Hatzola volunteers save Somali toddler

By Robyn Rosen, July 7, 2011

Two strictly Orthodox men and a medic from Hatzola, the Charedi ambulance service, have saved a young London Somali boy from a fire.
Last Thursday Josh Berkovitz ran into a blazing house in Tottenham, north London, next door to his office, Pride Autos, after he heard a mother screaming that her baby was trapped in the building.
He was alerted by colleague Nochem Perlberger, a former paramedic in Israel, who smelt burning near the used car showroom, just yards from the house.
"I smelt burning plastic and then suddenly heard terrible screaming outside," he said. "A woman was shouting hysterically: 'My child is inside'."
Mr Berkovitz and another passer-by ran into the house while Mr Perlberger called the police, fire brigade and Hatzola. Mr Berkovitz ran up the stairs inside the house where he saw the father carrying his son. He took the child and ran down the stairs. The two-year-old, named as Arafat Hassan, was taken to a nearby restaurant and put under a running tap.
David Herzka, who has volunteered for Hatzola for 24 years, was first on the scene, arriving within two minutes.
"I was in my office nearby when I received the call," he said. "I dropped everything, grabbed my medical bag and got in the car.
"When I arrived, I saw the boy had around 70 per cent burns. It was terrible. I immediately cut off his remaining clothes, applied burn gel and gave him oxygen."
A London ambulance arrived about seven minutes later and continued to treat the boy before taking him to hospital. Around 20 firefighters battled the fire for more than an hour before it was under control.
The boy, who was taken by ambulance to hospital as well as a 25-year-old woman suffering from smoke inhalation and a 20-year-old man, was in a critical condition at the time of going to print.

The City in My Mind

OFTEN I live in one place but write about another place very much unlike it. I wrote my first novel as a student in India, and I wrote my latest while commuting among Newcastle in England, Minneapolis and Cape Town, where I reside. As befits a writer who lives more in the mind than in my physical surroundings, I base my work on memory, which I enrich with my knowledge of Somalia — where my novels are set — and supplement with my imagination.
When I start a work, I first visit Mogadishu to do research, then return just before publication. During this time the attitudes of the city’s residents, their dress habits and even their diet will have undergone changes, depending on the politics of the country’s competing factions.
On a clear day, the beauty of the city is visible from various vantage points, its landscape breathtaking. Even so, I am aware of its unparalleled war-torn decrepitude: almost every structure is pockmarked by bullets, and many homes are on their sides, falling in on themselves.
From the roof of any tall building you can see the Bakara market, the epicenter of resistance during the recent Ethiopian occupation; its labyrinthine redoubts remain the operations center of the militant Islamist group Shabab. Down the hill are the partly destroyed turrets of the five-star Uruba Hotel, no longer open. Now you are within a stroll of Hamar Weyne and Shangani, two of the city’s most ancient neighborhoods, where there used to be markets for gold and tamarind in the days when Mogadishu boasted a cosmopolitan community unlike any other in this part of Africa.
So what do I see when I am in Mogadishu? I see the city of old, where I lived as a young man. Then I superimpose the city’s peaceful past on the present crass realities, in which the city has become unrecognizable.
Nuruddin Farah is the author, most recently, of the forthcoming novel “Crossbones.” Matteo Pericoli, an artist, is the author of “The City Out My Window: 63 Views on New York.”

Babies' Brains Listen While Asleep

Babies' Brains Listen While Asleep

Big Think Editors on July 3, 2011, 9:14 AMinSha

What's the Latest Development?
Using a functional M.R.I. scanner, Declan Murphy and his team of researchers at King's College London have examined behavior of baby brains while the babies sleep. What they found is that regions of baby brains are more reactive to certain stimuli than are adults when they are awake. "Murphy's team first compared the babies' responses to human non-verbal vocalizations—such as coughs and sneezes—and other sounds that the tots would be familiar with, like the sounds produced by a musical toy."
What's the Big Idea?

"The finding might send a chill down the spine of all parents that have engaged in a whispered argument over a sleeping child, but Murphy points out negative sounds might not necessarily be detrimental for the baby. 'It could be a good thing—the brain could be training itself to respond to these sounds,' he says. The reason why sleeping babies tune in to the sounds around them remains a mystery. 'It could be because they are hard-wired to be alert,' Murphy suggests."

Minister for European Affairs and International Cooperation Ben Knapen paid a visit today to Somaliland,

Stability and good governance in Somaliland vital in combating piracy

Newsflash | 10 June 2011

Minister for European Affairs and International Cooperation Ben Knapen paid a visit today to Somaliland, a region in the North of Somalia. His agenda included a meeting with Somaliland’s president, Ahmed Mohamed Mohamoud, and its foreign minister.

Somaliland has been stable for several years and held democratic elections last year. Mr Knapen said that the rest of Somalia could learn from Somaliland’s experiences with stability and democratisation. Acceptance of government authority and a policy of active prevention is helping to stave off piracy. ‘No piracy attacks are launched from the coast of Somaliland. It is important to ensure that instability and piracy in the neighbouring region does not spread to Somaliland’, Mr Knapen said during his visit to Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland.

The minister visited the Hargeisa prison where 87 pirates tried by Somaliland are incarcerated. The Netherlands plans to contribute a million euros, via the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, for the construction of a new prison, for pirates and other offenders, and measures to strengthen the justice system. This will increase the capacity available for imprisoning pirates in the region and UNODC’s involvement guarantees compliance  with international standards.

In the presence of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr Knapen laid the first stone for a new parliament building. The Netherlands is donating €700,000 for construction and for training parliamentarians and support staff. Earlier in the day, he visited a camp for displaced Somalis. Their presence sometimes leads to tension with the local population. Through the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) the Netherlands is supporting temporary accommodation for internally displaced persons throughout Somalia. ‘When Somalia is safer these displaced persons can return home’, said the Minister.

Somaliland declared its independence from Somalia in 1991. However, the international community does not recognise the unilateral declaration. Increasing stability in Somaliland could boost economic development in the region and have a positive effect on Somalia. Bolstering fragile states is one of the key themes of Dutch development cooperation policy.

Kill a camel' to cut pollution concept in Australia

Kill a camel' to cut pollution concept in Australia

Jun 9 01:50 AM US/Eastern

This file photo shows a feral camel searching for food near the dry Ross Ri...

Australia is considering awarding carbon credits for killing feral camels as a way to tackle climate change. The suggestion is included in Canberra's "Carbon Farming Initiative", a consultation paper by the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, seen Thursday.
Adelaide-based Northwest Carbon, a commercial company, proposed culling some 1.2 million wild camels that roam the Outback, the legacy of herds introduced to help early settlers in the 19th century.
Considered a pest due to the damage they do to vegetation, a camel produces, on average, a methane equivalent to one tonne of carbon dioxide a year, making them collectively one of Australia's major emitters of greenhouse gases.
In its plan, Northwest said it would shoot them from helicopters or muster them and send them to an abattoir for either human or pet consumption.
"We're a nation of innovators and we find innovative solutions to our challenges -- this is just a classic example," Northwest Carbon managing director Tim Moore told Australian Associated Press.
The idea was among those accepted for discussion by the government, which is seeking to "provide new economic opportunities for farmers, forest growers and landholders" if they come up with ways to cut emissions, according to the document.
Heavily reliant on coal-fired power and mining exports, Australia is one of the world's worst per capita polluters and the government is looking at ways to clean up its act.
Legislation for the "Carbon Farming Initiative" is set to go before parliament next week.

America Playing Catch Up in Africa

America Playing Catch Up in Africa

Big Think Editors on June 6, 2011, 8:33 AM

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What's the Latest Development?
The C.E.O. of an American producer of machine engines says Africa reminds him of China or India a decade ago, when domestic consumer markets began opening to foreign trade. Now, thanks in great part to China, consumer and commodity markets are opening up across Africa. "China's exports to Africa last year totaled about $54 billion, up from $5.6 billion a decade before, according to the I.M.F. U.S. exports to Africa totaled $21 billion last year, up from $7.6 billion in 2000." Today, American companies are scrambling to catch up.
What's the Big Idea?
In the last two decades, Chinese investment in Africa has approximately doubled while North America's has remained constant. And now, with domestic household expenditure in Africa equal to that of India, a sizable consumer market is opening. Africa has been a more obvious choice for China's low-cost consumer goods compared with America's costlier products. Chinese companies, for example, have marketed cheap, gas-powered electricity generators while American companies have struggled to market their more powerful, more expensive goods.

Professor Ahmed Samatar and The challenges facing Somali immigrants