Road Traffic Accidents Increase Dramatically Worldwide

(March 2006) Road traffic accidents—the leading cause of death by injury and the tenth-leading cause of all deaths globally—now make up a surprisingly significant portion of the worldwide burden of ill-health. An estimated 1.2 million people are killed in road crashes each year, and as many as 50 million are injured, occupying 30 percent to 70 percent of orthopedic beds in developing countries hospitals.¹And if present trends continue, road traffic injuries are predicted to be the third-leading contributor to the global burden of disease and injury by 2020.²

Developing countries bear a large share of the burden, accounting for 85 percent of annual deaths and 90 percent of the disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) lost because of road traffic injury.³ And since road traffic injuries affect mainly males (73 percent of deaths) and those between 15 and 44 years old, this burden is creating enormous economic hardship due to the loss of family breadwinners (see Figure 1).

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Figure 1 Road Traffic Deaths Worldwide by Sex and Age Group, 2002

Source: WHO Global Burden of Disease Project, Version 1 (2002).

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Road traffic injuries are predictable and preventable, but good data are important to understand the ways in which road safety interventions and technology can be successfully transferred from developed countries where they have proven effective. Awareness of the consequences of road traffic injuries is lagging among policymakers and the general public. What's needed is incorporation of comprehensive road safety programs into national planning in developing countries.

Profile of the Problem

In developed countries, road traffic death rates have decreased since the 1960s because of successful interventions such as seat belt safety laws, enforcement of speed limits, warnings about the dangers of mixing alcohol consumption with driving, and safer design and use of roads and vehicles. For example, road traffic fatalities declined by 27 percent in the United States and by 63 percent in Canada from 1975 to 1988. But traffic fatalities increased in developing countries during the same period—by 44 percent in Malaysia and 243 percent in China, for instance.⁴

More than one-half of all road traffic deaths globally occur among people ages 15 to 44—their most productive earning years. Moreover, the disability burden for this age group accounts for 60 percent of all DALYs lost because of road traffic accidents.⁵ The costs and consequences of these losses are significant. Three-quarters of all poor families who lost a member to road traffic death reported a decrease in their standard of living, and 61 percent reported they had to borrow money to cover expenses following their loss.⁶ The World Bank estimates that road traffic injuries cost 1 percent to 2 percent of the gross national product (GNP) of developing countries, or twice the total amount of development aid received worldwide by developing countries.⁷

As in developed countries, driver impairment is an important component of road traffic accidents in developing countries. Driving at excess speeds, while under the influence of alcohol or drugs, while sleepy or tired, when visibility is compromised, or without protective gear for all vehicle occupants are major factors in crashes, deaths, and serious injuries.

In general, pedestrians, cyclists, and moped and motorcycle riders are the most vulnerable road users as well as the heaviest users of roads in poor countries. Most people who use public transportation, bicycles, or mopeds and motorcycles or who habitually walk are poor, illuminating the higher risk borne by those from less privilege.⁸ In Asia, for instance, motorized two- and three-wheelers (such as motorized rickshaws) will make up the anticipated growth in numbers of motor vehicles.⁹ Figure 2 shows the higher proportion of deaths among these groups in developing countries.¹⁰

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Figure 2
Proportion of Road Users Killed in Various Modes of Transport As A Percent of All Fatalities, Selected Countries

Country	Pedestrians	Bicyclists	Motorized vehicles		Others
			Two-wheeled	Four-wheeled
Thailand	47	6	36	12	--
Malaysia	15	6	57	19	3
United States	13	2	5	79	1

*Note: Dates for above data vary according to city and country: Thailand, 1987; Malaysia, 1994; and United States, 1995. 
Source: Dinish Mohan, "Traffic Safety and Health in Indian Cities," in Journal of Transport and Infrastructure no. 9 (2002).

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Nato bolsters Eastern Europe against Russia

Nato's wider actions - it also plans to open a training centre in Georgia and support for the reform of Ukraine's military - all ring alarm bells in Moscow.
Tensions could get worse still if the US or other Nato allies move to arm the Ukrainian military.
This is not a Nato issue as such but something for national governments, and everyone is watching the course of the evolving debate within the Obama administration.

More than 5,000 people have been killed in eastern Ukraine and clashes have worsened in recent weeks

Mr Stoltenberg said it will be the biggest reinforcement of its collective defence since the end of the Cold War.
Meanwhile French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have visited the Ukrainian capital Kiev to present a new peace initiative. They are due to travel to Moscow on Friday.
US Secretary of State John Kerry is also in Kiev, and said President Obama was still "reviewing all options", including the possibility of providing "defensive weapons" to Ukraine.
The US has so far only provided "non-lethal" assistance to Ukraine.
Mr Stoltenberg said it was "up to different allies to decide" whether to arm Ukraine.
Fighting has intensified in recent weeks and the frequency of indiscriminate shelling in civilian areas has increased, according to the OSCE monitoring group.

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Taiwan TransAsia plane crashes

Dramatic video footage emerged showing the TransAsia Airways plane clipping a bridge as it came down shortly after take-off from a Taipei airport.
The plane, carrying 58 people, broke up as it plunged into Taipei's Keelung River. The fuselage was later salvaged by crane.
There were 15 survivors pulled from the wreckage but 12 people remain missing.

John Sudworth reports: "This is no longer a rescue mission, but a recovery operation"

Television footage showed some passengers wading clear of the sunken wreckage and a toddler being pulled out alive by rescuers.
Emergency teams cut open the plane while it was in the water but were unable to reach the passengers trapped in the front section of the fuselage.
As night fell, a crane was used to lift the wreckage on to the bank. The death toll was expected to rise as rescue teams searched the fuselage and the river for the 12 missing passengers.
"At the moment, things don't look too optimistic," Wu Jun-hong, a Taipei fire department official coordinating the rescue effort told reporters.

 

 

The ATR-72 turbo-prop plane had just taken off from Taipei Songshan Airport and was heading to the Kinmen islands, just off the coast of the south-eastern Chinese city of Xiamen.
It is the second TransAsia ATR-72 to crash in seven months, following an accident last July which killed 48 people and injured 15.
The final communication from the pilots to air traffic control was "Mayday, mayday, engine flame out", according to a recording played on local media. The recording was not immediately verified by aviation officials.

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Islamic State Releases Video Showing Jordanian Pilot

The brutal video is both one of its most violent and most slickly produced. Filled with wire-frame drawings and digitized cuts that dissolve its subjects in a flicker of pixels, the video uses Kasasbeh to attack the U.S.-led military campaign against the Islamic State.
Prior to his execution in the video, Kasasbeh delivers a ringing condemnation of the West and his country, urging the mothers of Jordanian pilots from preventing their sons from going to war against the Islamic State.
With a black eye clearly visible on the left side of his face, Kasasbeh explains in detail the military coalition arrayed against the Islamic State and the contributions made by each country in the fight, placing special emphasis on the contributions of Arab states. Kasasbeh also details the bases out of which missions against the Islamic State are flown.
“The message that I direct to the Jordanian people: Know that your government is an agent of the Zionists,” Kasasbeh says in the video.
Kasasbeh was captured in December when his jet was downed over Syria.
The video was released by al-Furqan, the media arm of the Islamic State, and according to Jordanian state television, the execution was filmed on Jan. 3. The video’s release coincided with the Tuesday visit to Washington by Jordan King Abdullah, who abruptly canceled that trip and returned to his country.
President Barack Obama called the video “one more indication of the viciousness and barbarity of this organization” and said it will serve to “redouble the vigilance and determination on the part of the global coalition to make sure that they are degraded and ultimately defeated.”
Bernadette Meehan, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, said in a statement that the U.S. intelligence community is working to authenticate the video.
In recent weeks, the Jordanian government has been engaged in highly public negotiations with the Islamic State, which proposed to swap Kenji Goto, a kidnapped journalist, for Sajida al-Rishawi, who is imprisoned in Jordan for her involvement in a 2005 terrorist attack in Amman.
Last week, the Jordanian government agreed in principle to a swap but demanded their pilot’s release if Rishawi was to walk free. Those negotiations fell apart when the Islamic State refused to provide proof of life for Kasasbeh. It is now clear, according to Jordanian state television, that Kasasbeh had already been killed — even as negotiations were ongoing.
The video presents his execution as retaliation for civilian casualties inflicted by the U.S.-led air campaign in Syria. It opens with a narrator describing Jordan’s role in that coalition and its willingness as a U.S. ally to support military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
After describing how the United States and its allies coordinate their aerial missions in Syria, the video cuts to a shot of a wire-frame drawing of an F-16, the plane Kasasbeh once flew, moving through a dark space filled with images of destruction, including a burning bus, a demolished building. The plane’s targeting reticule centers on a crying infant wearing an oxygen mask on what appears to be a hospital bed.
The video then shows an image of an AGM-65 laser-guided bomb, a widely used American-made munition. It cuts to a series of images showing children suffering various degrees of burn wounds. With each image, the wounds get progressively more severe. At the bottom of the screen a temperature steadily increases toward “max.”

The video then cuts to a scene of Kasasbeh walking through an area strewn with rubble. In a series of jump cuts, the video flashes to news footage of bodies being dug out of rubble. The implication is that Kasasbeh is being confronted with his crimes. He is shown on camera looking at a destroyed building with an expression of horror. All around him, masked fighters view him impassively.

He is then placed in a cage and burned to death.

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Reportedly negotiated with militants

Government spokesman Mohammed al-Momani told The Associated Press that "we are still ready to hand over" prisoner Sajida al-Rishawi, who faces death by hanging for her role in triple hotel bombings in Jordan in 2005. Al-Rishawi has close family ties to the Iraq branch of al-Qaeda, a precursor of ISIS.
With no updates for days, al-Kaseasbeh's family appealed to the government for information on his situation. But for Goto's family and friends, the beheading shattered any hopes for his rescue.

A woman holds a picture of her son, Jordanian pilot Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh, who is being held by ISIS militants, in a car during a sit-in in front of the cabinet offices in Amman calling for his release on Jan. 27. (Raad Adayleh/Associated Press)

Jogo, Goto's wife, said she had received several emails from unknown people claiming to be her husband's captors. But the hostage crisis became a national issue after the militants issued a demand for $200 million in ransom, to be paid within 72 hours, on Jan. 20.
Later, the militants' demand shifted to seeking the release of al-Rishawi, who survived the 2005 attack that killed 60 people when her explosive belt failed to detonate in the worst terror attack in Jordan's history.
Jordan and Japan reportedly conducted indirect negotiations with the militants through Iraqi tribal leaders, but late on Friday the Japanese envoy sent to Amman to work on the hostage crisis reported a deadlock in those efforts.
The UN Security Council issued a statement Sunday demanding "the immediate, safe and unconditional release of all those who are kept hostage" by the Islamic State group. Council members underlined the need to bring those responsible for Goto's "heinous and cowardly murder" to justice and stressed that the Islamic State group "must be defeated and that the intolerance, violence and hatred it espouses must be stamped out."

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STEVE PIECZENIK TALKS MH370 is America's Put-up Show with Australia

 While the Americans are withdrawing from Afghanistan, one of their command and control system (used for controlling the pilotless drones) was hijacked by the Talibans when the American transport convoy was moving down from one of the hill top bases. The Talibans ambushed the convoy and killed 2 American Seal personnel, seized the equipment/weapons, including the command and control system which weighed about 20 tons and packed into 6 crates. This happened about a month ago in Feb 2014.

What the Talibans want is money. They want to sell the system to the Russians or the Chinese. The Russians are too busy in Ukraine. The Chinese are hungry for the system's technology. Just imagine if the Chinese master the technology behind the command and control system, all the American drones will become useless. So the Chinese sent 8 top defense scientists to check the system and agreed to pay millions for it.

Sometime in early Mar 2014,  the 8 scientists and the 6 crates made their way to Malaysia, thinking that it was the best covert way to avoid detection. The cargo was then kept in the Embassy under diplomatic protection.  Meanwhile the Americans have engaged the assistance of Israeli intelligence, and together they are determined to intercept and recapture the cargo.

The Chinese calculated that it will be safe to transport it via civilian aircraft so as to avoid suspicion. After all, the direct flight from KL to Beijing takes only 4 and half hours, and the American will not hijack or harm the civilians. So MH370 is the perfect carrier.

There are 5 Americans and 2 Israeli agents on board who are familiar with Boeing operation. The 2 "Iranians" with stolen passports are the two Israeli agents.

When MH370 is about to leave the Malaysian air space and reporting to Vietnamese air control, one American AWAC jammed their signal, disabled the pilot control system and switched over to remote control mode. That was when the plane suddenly lost altitude momentarily.

How the AWAC can do it ? Remember 911 incident ? After the 911 incident, all Boeing aircraft (and possibly all Airbus) are installed with remote control system to counter terrorist hijacking. Since then all the Boeing could be remote controlled by ground control tower. The same remote control system used to control the pilotless spy aircraft and drones.
The American/Israeli agents soon took over the plane, switched off the transponder and other communication system, changed course and flew westwards. They dare not fly east to Philippines or Guam because the whole South China Sea air space was covered by Chinese surveillance radar and satellite.

The Malaysian, Thai and Indian military radars actually detected the unidentified aircraft but as usual, did not react professionally.

The plane flew over North Sumatra, Anambas, South India and then landed at Maldives (some villagers saw the aircraft landing), refueled and continued its flight to Garcia Diego, the American Air Base in the middle of Indian Ocean. The cargo and the black box were removed. The passengers were silenced via natural means, lack of oxygen. They believe only dead people will not talk. The MH370 with dead passengers were air borne again via remote control and crashed into South Indian Ocean, make it to believe that the plane eventually ran out of fuel and crashed, and blame the defiant captain and co-pilot.

The Americans have put up a good show. First diverting all the attention and search effort in the South China Sea while the plane made their way to Indian Ocean. Then they came out with some conflicting statement and evidence to confuse the world. The Australians are the co-actor.


The amount of effort put up by China, in terms of the number of search aircraft, ships and satellites, searching first the South China Sea, then the Malacca Straits and the Indian Ocean  is unprecedented. This showed that China is very concerned, not so much of the many Chinese civilian passengers, but mainly the high value cargo and its 8 top defense scientists.

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North Korea suffers second Internet outage

North Korea's Internet was down again on Tuesday, according to monitoring specialist Dyn Research, with the latest blackout coming hot on the heels of Monday's widespread nine-hour outage.
Monday's nine-hour denial of service exposed the vulnerabilities in North Korea's limited web infrastructure just days after Pyongyang was blamed for the cyberattack that crippled Sony Pictures.
The country's Internet problems continued on Tuesday, with reports of another outage. Early on Tuesday Dyn Research tweeted that "North Korea continues its struggle to stay online," and noted another outage at 10:41 a.m. ET. The country's Internet was restored again at 11:12 a.m. ET, although the monitoring specialist said that "connectivity problems continue."
Dyn Research reported late Monday that North Korean websites were back online after a 9 hour, 31 minute outage. The outage came less than a week after the U.S. vowed an unspecified response to a massive hacking attack against Sony Pictures Entertainment over the release of the comedy film "The Interview."
On Dec. 19 the FBI accused North Korea of launching the attack against Sony Pictures.
The White House and the State Department on Monday declined to say whether the U.S. government had any role in North Korea's Internet problems.
Dyn Research notes that nine-hour outages are not unheard of in North Korea given its limited Internet infrastructure.
“It’s a rare event these days when an entire country leaves the Internet,” it said, in a statement. “Even so, when North Korea’s four networks went dark, we were not entirely surprised, based on the fragility of their national connectivity to the global Internet.”
North Korea’s four networks are routed through Chinese telecom giant China Unicom, according to Dyn Research. With around 25 million people, North Korea’s Internet backbone is miniscule compared to other countries with similar populations. Yemen, Afghanistan and Taiwan, for example, have 47, 370, and 5,030 networks, respectively.
Arbor Networks, a network security company, noted 29 attacks on the North Korean government owned and operated sites between Dec. 18 and Dec. 22. These include an attack on Kim Il Sung University, the country’s first university website.

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U.S. says ISIS did not down plane

ordan is one of several nations helping the United States and other Western nations degrade and destroy ISIS which has cut a murderous path through Iraq and Syria in its ultimate quest to establish a caliphate, or Islamic state, across those countries.

The air campaign has recently stepped up against Raqqa, located on the banks of the Euphrates river. In the beginning of December, for example, the coalition hit the city with 30 air strikes in a single night. There was one coalition airstrike in the area on Wednesday and one on Monday, according to the U.S. military.

What nations are part of the U.S.-led coalition

It's critical that Jordan lead an investigation to determine exactly what happened, Maj. Gen. Ali Shukri, a retired Jordanian commander and military adviser, told CNN. He said he doesn't think the capture will change Jordan's role in the fight against ISIS.

Al-Momani on Wednesday acknowledged the "enormity of this incident" but said it was his nation's choice "to fight those terrorist organizations that threaten Jordan's security."

"Jordan participated in this war acknowledging that this war will have casualties," he said.

Bordering Syria, Iraq and Israel, Jordan has been a critical regional player in the coalition and has a history of working with Washington.

Though the United States has led the coalition, President Barack Obama has maintained that there will be no U.S. ground troops in Syria.

But the Defense Department last week announced that up to 1,300 more U.S. troops, including approximately 1,000 soldiers from the Army's 82nd Airborne Division, will begin to deploy to Iraq in late January.

Pentagon Press Secretary Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby said December 19 that the mission is to train, advise and assist Iraqi security forces.

The U.S. led-coalition has relied tremendously on a number of other countries to help militarily as well as to help legitimize the effort internationally.

Other key regional allies include Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The coalition has been conducting nearly constant airstrikes against ISIS in Syria since September, an effort that began weeks after first going after the group in neighboring Iraq. In that period, the coalition has said it landed several strikes that have damaged ISIS infrastructure, equipment and fighting capacity.

While Iraq has posed complex battle demands, Syria has its own set of complications.

The country has been ravaged by years of civil war as forces try to unseat Syria President Bashar al-Assad. Those forces are not only fighting al-Assad now, but trying to keep up the strength to fight ISIS.

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HIV, Chinese government assures care

China's AIDS fight

Some 780,000 people are living with HIV/AIDS in China, according to the latest count by the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) in 2011.

People living with HIV or AIDS in China face widespread discrimination and stigma, especially in rural areas where there is a lack of education about the disease.

China has sought to tackle the stigma by establishing laws and regulations prohibiting discrimination against people with HIV.

China's First Lady Peng Liyuan who was appointed World Health Organization's goodwill ambassador for AIDS in 2011, has appeared in public advertisements holding hands and playing with HIV-positive children.

Despite China's fight against AIDS, cases such as Kunkun's suggest inconsistency with official policy.

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The Interview 2014

he Interview is a 2014 American political comedy film directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg in their second directorial work, following This Is the End. The screenplay by Dan Sterling is from a story by Rogen, Goldberg and Sterling. The film stars Rogen and James Franco as journalists instructed to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (played by Randall Park) after booking an interview with him. It received mixed reviews from critics.
In June 2014, the North Korean government threatened "merciless" action against the United States if the film's distributor, Columbia Pictures, went ahead with the release. Columbia delayed the release from October 10 to December 25, and reportedly edited the film to make it more acceptable to North Korea. In November, the computer systems of parent company Sony Pictures Entertainment were hacked by the "Guardians of Peace", a group the FBI believes has ties to North Korea. After leaking several other then-upcoming Sony films and other sensitive internal information, the group demanded that Sony pull The Interview, which it referred to as "the movie of terrorism". On December 16, 2014, the Guardians of Peace threatened terrorist attacks against cinemas that played The Interview.
On December 17, after a number of major North American cinema chains cancelled screenings in the interests of safety, Sony cancelled the theatrical release of The Interview, drawing criticism from the media, Hollywood figures and U.S. president Barack Obama. On December 24, The Interview was made available on online rental services. It had a limited release at select cinemas on December 25.

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Two stormy weeks in Chinese aviation

 

Chinese government not amused

The China National Tourism Administration issued a stern statement after the Air Asia episode, saying it had "severely damaged the overall image of Chinese people" and demanding local authorities review the case.

Air rage is a common sight in delay-prone China.

In recent years, state media has reported numerous dramatic incidents involving irate passengers, ranging from blocking moving aircraft on an active runway to fistfights with airport employees.

During an official visit to the Maldives in September, President Xi Jinping personally asked Chinese tourists to behave themselves while traveling abroad.

Last year the government released a lengthy list of do's and don'ts aimed at turning Chinese travelers into "civilized tourists."

All the warnings and cajoling seem to have fallen on deaf ears, though.

Quickest way off a plane? Emergency exit!

Impatient or lacking fresh air or ... something ... Chinese passengers in separate incidents in the past two weeks decided to deal with their "stuck on a plane" dilemmas in unexpected fashion.

Upon landing in Sanya on December 8 after a China Eastern flight from Xi'an, a fidgety passenger not content to suffer through the excruciating disembarkation process -- Don't judge! We've all been there! -- went ahead and opened the emergency exit door, engaging the aircraft's inflatable slide.

Xinhua news agency said the reason for the man's action was unknown, but The Nanfang website from southern China reported that the passenger said he simply wanted to depart the plane sooner.

His solution, to borrow loosely from Jane Austen, did display a certain amount of sense, if not sensibility.

Regardless, the shortcut cost the airline $16,000 and a two-hour delay, according to Xinhua.

That unauthorized exit was followed by an incident on December 14 during which a first-time flier on a Xiamen Air flight reportedly felt the urge for some fresh air while waiting for his plane to take off.

His fix? Open the emergency door for better ventilation.

The man wasn't fined or punished because the act didn't cause any damage, stated the airline.

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