Humanitarians

The Northern Uganda crisis affects regional security - Interview with Dennis McNamara

Director of the Inter-Agency Internal Displacement Division You have just come back from Uganda. What really is the problem there? The problem is that Uganda has a huge population of nearly 2 million internally displaced persons, the result of twenty years of war with the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). The LRA is a fanatical fundamentalist movement with no political agenda except to (...)

"The war... any war... is a war against public health" - Interview with Dr Khalid Shibib

"In crises, you see the true nature of human beings" When there is a hot spot, a natural disaster, you can be quite sure that Dr Shibib will be there. Born in the former Palestine in 1947, Dr Shibib became a refugee when he was less than a year old. His parents fled from the war in Palestine to Iraq. Growing up in Baghdad, he was trained as a medical doctor and later became a specialist in (...)

OCHA’s operation in Sudan is the biggest in the world - Interview with Ramesh Rajasingham, Chief, UNOCHA Sudan

Q: Could you tell us something about yourself? I have been in Sudan for a little more than two years. Prior to this, since 1990 I worked with OCHA, UNICEF or humanitarian agencies in various countries. I spent a few years in Afghanistan immediately after the Soviets left, in Iran, in Bosnia and, just before coming here, I spent seven years in New York, so I have experience of both the field (...)

The Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN) celebrated its tenth year of operation last year... Interview with Pat Banks, Co-ordinator and founder of the Integrated Regional Information Network

The Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN) celebrated its tenth year of operation last year. A part of the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Human Activities (OCHA), yet independent, IRIN was established in 1995 to provide accurate and timely information about the Great Lakes crisis so that the humanitarian community would be better informed of complex situations and (...)

Master Cheng Yen a Buddhist nun and founder of the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation

"The hope of people comes from mutual help," said Master Cheng Yen, a Buddhist nun and founder of the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation in Taiwan. "Tzu Chi gives help not only to relieve the destitution of the poor and the disaster-stricken, but more importantly to spread the seeds of love." Tzu Chi is one of the largest charity organizations in Taiwan, with offices now in over (...)

Central Emergency Relief Fund (CERF)

Funding has always been one of the difficulties in providing rapid humanitarian assistance to victims after a disaster. Most lives are lost in the first days following an earthquake, a flood or any other type of disaster. To save lives, aid workers need immediate cash and supplies. Late funding often amplifies and complicates the problems. There are several examples where early funding could (...)

UNOSAT: a unique UN initiative - Interview with Alain Retiere

It is not often that one of the projects of the United Nations is awarded an international prize. This year UNOSAT was awarded the prestigious ESRI* prize, for their outstanding work during the Tsunami Crisis. We met with Alain Retiere, one of the people behind UNOSAT—the UN initiative to expand direct access to satellite imagery through the Internet and other media tools. The goal is to (...)

IOM AIMS HIGH in Pakistan Earthquake Relief

On 8 October, an earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale struck Afghanistan, northern India and Pakistan, the latter the worst hit of the three. In Pakistan, more than 73,000 people were killed, another 70,000 injured and more than 3 million affected. IOM has responded with a six-month emergency humanitarian operation there encompassing the provision of emergency shelter, health (...)

A real humanitarian — Interview with Jan Egeland

For more than twenty-five years, he has devoted his career to humanitarianism, human rights and peace-work, either through the United Nations, the Norwegian Government or the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and other non-governmental institutions. He has been an active partner in a number of peace processes, and to his list of credits is the Norwegian channel between Israel and the PLO, (...)

Handling media in an humanitarian crisis - Interview with Elisabeth Byrs, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ spokesperson in Geneva

When the tsunami crisis struck on the 26 December 2004, nobody thought that this disaster was going to turn into the most dreadful one that humankind has known for a long time, killing more than 200,000 people. At that time, attention turned to OCHA and the United Nations Relief Co-ordinator and Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, Mr Jan Egeland. He mobilized the troops both in (...)

The Role of Satellite observation in the Lebanese Crisis

UNITAR was involved in the recent Middle East crisis through its operational satellite applications programme UNOSAT. Immediately after the beginning of hostilities, in July 2006, UNOSAT received requests for satellite imagery of the areas of Lebanon affected by the crisis. These requests came from both UN agencies and international NGOs that had previously used UNOSAT services for relief (...)

TaiwanIHA Medical Team Helps Tsunami Victims in the Solomon Islands

In early April this year, a devastating earthquake and subsequent tsunami struck the Solomon Islands, causing severe damage to the area. Taiwan International Health Action (TaiwanIHA) immediately dispatched a medical mission to this country. The team initially took with it more than 300 kilograms of medicine and first aid equipment. Water and food from Honiara were also obtained for medical (...)

Taiwan doctors leap into the outbreak zone By Alexander Chou

The humble mosquito has been one of the greatest mass murderers known to mankind. Malaria and dengue fever are just two of the most commonly known mosquito-borne diseases that have claimed many lives. But, in December 2006, some of Taiwan’s brightest doctors and scientists went into battle against another lethal virus. In December 2006, an outbreak of Rift Valley fever (RVF) was reported in (...)

Interview with Sir John Holmes, Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator

When you meet a British "Sir", you expect an elderly, grey-haired, avuncular gentleman and not a nice, young, friendly person like Sir John. His colleagues in the Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) have, by the way, put the "Sir" aside, so Sir John is now just John… Before taking up his new position at the United Nations, Sir John was a career British diplomat who had (...)

Compassion Arises - A note on DDM’s Humanitarian Aid to Peru’s Earthquake By: Susan Chen*

As I sat on a plane with four other colleagues en route to Lima, Peru on August 20, 2007, I kept thinking and imagining what it was like over there. I remembered when an earthquake of a similar magnitude hit Taiwan in 1999 and how it destroyed the livelihoods of many people. I also remembered the many volunteers and organizations that came to Taiwan’s aid during the aftermath; and now, it (...)

TaiwanIHA’s medical relief effort in Peru

Braving heavy rain and strong wind, the 5 members of Taiwan International Health Action (TaiwanIHA) emergency medical relief team were rushed to the airport to embark on the airplane to Peru despite imminent arrival of Setpa typhoon in the evening of August 17, 2007. (The airports of Taiwan were closed the next day due to typhoon.) At 6:41 in the evening of August 15 (August 16, Taipei (...)

Interview with Pat Banks, Co-ordinator and founder of the Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)

Interview with Rashid Khalikov, Director of OCHA, New York

Rashid Khalikov, a graduate of the Moscow State Institute for International Relations, started his career as a diplomat with several postings to his credit. However, it was not in diplomacy that he was going to conduct an interesting career, but as a humanitarian. At the time that the United Nations created the Department for Humanitarian Affairs, Mr. Khalikov was in a posting in New York, (...)

Interview with Christian Captier, General Director of Doctors without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in Switzerland

If you haven’t heard about them… I’m sure you will not have to wait long. They are the "enfants terribles" among the Humanitarian Health NGOs, always there to denounce unjust cases or the pharmaceutical industry, neglected diseases etc. What started in 1971 as a protest against the inertia of the international community and the Red Cross and in particular by French Doctors during the Biafra (...)

Interview with Annie Wu, Board member of the World Trade Centres’ Association and a successful business woman

She is a dedicated and active feminist who is trying to help women to lead a better life. Ms Wu is also a very successful business woman. She was, for instance, the first foreign person to establish a joint venture with China in the late 1970s when China began opening up for foreign business. Today, Ms Wu has about 18,000 employees handling the catering at the main airports in China and (...)

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The Morpeth Roll, Ireland Identified

In a chronology of Irish history, the first accurate census of Ireland in 1841 records a population of 8,175,124. It coincides with the gigantic goodbye signed by 160,000 people and presented to the popular Chief Secretary for Ireland, Lord Morpeth, when he left Dublin in 1841. On the first sheet the testimonial contains the names of nobility, first being that of the Duke of Leinster and the rest of the organising committee. Most of the signatories were from the aristocracy, gentry and professional and merchant classes. Further research may show that other socio-economic groups were also (...)

Achill Island: Co. Mayo, Ireland

World Economic Forum: An ILO Perspective 2013

Wagner and Verdi: Bicentenary Year 2013

Joanna ‘Jo’ Hiffernan: Art and Beauty