Global Disasters/ Significant Events – October 16, 2013
Governor of Sicily declares a state of emergency amid migrant crisis
The declaration came after Italian navy said it hads rescued about 300 migrants from two boats near the island of Lampedusa, said a report.
At least 36 people were killed when their boat capsized between Malta and Lampedusa, on Friday.
Another migrant boat capsized on October 3, 2013 killing more than 350 migrants less than 600 meters from Lampedusa.
Recent disasters have occurred when boats overcrowded with desperate migrants capsize in the Mediterranean Sea. Source: UNHCR
Increasing number of people from Africa and the Middle East are fleeing war and poverty in search of a better life in Europe.
About 32,000 migrants have arrived in Italy and Malta so far this year, said UNHCR.
On average, about 1,000 migrants have been killed, mostly by drowning, over the past 25 years.
Related Links
- Dozens Killed as Yet Another Migrant Boat Sinks October 12, 2013
- Hundreds Killed in Another Migrants Boat Disaster October 3, 2013
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Other Global Disasters/ Significant Events
NSA collects millions of e-mail address books globally: Report
T”he National Security Agency is harvesting hundreds of millions of contact lists from personal e-mail and instant messaging accounts around the world, many of them belonging to Americans, according to senior intelligence officials and top-secret documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden,” said the report.
NSA collected about 680,000 e-mail address books from Yahoo, Hotmail, Facebook, Gmail and others in a single day, or 250 million per year. Read more...
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Big tech companies plan to track you even more aggressively
Biggest tech companies like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and a dozen others “are assembling new forms of online tracking that would follow users more aggressively… Microsoft is developing such a system, following, apparently, in the footsteps of Google.”
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Fire Earth 