From the Field: Why an organisation founded to care for orphans no longer has a children’s home
VAUGHAN STANNARD, director of collaboration at Beautiful Gate South Africa, said the organisation’s aim now is to strengthen families to raise thriving children…
Germany faces calls for mobile phone disaster alerts after floods
Berlin, GermanyReuters German authorities faced pressure on Tuesday to set aside longstanding privacy concerns and send mobile phone alerts directly to people in potential disaster zones following the devastation wrought by last week’s catastrophic floods. Unlike many other countries, including Japan, Israel and New Zealand, Germany has no way of sending text messages en masse […]
Climate change blamed for a third of US flood losses in past three decades
Thomson Reuters Foundation Climate change has boosted the cost of flood damage caused by heavy rainfall in the United States by $7US5 billion over the last three decades, accounting for about a third of total losses, Stanford University researchers said this week. With planet-heating emissions still going up, both extreme rainfall and related losses will […]
After Grenfell: British homeowners face bankruptcy to strip unsafe building panels
ZOE TABARY, of Thomson Reuters Foundation, reports on how homeowners are facing bankrupcy and homelessness due to the cost of replacing exterior building panels in the wake of the deadly 2017 fire at London’s Grenfell housing block…
Australia bolsters defences as cost of huge bushfires rises
Sydney, AustraliaReuters Australian firefighters used cool weather on Tuesday to try to strengthen containment lines around almost 200 wildfires burning in the country’s south-east, as Prime Minister Scott Morrison prepared to meet with insurance and bank executives to discuss the crisis. Fires have razed more than eight million hectares of land across Australia, an area […]
The cost to stop women dying in childbirth by 2030? 46 military aircraft
Nairobi, KenyaThomson Reuters Foundation Countries need about $US264 billion – the equivalent cost of 110 military aircraft – to end maternal deaths, gender based violence, child marriage, and provide family planning to all women by 2030, said a United Nations study. An investment of $US115.5 billion – which is equivalent to the cost of 46 […]
UK stops charging forced marriage victims for rescue after outcry
Thomson Reuters Foundation British women saved from forced marriage abroad will no longer have to repay the government for the cost of their rescue, the Foreign Secretary said on Wednesday, after a public outcry. Women’s rights campaigners reacted angrily to revelations in the Times newspaper last week that the government was charging adult victims for […]
Climate disasters cause global economic losses to soar, says UN
Thomson Reuters Foundation Economic losses caused by climate-related disasters have soared by about two and a half times in the last 20 years, the United Nations said on Wednesday. From 1998 to 2017, direct losses from all disasters totalled $US2.9 trillion, of which 77 per cent was due to extreme weather that is intensifying as […]