Dirty water kills 5,000 children a day.
Tony Abbott on 25 August 2013 in his address to the 2013 Federal Coalition campaign launch:"No country has ever taxed its way to prosperity."
Joe Hockey on 31 March 2015 in his address to the Institute of Public Affairs, ‘Australia’s Economic Prosperity’, Melbourne:
"No country has ever taxed its way to prosperity."
Governments must guarantee that each person has at least 20 litres of clean water a day |
Liberia: a country – and its capital – are overwhelmed with Ebola cases
Accurate monitoring of the situation suffered from the weak surveillance and reporting systems in place prior to the start of the outbreak.
The onslaught of cases strained those mechanisms further. At times, the overwhelmed systems were unable to confirm or discard probable and suspected cases, as laboratory backlogs delayed testing and confirmation of positive cases – sometimes for weeks.
Ebola overwhelming African health services
Residents described an atmosphere of fear paralysing daily life in the Liberian capital.
"I am afraid. I don't know what to do now actually. Where are we going? Are we all going to die?" said Monrovia resident Kluboh Johnson, 45.
Meanwhile businesses said trade was drying up as people stayed indoors, afraid of infection.
"A few people will come and take one or two bottles of beer, but custom is no longer like before. They are afraid to come out because of Ebola," the owner of one bar said.
"I am afraid myself. One man came here last night and started to drink abundantly. When I asked him what was wrong, he asked me if I did not hear that thousands of people are going to get Ebola in the coming weeks."
Liberian Defence Minister Brownie Samukai told a meeting of the UN Security Council on Tuesday that the country was facing "a serious threat to its national existence".
The disease is "now spreading like wildfire, devouring everything in its path", he said.
Joe Hockey says countries haven't taxed themselves to prosperity. http://t.co/4x2KgCBFyG Taxpayers fund vaccinations pic.twitter.com/CvkexT4cec— Askgerbil Now (@Askgerbil) August 24, 2015
Somali Militants Kill 147 at Kenyan University - NY Times
NAIROBI, Kenya — Somali militants burst into a university in eastern Kenya on Thursday and killed nearly 150 students in the worst terrorist attack since the 1998 bombing of the United States Embassy here, laying bare the nation’s continuing vulnerability...
#OnTheRecord: Response to the Garissa University terror attack http://t.co/YfdUs0NWFC pic.twitter.com/JZVVvGU3hY
— ktn (@KTNKenya) April 28, 2015
Dirty water kills 5,000 children a day
The United Nations Development Programme, in its annual Human Development report, argues that 1.1 billion people do not have safe water and 2.6 billion suffer from inadequate sewerage. This is not because of water scarcity but poverty, inequality and government failure.The report urges governments to guarantee that each person has at least 20 litres of clean water a day
Governments need to get more water to people.
Happy New Year to you all
Pete Ward