And third Leading Cause of Death of Men Worldwide Is…

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A first-of-its kind study from the UN was released yesterday. “Nearly half a million people were murdered in 2012, making it the third leading cause of death globally for men aged 15-44 years (after HIV-Aids and road accidents)….Globally, murder rates declined by 16% between 2000 and 2012 to 475,000 deaths. Of those, 60% were of men aged 15-44. Worldwide, about 200,000 murders happen each year among young people aged 10-29 – more than 500 deaths a day and about 43% of the total. The highest estimated rates were in the Americas, with 28.5 homicides per 100,000 population, followed by Africa with 10.9.  (Guardian http://bit.ly/1zQbW7K)

Mary Robinson is on a Mission…Gender equality must be a key part of a new global climate change deal due to be reached in Paris next year even though achieving it will be a struggle, U.N. climate envoy Mary Robinson said. The former Irish president said the 2015 agreement should drive climate policies that take both women’s and men’s needs into account and must include gender equality as a guiding principle. “It’s not there yet, but it has to be,” she told a gathering on the sidelines of U.N. climate talks in Lima. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1Gkkoyd)

Quote of the Day: “I had two options, one was to remain silent and wait to be killed. And the second was to speak up and then be killed. I chose the second one. I decided to speak up.” — Malala Yousafzai, from her Nobel Prize acceptance speech.  http://bit.ly/1sk5Tnw

Kudos to Time Magazine…For 1) Selecting “Ebola Fighters” as its Persons of the Year; 2) Not exclusively focus on western “Ebola fighters.” (Time http://ti.me/1zy2d7T)

…And Here’s Mark’s interview with one of those persons of the year, Joia Mukherjee of Partners in Health,  who discusses how the fear of ebola has become far deadlier than the disease itself. (Global Dispatches Podcast http://bit.ly/1sjoCQ9)

Ebola

Authorities in an eastern district of Sierra Leone launched a two-week “lockdown” on Wednesday, hoping to halt the spread of Ebola after the area recorded seven confirmed cases in a day. (AP http://yhoo.it/1zwSIWx)

Today people in the Guinean village where the Ebola outbreak started are in debt, stigmatized, hungry and still angry and deeply suspicious about who or what brought the disease that has devastated their lives. It is a question scientists have yet to answer conclusively, although they have come to Meliandou to test great apes and bats as possible sources. (AP http://yhoo.it/1GkmcXZ)

Mass drug treatment for malaria is a key step towards preventing a rise in the mosquito-borne disease in Ebola-stricken countries and to ease the burden on medical staff, a leading disease control expert said. (Reuters http://bit.ly/1zQi0xd)

Africa

Four people were killed when two female suicide bombers attacked the Kantin Kwari textile market in Nigeria’s second city Kano, police commissioner Adenerele Shinaba said on Wednesday. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1GklBpl)

Nearly three quarters of South Africans are overweight and the country ranks third in a list of the world’s most obese nations behind the United States and Mexico, according to surveys by GlaxoSmithKline and medical journal The Lancet. (Reuters http://bit.ly/12Ndwfr)

Kenya’s government wants to beef up security laws after a string of attacks by Somalia’s Shebab insurgents, but media and opposition warn some proposals are too severe, reports said Wednesday. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1zwR0o5)

Mauritians voted Wednesday in parliamentary elections with rival parties promising to boost the economy and battling over the proposed strengthening of presidential powers. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1Gklav8)

The United States has warned Uganda that its efforts to pass new anti-gay laws are damaging the economy by scaring off investors. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1GklDgO)

Zimbabwe has received a $110 million grant from the African Development Bank to repair and upgrade ageing infrastructure including water and power supply facilities, the finance minister said Wednesday. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1zwSKxw)

The head of the UN mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Wednesday warned of a long battle ahead to stop militants who have hacked over 250 people to death in the country’s restive east. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1vPBh2u)

The South Sudanese government and rebel leaders squabble over power-sharing deal, leaving civilians to face hunger and violence across the country. (Guardian http://bit.ly/1DbTegw)

Media blackouts and detentions are common for reporters covering sensitive topics in Sudan as dictated by Omar al-Bashir’s government but a new generation is determined to fight for press freedom. (Guardian http://bit.ly/12Nniy5)

The Kenyan government says it may prosecute the makers of a documentary alleging that Kenya uses death squads against radical Islamists. (VOA http://bit.ly/1zQgQlk)

MENA

Three journalists from the Syrian opposition television channel Orient News were killed in the southwest of the country when a missile hit their vehicle, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1GkkuWs)

A total 408 migrants, mainly Syrians, have been rescued after spending six days adrift on a boat in the Mediterranean, Spanish officials said Wednesday. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1GkleLl)

The International Criminal Court on Wednesday said Libya was in violation of an obligation to hand over murder suspect Saif al-Islam Gaddafi and referred the matter to the United Nations Security Council. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1GklFVW)

Asia

Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan and Kailash Satyarthi of India received the Nobel Peace Prize on Wednesday for risking their lives to help protect children from slavery, extremism and forced labor at great risk to their own lives. (AP http://yhoo.it/1zwS0IM)

Hong Kong student protest leaders vowed Wednesday to stay until the last minute and peacefully resist a police operation to clear them off a highway where they’ve been camped out for 2 1/2 months. (AP http://yhoo.it/1GkkqpP)

Philippine rescue teams were struggling on Wednesday to reach upland communities on an eastern island which took the brunt of a typhoon at the weekend amid security fears in an area known as a hotbed of Maoist insurgents. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1zwQTJl)

India on Wednesday dropped attempted suicide from a list of crimes punishable by prison, potentially paving the way for the release of a human rights activist who has been on hunger strike for the past 14 years. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1Gkl7PU)

The Americas

All senior U.S. officials and CIA agents who authorized and carried out torture like waterboarding as part of former President George W. Bush’s national security policy must be prosecuted, top U.N. human rights officials said Wednesday. (AP http://yhoo.it/12NdvYX)

A truth commission investigating humans rights abuses committed by Brazil’s 1964-85 military dictatorship called on Wednesday for the overturning of a 1979 amnesty law so that those responsible can be prosecuted. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1zQbjLt)

Peru says it will sue activists from the environmental pressure group Greenpeace after they placed a banner next to the Nazca Lines heritage site. (BBC http://bbc.in/1DbPw6O)

Latin America and the Caribbean is the only region on track to meet the 2009 World Food Summit goal of halving the number of people suffering from hunger by 2015, the United Nations reported. (TRF http://yhoo.it/1vPBgM4)

Opinion/Blogs

Why Ebola Fighters Are TIME’s Person of the Year 2014 (TIME http://ti.me/1yz05xT)

Lima’s UN climate talks aren’t even focusing on keeping down temperatures (GlobalPost http://bit.ly/1Gkm1vN)

Hundreds of Thousands of Syrian Refugees Need to Be Resettled…And the World is Failing Them (UN Dispatch http://bit.ly/1zxkFh3)

Why and how to avoid jargon (How Matters http://bit.ly/1yzfZZ2)

The $138.5 Billion Question: When Does Foreign Aid Work? (CGD http://bit.ly/12NjQni)

How can India end this tide of violence against women? (Guardian http://bit.ly/1zQbLJB)

An ugly idea dissected: looks, age and language in Sudan (African Arguments http://bit.ly/1DbTsEq)

The Torture Report Reminds Us of What America Was (NY Times http://nyti.ms/1zQqqVb)

NYPD chief wants to teach the world’s police (Al Jazeera America http://alj.am/1yzeWrV)

Victims at the ICC: What is the Way Forward? (Justice in Conflict http://bit.ly/1zQqTXD)

Reports:

Iran Nuclear Talks: The Fog Recedes, which sheds light on deficiencies of the talks between Iran and the P5+1/EU3+3 thus far, examines both sides’ concerns and redlines, and argues that an accord can still be reached without violating either side’s core principles and interests.  International Crisis Group http://bit.ly/1zy41Oc