short of its target of 4.2 million.
As the humanitarian crisis within Syria intensifies, its neighbours are also groaning under the strain of an exodus of refugees that now totals around 3 million, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said.
"We know that this tragedy, together with the tragedy of the people displaced inside the country, 6.5 million, now shows that almost half of the Syrian population is displaced."
Donor countries pledged $2.3 billion for aid agencies helping Syria at a conference in Kuwait in January, but only $1.1 billion has been received so far, including $250 million handed over by Kuwait on Monday, U.N. officials said.
The delay meant that the standard family food basket for five people, which includes rice, bulgur wheat, pasta, pulses, vegetable oil, sugar, salt, and wheat flour, had to be cut by 20 percent in March to allow more people to be fed, WFP said.
Guterres's office needs more than $1.6 billion to fund fully its operations this year in response to the crisis, but has received only 22 percent to date, a UNHCR statement said.
Some 2.6 million Syrian refugees have registered in neighbouring countries, while hundreds of thousands more have crossed borders but not requested international assistance.
Guterres pointed to the huge burden this was imposing on Syria's neighbours. In Lebanon, the more than a million registered refugees are equal to almost a quarter of the resident population.
At least one Syrian refugee was killed in Jordan's sprawling Zaatari camp when hundreds of refugees clashed with security forces, residents said on Saturday.
"Let us not forget that in Jordan, in Lebanon and other countries, we have more and more people unemployed, we have more and more people with lower salaries because of the competition in the labour market, we have prices rising, rents rising - and that the Syria crisis is having a dramatic impact on the economies and the societies of the neighbouring countries," Guterres said.
"And so it is very easy to trigger tension, and it is very important to do everything we can to better support both the refugee community and the host communities that generously are receiving them."
(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
Nevertheless, the United Nations' World Food Programme managed to get food to a record 4.1 million people inside Syria last month, WFP deputy executive director Amir Abdulla told a news conference, just short of its target of 4.2 million.
As the humanitarian crisis within Syria intensifies, its neighbours are also groaning under the strain of an exodus of refugees that now totals around 3 million, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said.
"We know that this tragedy, together with the tragedy of the people displaced inside the country, 6.5 million, now shows that almost half of the Syrian population is displaced."
Donor countries pledged $2.3 billion for aid agencies helping Syria at a conference in Kuwait in January, but only $1.1 billion has been received so far, including $250 million handed over by Kuwait on Monday, U.N. officials said.
The delay meant that the standard family food basket for five people, which includes rice, bulgur wheat, pasta, pulses, vegetable oil, sugar, salt, and wheat flour, had to be cut by 20 percent in March to allow more people to be fed, WFP said.
Guterres's office needs more than $1.6 billion to fund fully its operations this year in response to the crisis, but has received only 22 percent to date, a UNHCR statement said.
Some 2.6 million Syrian refugees have registered in neighbouring countries, while hundreds of thousands more have crossed borders but not requested international assistance.
Guterres pointed to the huge burden this was imposing on Syria's neighbours. In Lebanon, the more than a million registered refugees are equal to almost a quarter of the resident population.
At least one Syrian refugee was killed in Jordan's sprawling Zaatari camp when hundreds of refugees clashed with security forces, residents said on Saturday.
"Let us not forget that in Jordan, in Lebanon and other countries, we have more and more people unemployed, we have more and more people with lower salaries because of the competition in the labour market, we have prices rising, rents rising - and that the Syria crisis is having a dramatic impact on the economies and the societies of the neighbouring countries," Guterres said.
"And so it is very easy to trigger tension, and it is very important to do everything we can to better support both the refugee community and the host communities that generously are receiving them."
(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
Monday, April 7, 2014
U.N. Aims to Protect Marine Biodiversity
Yellow fish swarm Australia's Ningaloo reef. Around 80 percent of the world's fisheries are fully exploited, over exploited or significantly depleted. Credit: Angelo DeSantis/cc by 2.0
Fisheries at the Tipping Point
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), cited by Greenpeace International, around 80 percent of the world's fisheries are fully exploited, over exploited or significantly depleted.
Some species have already been fished to commercial extinction; many more are on the verge.
And according to the World Bank, the lost economic benefits due to overfishing are estimated to be in the order of 50 billion dollars annually.
The value of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU) on the other hand is currently estimated to amount to 10-23.5 billion dollars per year.
The deep ocean seafloor has also become the new frontier for major corporations with mining technology, promising lucrative returns, but not counting the impacts of such a destructive activity on other sectors, ecosystem services and coastal communities.
Meanwhile, Greenpeace says, the impacts of climate change are causing dead zones in the ocean, increasing temperatures and causing acidification.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)