The Solomon Islands declared a national disaster after torrential rain and
\nflooding in the South Pacific nation killed eight people and left another
\n13 missing, destroying homes and bridges.<\/p>\n
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC)
\nis reporting that populations in large areas of Kenya and the Horn of
\nAfrica are now facing an exceptional humanitarian crisis that requires
\nurgent food assistance. The combined effect of high worldwide food prices
\nand a crippling drought are seriously jeopardizing the lives, livelihoods,
\nand dignity of up to 20 million people in rural and urban communities.<\/p>\n
Opium poppy cultivation inched up by 3 percent last year in Myanmar,
\naccording to a United Nations report, the second consecutive annual
\nincrease that appears to signal a reversal of years of declining opium
\nproduction in the so-called Golden Triangle.<\/p>\n
Indonesian security forces attacked a group of one hundred tribal people
\nwho were peacefully protesting about delays to local elections in Nabire,
\nWest Papua.<\/p>\n
“Containment of the problem is under threat. Opium prices are rising in
\nthis region. It’s going to be an incentive for farmers to plant more.”<\/p>\n
Twelve communities on the Solomons’ main island of Guadalcanal had been
\nassessed as disaster-hit and appealed for international assistance.
\nAustralia and France have already promised emergency aid.<\/p>\n
Papua New Guinea’s law and order problem is set to get worse if a
\nrecommendation to increase the national minimum wage is approved by the
\ngovernment.<\/p>\n
The Golden Triangle, the area where the borders of Thailand, Laos and
\nMyanmar meet, once produced two-thirds of the world’s opium, most of it
\nrefined into heroin. But pressure by the Chinese government to eradicate
\nopium in Myanmar helped lead to steep declines, with a low point of 21,500
\nhectares, or 53,000 acres, of poppies planted in Myanmar in 2006. Since
\nthen, opium cultivation has bounced back by around 33 percent, to 28,500
\nhectares last year.<\/p>\n
For the past 17 years Papua New Guinea’s lowest income earners, like
\nsecurity guards, have brought home just $US13 a week. Government plans to
\nincrease that to $US43 has business owners worried.<\/p>\n
When police began attacking the crowd, the demonstrators called for Mr
\nYones Douw, a respected human rights worker, to document the violence. When
\nMr Douw arrived, the police attacked him \u2013 witnesses said he was kicked,
\nbeaten on the side the head and punched in the face before being arrested,
\nalong with seven protesters. The police also beat other protestors, and
\nfired rubber bullets into the crowd. Five people were seriously wounded,
\nand many others received minor bullet wounds.<\/p>\n
Since December, flooding has also hit the Pacific island nations of Fiji,
\nPapua New Guinea, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands, with tens of
\nthousands of islanders abandoning homes.<\/p>\n
UN officials warn that the global economic crisis may fuel an increase in
\npoppy production because falling prices for other crops may persuade
\nfarmers to switch to opium. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said corn
\nprices had fallen by half over the past year. The price of opium, by
\ncontrast, has increased 26 percent in Laos and 15 percent in Myanmar over
\nthe same period.<\/p>\n
Heavy rain and flooding on Guadalcanal and nearby Savo Island has caused
\nwidespread damage and forced the evacuation of more than 70 villagers to
\nthe capital Honiara.<\/p>\n
The PNG Manufacturers Council said the economy cannot accommodate a higher
\nsalary. “It’s not the fact that the private sector doesn’t want to pay, its
\nwhether the economy can accommodate that high level of salary.”<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Kenya 80 percent of the territory is affected, with the northern and
\nlower eastern Kenya the most affected. We’re talking of a target population
\nof 1.6 million for the Red Crescent.”<\/p>\n
Farmers in the isolated highlands of the Golden Triangle are also hampered
\nby bad roads and difficulties getting their crops to market. They often
\nfind that small parcels of opium are easier to carry across the rough
\nterrain.<\/p>\n
The Solomon Islands Red Cross had sent emergency staff and volunteers to
\ndistribute relief supplies to communities in West Guadalcanal and Longu, in
\nthe island’s east. The Solomon Islands is a nation of about 500,000 mainly
\nMelanesian people, spread across hundreds of islands, which gained
\nindependence from Britain in 1978.<\/p>\n
The global economic crisis is only just starting to short-change Papua New
\nGuinea, with the wage set to further undermine the local economy. “We
\nbecome less competitive, our prices go up and we don’t sell any goods.” It
\ncould lead to thousands of workers being laid off, adding to the country’s
\nalready high unemployment and crime rates.<\/p>\n
Other areas are Djibouti with 50 thousand people in dire need. Ethiopia is
\naffected with an estimated 5 million need of food. The Red Cross is moving
\nin to start assisting the first 150 thousand people. The Red Cross and the
\nRed Crescent are also active in southern Somalia, as well as Somaliland and
\nPuntland.<\/p>\n
Although opium is still grown in parts of Laos, Vietnam and Thailand, UN
\nofficials say that about 94 percent of the region’s opium comes from
\nMyanmar. Most of the Golden Triangle heroin is sold within the region, but
\nsmall amounts also reach the United States and Australia. Recent seizures
\nof heroin thought to come from the Golden Triangle have been made on the
\nThai resort island of Phuket, Ho Chi Minh City and Yangon, Myanmar’s
\ncommercial capital.<\/p>\n
“The key issue for PNG is more people working and that basically improves
\nthe lifestyle of people and that without a doubt helps law and order
\nbecause when people can put food on the table there is harmony, you take
\nthat opportunity away and you have unrest. Or, employers could head to the
\nlabour black market, choosing instead to pay workers their current wage
\nunder the table.”<\/p>\n
Eyewitnesses say that a range of security forces were involved in the
\nattack, including Brimob, Indonesia\u2019s notorious para-military police, plus
\nsoldiers and Indonesia\u2019s Intelligence Service.<\/p>\n
The alarming spread of HIV by heroin users in southern China several years
\nago persuaded the Chinese authorities to crack down on opium and heroin
\ntrafficking. Western intelligence officials say Chinese spies are active in
\nanti-narcotics operations in Myanmar, especially in northern areas where
\ncentral government control is weak. “There’s strong collaboration with
\nChinese intelligence.”<\/p>\n
Last month 11 Fijians died and more than 9,000 people were forced into
\nevacuation centres after the worst floods in decades. Sugar is Fiji’s
\nsecond major industry following tourism and sugar farms in the west have
\nbeen devastated by the flooding, with damages estimated to be in the tens
\nof millions of dollars.<\/p>\n
The UN report on opium poppy cultivation is based on surveys taken from
\nhelicopters and on the ground. The United States relies more heavily on
\nsatellite images to calculate opium cultivation, and its reports are
\nsometimes at odds with those of the United Nations. The UN report did not
\ncover methamphetamine production and distribution, which among some
\ncriminal syndicates has displaced opium and heroin in the region.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have launched an appeal seeking 95 million dollars, now we have
\nreceived only 6 percent in the two months since we launched and this is not
\nenough to run an operation.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Thailand, methamphetamines remain a problem but longstanding efforts by
\nthe royal family to substitute opium production with vegetables, coffee and
\nmacadamia nuts have virtually wiped out opium production among the northern
\nhill tribes.<\/p>\n
Floods ravaging northern Australia have washed crocodiles onto the streets,
\nwhere one was hit by a car. More than 60 per cent of the vast northeastern
\nstate of Queensland has been declared a disaster area, and flooding after
\ntwo recent cyclones has affected almost 3,000 homes. The army has been
\ncalled in to help with rescue and recovery efforts, while three reports of
\nlarge crocodiles washed up from flooded rivers have come in from homes in
\nthe Gulf of Carpentaria region.<\/p>\n
The incident fuels concerns that repression and violence against the Papuan
\npeople is increasing.<\/p>\n
“Many employers are doing the right thing, but there are many unscrupulous
\nemployers who will exploit their workers to gain maximum profit out of the
\ncheap labour.”<\/p>\n
Afghanistan remains the world’s premier source of opium, producing more
\nthan 90 percent of global supply. Afghan soil is also remarkably more
\nfertile than the rocky, unirrigated opium fields in the Golden Triangle.
\nThe UN estimates in its 2008 report that one hectare of land yielded an
\naverage of 14.4 kilograms, or 31.7 pounds, of opium in Myanmar but 48.8
\nkilograms in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
“The damage bill is estimated at $76 million and growing. But we won\u2019t
\nreally know the full extent of the damage until the water subsides, so that
\nfigure could double, it could treble.\u201d It was the worst flooding seen in 30
\nyears. Fresh food supplies were flown into the westerly townships of
\nNormanton and Karumba, which had been cut off by flood waters. The flooding
\ncomes amid a heatwave over in south-eastern Australia.<\/p>\n
The situation has been exacerbated by the global and financial crisis.
\nHowever a small fraction of the billions of dollars being spent by
\ngovernments to bail out banks and financial institutions could help save
\nmillions of lives in the Horn of Africa.<\/p>\n
The death toll in Australia’s worst-ever bushfires has risen to 128 people,
\nas hundreds more flood community shelters after losing everything they own.
\nThe state government in Victoria, where the fires have raged since
\nSaturday, is being advised to prepare for 230 fatalities. Police confirmed
\n128 deaths from the fires, many which officials suspect were deliberately
\nlit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Solomon Islands declared a national disaster after torrential rain and flooding in the South Pacific nation killed eight people and left another 13 missing, destroying homes and bridges. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is reporting that populations in large areas of Kenya and the Horn of Africa are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","spay_email":""},"categories":[48,53,5,56,7,8,60,12,14,18,19,30,31,35,38,42,44,45],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}