CRJ 10:4 out now!
CRJ 10:4 is being mailed to subscribers - here's what's inside this issue...
News
Bringing light and energy to communities in need from WakaWaka; Assessing global Ebola response; Turkey joins EU Mechanism; Emergency procurement guide; Attacks on healthcare workers report; Holmatro’s extrication challenge; British Minister slams barrel bombs being used in Syria; and ICDO Executive Council meeting in Tunisia
Comment
Facing up to robotic autonomy – Will we ever allow autonomous robots to take life or death decision-making out of humanity’s control? Emily Hough discusses the staggering speed at which robotic technology is advancing
Climate: Tackling the root causes – Svein Tveitdal expresses frustration that, despite work to mitigate the impact of climate-related disasters, we may be ignoring the elephant in the room
City resilience and the private sector – Ahead of the Designing City Resilience summit being held in London, two of its speakers – Greg Lowe and Julia Brickell – say that the impact of a changing climate on the frequency of natural disasters means cities must take more responsibility for understanding and managing their risk if they are to remain attractive to inward investment
California’s ongoing drought – In CRJ 9:4 we looked at water supplies and climate, highlighting the emergency planning challenges arising from the drought in California. This year is even worse, says William Peterson
Incident analysis – Mini-cyclone in Pakistan – Forty-five people were left dead and 205 injured after a severe storm ripped through the north-west area of the country, reports Luavut Zahid
Initial response to the Nepal earthquake – CRJ Editorial Advisory Panel Member Arjun Katoch was deployed to Nepal as part of the UNDAC team. Here, he reflects upon the response, highlighting early lessons learned
Chemical weapons in Syria – Civil humanitarian actors in Syria have been facing a pernicious new hazard – chlorine filled barrel bombs – according to James Le Mesurier and Ethan Wilson
Medics on the frontline – In a joint interview, Christophe Libeau, Carlo Zaglia and Emily Hough met the doctors first on the scene after the terrorist attacks in Paris, along with those who were involved in the two assaults against the terrorists
Assault by the GIGN at Dammartin-en-Goele, France (photo courtesy: MI-DICOM-F-PELLIER)
Preparing for the unthinkable – Roger Gomm looks at British guidance for civilians who might find themselves caught up in terrorist attacks involving single or multiple shooters, emphasising that civil protection sectors should also heed this advice
Maritime supply chain security – Following the article on asymmetric attacks at sea in CRJ 10:3, Simon Grantham takes a look at the vulnerability of global sea supply chains and presents some tips on ensuring these are as robust as possible
Third UN Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction
The Sendai Framework: A look forward – The UN’s Third World Conference for Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR) in Sendai, Japan, showed that disaster risk reduction is fully embedded into international sustainable development architecture, explains Paola Albrito
The UN WCDRR at Sendai, Japan (photo courtesy UNISDR)
Social and community perspectives – Mostafa Mohaghegh outlines how the new Sendai Framework considers society and the participation of people as one of its guiding principles
Building resilience – At the WCDRR Emily Hough caught up with Joachim Zeller and Enqrique Guerrero Salom, both Members of the European Parliament, to find out more about European perspectives
Mitigating seismic risk in Istanbul – Turkey has vowed to make all 80,000 of the country’s schools disaster-proof by 2018, senior officials told the WCDRR. Here, Kazim Gökhan Elgin describes work in Istanbul to make schools – and society in general – more earthquake resistant
Science and technology – Kevin Blanchard, Amina Aitsi-Selmi and Virginia Murray describe the work that has been carried out to ensure that science and technology are accorded the role they deserve within disaster risk reduction
Don’t sideline young voices – One of the attendees at Sendai, 20-year-old Ariadne Acunha, presents a personal perspective on how the WCDRR addresses the concerns of young people and to what extent it involved them in proceedings
Gender and the Sendai Framework – Some argue that disasters are gender-neutral but, says Kevin Blanchard, societal and cultural aspects mean that certain groups continue to be more negatively affected
Culture and heritage – Marcus Dean and Giovanni Boccardi say the WCDRR marked a pivotal moment for the field of culture, providing a platform to raise awareness of the links between culture, heritage and disaster risk reduction
Refugees and migrants
Fire protection in refugee camps – George Bryant has worked with teams in Thailand and Kenya to conduct fire needs assessments in refugee camps. Read his findings and recommendations
Civil disturbance manifests as xenophobia – In 2008 a xenophobic outbreak in South Africa left more than 60 dead and displaced thousands, reports Hilary Phillips. In March and April, South Africans protested violently against the presence of migrant workers from other parts of Africa https://www.crisis-response.com/about/author.php?num=13
Attack the network, not the victims – Dr Dave Sloggett looks at what might be done to curb the illegal trade in human beings that sees desperate migrants undertake the hazardous journey across the Mediterranean
Interpreting imagery – High-resolution satellite imagery is increasingly being used to document displaced population camps; this new guide has been written to assist in interpreting such imagery. Written by Brittany Card, Nathanial Raymond and Isaac Baker of the Signal Program on Human Security and Technology at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative
Satellite services and disaster response – There is a pressing need for better emergency response efforts, says Omar Iqbal of SatResponse http://www.satresponse.org, who outlines a vision for improving satellite services for disaster responders
Inmarsat's Alphasat, Europe's largest telecommunications satellite (photo courtesy ESA)
Tracking solutions – Clemente Fuggini describes a project that is developing a suite of smartphone applications and satellite tracking solutions to help emergency management in crisis operations
UAVs in crisis management – Pierre Madl describes how smart UAVs, carrying multiple sensors, help to provide advanced situational awareness for emergency responders in the field
In Depth
Women’s experience in civil contingencies and homeland security – Andy Marshall cautiously re-enters the timeless gender debate in an attempt to look at the experience of women working in civil contingencies or homeland security
What has changed since Hurricane Ivan? In Part II of this series, Jeremy Collymore examines key developments to improve humanitarian response across the Caribbean
Search and rescue after landslide – The second part of Thomas J Richardson’s examination of operations at the landslide that engulfed a whole community in Washington State, USA
Testing crisis co-ordination – Hilde Bøhn provides an overview of an exercise in Norway that involved 30 different national and international agencies, together with around 3,000 people, simulating an oil leak, massive fire and evacuations around Sydhavna harbour
European exercise in Norway (photo courtesy EU Norway Delegation)
The Bologna massacre – Tony Moore describes the worst atrocity in Italy since the end of the second world war, in which 85 people were killed in a bomb at the city’s central railway station in 1980
A global call to action – Dr Jemilah Mahmood, Chief of the World Humanitarian Summit secretariat at UNOCHA in New York, speaks to Emily Hough about this call to action to reduce human loss and suffering from crises
Events
Connecting stakeholders in cities – Designing City Resilience; Emergency Services Show in Birmingham, UK; Moving Beyond Risks: Organising for Resilience in Bled, Slovenia; Steelhenge Crisis Management Conference; Critical Infrastructure Protection in Asia; and Drone event in Las Vegas, USA