Tsunami-affected fishing villages of four districts of the west coast in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam (NAD) Province in Indonesia will be trained as "community motivators" (Motivator Masyarakat) to help promote sound management of the coastal fisheries upon which the province relies.
The purpose of the Africover Project is to establish a digital georeferenced database on land cover and a geographic referential for the whole of Africa including: geodetical homogeneous referential, toponomy, roads and hydrography. Reinforcing national and sub-regional capacities for the establishment, update and use of the geographic referential and land cover maps and spatial data bases is the core strategy of Africover: this has been the methodology adopted to ensure an operational approach and the sustainability of the initiative.- freewallpapermania.blogspot.com
The tsunami wiped away homes, schools, and health facilities; it demolished roads, bridges and power lines; it irrevocably altered the lives of millions of people. Tragically, UNICEF estimates that children account for more than one-third of deaths..9.0 quake which hit northern Sumatra, powerful tsunamis with waves up to ten metres high slammed into the coasts of India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, the Maldives, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Seychelles, and Somalia, devastating thousands of kilometres of coastline – and the communities that depended on them.- freewallpapermania.blogspot.com
HealthServe Australia working with International Needs Australia urgently appeals for funds for medical supplies and equipment for a long-term commitment to assisting Tsunami affected regions, particularly in Indonesia and Sri Lanka. Medical support for this the worst natural disaster in 100 years requires the best the world can offer.- freewallpapermania.blogspot.com
Japan may need five years to rebuild from the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami that has caused up to $235 billion of damage, the World Bank said Monday.
The March 11 disaster – which killed more than 18,000 people and ravaged northeastern Japan – will likely shave up to 0.5 percentage point from the country's economic growth this year, the bank said in a report. The impact will be concentrated in the first half of the year, it said.
"Damage to housing and infrastructure has been unprecedented," the World Bank said. "Growth should pick up though in subsequent quarters as reconstruction efforts, which could last five years, accelerate."
The bank cited damage estimates between $123 billion and $235 billion, and cost to private insurers of between $14 billion and $33 billion. It said the government will spend $12 billion on reconstruction in the current national budget and "much more" in the next one.- freewallpapermania.blogspot.com
FDA Halts Imports Of Some Foods From Area Of Japan Affected By Radiation.
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan made some progress on Sunday in its race to avert disaster at a nuclear power plant leaking radiation after an earthquake and tsunami that are estimated to have killed more than 15,000 people in one prefecture alone.Three hundred engineers have been battling inside the danger zone to salvage the six-reactor Fukushima plant in the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl 25 years ago.- freewallpapermania.blogspot.com
It said a crippled nuclear power station in the northeast that authorities are racing to regain control of is an unfolding situation that poses uncertainties and challenges. Traces of radiation first detected in spinach and milk from farms near the nuclear plant are turning up farther away in tap water, rain and even dust. In all cases, the government said the radiation levels were too small to pose an immediate risk to health.
A short-term drop in Japan's consumer demand and manufacturing production will also hurt trade with regional neighbors, the bank said. South Korean electronics companies have seen the price of some memory chips from Japan rise 20 percent because of disrupted production, while Thai car exporters may run out of Japanese auto parts next month, it said.
"Disruption to production networks, especially in automotive and electronics industries, could continue to pose problems," the bank said. "Japan is a major producer of parts, components and capital goods which supply East Asia's production chains."
Japan's northeast, the epicenter of the disaster, is home to ports, steel mills, oil refineries, nuclear power plants and manufacturers of auto and electronics components. Many of those facilities have been damaged, while nationwide power shortages have severely crimped auto and electronics production.
The World Bank said in a separate report Monday that economic growth in developing East Asian countries will likely slow this year as central banks raise interest rates to battle inflation pressure from rising food and energy prices.- freewallpapermania.blogspot.com
Police said they believed more than 15,000 people had been killed by the double disaster in Miyagi prefecture, one of four that took the brunt of the tsunami damage. In total, almost 12,000 people are missing in the northeast, where the confirmed death toll stood at more than 7,600.The unprecedented crisis will cost the world's third largest economy as much as $200 billion and require Japan's biggest reconstruction push since post-World War Two.It has also set back nuclear power plans the world over.Encouragingly for Japanese transfixed on work at the Fukushima complex, the most critical reactor -- No. 3, which contains highly toxic plutonium -- stabilized after fire trucks doused it for hours with hundreds of metric tons of water.- freewallpapermania.blogspot.com
