Daily Archives: November 2, 2015

Volunteers help rescue migrants from a sinking boat off Lesvos.

Eleven migrants including six infants drowned when their boat capsized off the Greek island of Samos, trapping most of them in the cabin, the coast guard said on Sunday.

Fifteen others were rescued when the six-meter boat sank in the early hours near the coast of the Aegean island.

The death toll from drowning among thousands of refugees making the short but dangerous crossing from Turkey to Greece’s eastern islands has risen in recent weeks as autumn weather has set in, bringing high winds and falling temperatures.

“We recovered 11 drowned bodies, 10 of which were trapped inside the vessel’s cabin,” a coast guard official said, adding that the dead included four babies, two children and four women.

A search and rescue operation was continuing to find two more migrants missing from the boat.

Greece has been a transit point for more than 570,000 refugees and migrants fleeing conflict in the Middle East and beyond this year, putting European nations at odds over how to deal with the continent’s biggest humanitarian crisis in decades.

source:ekathimerini.com

NEWCASTLE is now officially endorsed as a city of the United Nations with a historic signing of an agreement in Geneva at the weekend.

Newcastle lord mayor Nuatali Nelmes and Newcastle university vice-chancellor Caroline McMillen joined UN assistant secretary-general Nikhil Seth on Saturday at the UN headquarters, signing Newcastle up as the 15th city in the world to house an international training centre for global authorities and leaders.

The centre, which will attract UN delegations from throughout the world, will focus on advancing environmental sustainability, social inclusion, and enhancing urban government and economic development throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

It will also allow Newcastle to fly the UN flag over government buildings, putting it among the likes of Atlanta, Edinburgh, Shanghai and Kuala Lumpur.

‘‘This is a significant moment in history for Newcastle,’’ Cr Nelmes said from Geneva on Sunday.

‘‘Becoming a UN city, home to the Asia-Pacific training and research arm of the UN, is both a great opportunity and recognition of the importance of collaboration and partnerships for our future growth and prosperity.’’

Specifically, the training centre will focus its efforts on minimising the risk of man-made or natural disasters around the world.

A delegation working in that area is already booked to visit Newcastle next year.

Cr Nelmes addressed a UN network forum on Friday, Geneva time, noting the transformation Newcastle was undergoing and its ideals and goals which were already in line with those of the UN.

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The UN recently updated its 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development which Cr Nelmes said mirrored much of what Newcastle was aiming for.

Newcastle was transitioning to a diversified economy, she said, from the traditional mining, steel and manufacturing base to one focused on ‘‘clean and sustainable energy, health and medical research and services, and the creative industries’’. She noted the work already being done at the university by associate professor Graham Brewer ‘‘which varies from the inclusion of Indigenous training and capacity … and engaging the Pacific Island community through to local projects which address long-onset disaster risk preparedness regarding the future of jobs in our regions’’.

‘‘There is an opportunity for our city with a $460million redevelopment program that will take place over the coming years,’’ Cr Nelmes told the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR).

‘‘The partnerships that I have mentioned will all play a role in the planning and delivery. Our role in local government is to ensure that the long-held planning principles that protect the heritage nature of our city centre are protected whilst also ensuring that economic growth is sustained and inclusive.

‘‘One of the most important factors is involving the community in the process. It is an exciting time,’’ she said.

Professor McMillen also described the signing as a ‘‘proud moment for the University of Newcastle, our city and region’’. The agreement will build on the academic strengths of the university and ‘‘make a real difference to communities around the world coping with the aftermath of disaster’’.
■ Cities endorsed by the United Nations as global training and research centres

Geneva, Switzerland (HQ)

Edinburgh, Scotland

Atlanta, United States

Merida, Mexico

Shanghai, China

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Durban, South Africa

Jeju, South Korea

Flanders, Belgium

Plock, Poland

Maghreb, Algeria

Curitiba, Brazil

Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

El Salvador, El Salvador

Quito, Ecuador

Newcastle, Australia

■ What is UNITAR and what does it mean for Newcastle?

The United Nations Institute for Training and Research is the principal training arm of the United Nations, working in every region of the world.
It aims to empower individuals, governments and organisations through knowledge and learning to effectively overcome contemporary global challenges.
In Newcastle, the training centre will focus on research into ways of reducing global disaster risk.
Such disasters include floods and earthquakes, famine, climate change and industrial downturns. Under the agreement, Newcastle will become an official UN city and will be able to fly the UN flag above City Hall.

source:theherald.com.au

A Russian plane that crashed in Egypt broke up ‘in the air’ strewing fragments across a wide area, an expert says, as investigators probed the disaster that killed all 224 people on board.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi urged patience to determine the cause of Saturday’s crash, after the Islamic State jihadist group claimed it brought down the A-321 in Egypt’s restive Sinai Peninsula.

‘The disintegration happened in the air and the fragments are strewn over a large area,’ said Viktor Sorochenko, a senior official with Russia’s Interstate Aviation Committee, quoted by the Russian news agency RIA-Novosti.Sorochenko, who is heading an international panel of experts, said it was ‘too early to draw conclusions’ about what caused the Sharm el-Sheikh to Saint Petersburg flight to go down.

Russian officials say they need to comb through an area of about 16 square kilometres in the Sinai Peninsula.Investigators have recovered the plane’s ‘black box’ flight recorder and the Egyptian government said its contents were being analysed.

‘In such cases, leave it to specialists to determine the cause of the plane crash because it is a subject of an extensive and complicated technical study,’ Sisi said.

The crash site in the Wadi al-Zolomat area of North Sinai was littered with blackened parts of the plane, as the smell of burnt metal lingered in the air, an AFP correspondent said.

There were no bodies visible but soldiers guarded dozen of bags as well as black, red and orange suitcases of passengers from flight KGL 9268.

Nearby lay a tiny red jacket, probably of a child, underlining the horror of the tragedy that killed 17 children.Officers involved in search efforts said rescue crews had recovered 168 bodies so far, including that of a three-year-old girl found eight kilometres from the main wreckage.

Flags were flying at half mast in Russia on Sunday and entertainment television programs were cancelled as part of a national day of mourning for the victims.

Cairo said there were 214 Russian and three Ukranian passengers on board, and seven crew members.Cairo and Moscow downplayed the claim from the Islamic State’s branch in Egypt that it brought down the aircraft flown by Kogalymavia airline, operating under the name Metrojet.

Egyptian Prime Minister Sharif Ismail said experts had confirmed the militants could not down a plane at the 9000-metre altitude the Airbus 321 was flying at, while Russian Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov said the claim ‘cannot be considered accurate’.

Germany’s Lufthansa, Emirates and Air France all said they would halt flights over Sinai until the reasons behind the crash were clarified.

The IS affiliate waging an insurgency in the Sinai claimed it brought down the plane in revenge for Russian air strikes against the group in Syria.But experts rejected the idea.

To reach a plane at that altitude ‘you would need hard-to-use missiles, so it seems unlikely,’ said Jean-Paul Troadec, former director of France’s BEA aviation investigation agency.

‘This requires trained people and equipment that IS does not have, to my knowledge.’Experts said a surface-to-air missile could have struck the aircraft if it had been descending, and that a bomb on board could not yet be ruled out, but technical or human error was more likely.

Kogalymavia defended the pilot, Valery Nemov, who it said had more than 12,000 hours of flying experience, including 3860 hours on an Airbus A321. –

source:skynews.com.au