Rescue workers rushed to help stricken residents in southern Brazil on Monday after landslides and floods caused by heavy rain killed at least 59 people and forced more than 43,000 from their homes.
The state of Santa Catarina declared an emergency as rescuers used helicopters and motorboats to reach those displaced or stranded by the floods after days of torrential rain.
‘Santa Catarina is facing its worst weather tragedy,’ state Gov. Luis Henrique Silveira told reporters.
“At least 52,000 people have abandoned their homes in Ethiopia’s Somali region after the Wade Shabelle and Genale rivers burst their banks following heavy rains,” the United Nations’ humanitarian news agency IRIN reported.
The agency said heavy rains fell on the region for six days from November 2.
The report said that “36,888 people were displaced and three killed in the worst-affected woreda (a small district), Kelafo, in Gode.”
KAMPALA, Uganda (AFP)–Thousands more refugees from Congo have crossed the border into Uganda, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees told AFP Wednesday.
“There was an influx of 2,000 people who crossed into Ishasha last evening ( Tuesday),” said Roberta Russo, the UNHCR’s spokeswoman in Uganda.
The latest influx brought the total number of refugee arrivals since August to more than 14,500.
By Michael A. Fletcher
Vice President-elect Joe Biden is scheduled to meet tomorrow with Dick Cheney, the man he has called “the most dangerous vice president we’ve had probably” in U.S. history.
The session is scheduled to take place late tomorrow afternoon at the vice president’s residence at the Naval Observatory.The two men are to be joined by their wives, Jill Biden and Lynne Cheney. Besides the meeting, the vice president-elect and his wife are scheduled to take a tour of their new digs.
Biden, a 35-year Senate veteran with a deep knowledge of foreign policy, has said he expects to be an “adviser in chief” to President-elect Barack Obama. But his aides have emphasized that he will not run “a shadow operation” — a pointed reference to Cheney, who is known for having a strong hand in shaping Bush administration policy.
Biden also has been critical of Cheney for excessive secrecy and holding too much power in the Bush White House.
Source: Reuters
DHAKA, Nov 12 (Reuters) - Over a million people are struggling without proper homes and at greater risk of disease than before, almost one year after cyclone Sidr ravaged parts of Bangladesh, Oxfam said on Wednesday.
Cyclone Sidr, the country’s worst cyclone since 1991, ripped through over a dozen coastal districts on Nov. 15 last year, killing more than 3,300 people and displacing millions.
Despite funding pledges from foreign donors and non-governmental organisations to help build new homes for around 78,000 families, only about one-quarter of these planned homes, designed to be more resilient in future storms, have been built, said a new documentary, Our Home After Sidr, produced by Oxfam.
WAM, Pakistan, (Dawn): Over 70,000 people, including 30,000 children, have been left homeless in quake-hit Balochistan, Unicef said on Friday, as health workers warned that deadly diseases were spreading.
The UN children’s agency said it and Pakistani government officials assessed the situation in the worst-hit districts of the province and were “concerned about the urgent needs of children and women”.
Over 270 people are thought to have been killed in the 6.4-magnitude quake which struck before dawn on Wednesday.
DAR ES SALAAM (AFP) — British Foreign Secretary David Miliband voiced concern on Sunday over the fate of 1.6 million displaced people in the Congo he warned were trapped in the crisis and out of the relief net.
“More than 1.6 million internally displaced are trapped in the crisis and cannot be easily accessible. They are without food, water and other necessities,” he said.
Mosul (AINA) — Officials in Mosul have told AINA the number of Assyrians driven out of Mosul in the past two weeks has risen to 15,000, or about 2500 families. Threats, intimidation and murder by unidentified groups have instilled fear and panic in the Christian Assyrian community, causing a massive exodus into the Assyrian villages in the Nineveh Plain. Thirteen Assyrians have been killed in the past four weeks. At least three Assyrians homes were bombed on Saturday. Notes have been left instructing the Assyrians to leave the city immediately or face reprisal.
ADDIS ABABA, Oct 16 (Reuters) - The time for Ethiopian forces to leave Somalia is fast approaching, but they will stay until an African Union peacekeeping force is fully deployed, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said on Thursday.
Ethiopian soldiers are in Somalia supporting its U.N.-backed interim government, which has struggled to impose control in the face of a Iraq-style insurgency by Islamist rebels.
Some 3,000 peacekeepers from Uganda and Burundi are in the capital Mogadishu — part of a planned 8,000 strong AU mission.
Violence in Somalia has killed nearly 10,000 people and displaced more than a million since the start of last year.
KHAR, Pakistan (AFP)–Pakistan has ordered around 60,000 Afghan refugees to leave a troubled border tribal area where security forces are battling al-Qaida and Taliban militants, officials said Tuesday.
The deportation order for the displaced Afghans in the lawless northwestern region of Bajaur came after a deadline set for them to go back to their homeland expired Sunday, security officials said.
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