World Toilet Day highlights global sanitation crisis
Poor countries around the world are facing a dangerous shortage of toilets that puts millions of live at risk, according to campaigners marking World Toilet Day by urging governments and businesses to invest more in sanitation.
The toilet crisis is most severe in parts of Africa and Asia facing extreme poverty and seeing a population boom.
One in five primary schools and one in eight secondary schools globally do not have any toilets, the group WaterAid said in a new report to mark the UN-designated toilet day, observed yesterday as part of efforts to end the global sanitation crisis.
An estimated 4.5 billion people across the world lack access to proper sanitation, said the report. Some 2.5 billion among them do not have adequate toilets, according to UN figures. The lack of toilets forces many to defecate in the open — in the streets, in the bushes and by rivers and other water sources.
Among the development goals set by the UN in 2015 is a target to ensure everyone has access to a safe toilet by 2030. But campaigners warn this goal will be hard to meet if governments and businesses do not put more money into the sanitation economy.
Sanitation is “the business of the decade”, said Cheryl Hicks, chief executive of the Geneva-based business group Toilet Board Coalition. She told The Associated Press that the group is urging commercial investment to help reduce toilet shortages in countries where governments cannot afford such infrastructure.
“Half the world needs toilets. They don't have them because the infrastructure is too expensive for governments,” she said.
African countries are among the neediest.
The new report by WaterAid cites an estimated 344 million children in sub-Saharan Africa who lack a toilet at home, leaving them vulnerable to diarrhoea and other water-borne infections.
In the West African nation of Guinea-Bissau, one of 101 countries surveyed by WaterAid, eight in 10 schools there lack adequate toilet facilities. The same study reported that 93 per cent of households in the East African nation of Ethiopia lack a decent toilet.
Joel Ssimbwa, an entrepreneur who has put up two low-cost facilities in impoverished parts of the Ugandan capital, Kampala, said he launched his business in 2016 after several times he needed to ease himself but had “nowhere to go”.
In September 2007 a Ugandan lawmaker told reporters he was “badly off” and helpless after being photographed urinating against a wall outside the Ministry of Finance in Kampala. He was later charged and fined, despite protesting the lack of sanitation facilities nearby.
There are fewer than 20 free public toilets in Kampala, a city of over three million people. Toilets in buildings across the city are often kept under lock and key, apparently to ward off unwelcome users.
Ssimbwa acknowledged that the Shs300 (8 cents) he charges may still be unaffordable to many, the reason he is working on a business model that would allow his clients to pay a uniform monthly fee instead of having to pay each time they check in.
“It is a drop in the ocean, but it creates awareness” of what the government and others must do, he said, talking about his services.
Nissan chairman arrested for misconduct
Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn has been arrested over claims of financial misconduct, the carmaker has said.
Mr Ghosn, a towering figure in the car industry, will be sacked from the Japanese firm after a board meeting on Thursday, its chief executive said.
He has been accused of "significant acts of misconduct", including under-reporting his pay package and personal use of company assets.
Nissan said it was unable to give further details on the offences.
Japanese prosecutors have yet to comment on Mr Ghosn's arrest.
Nissan is the world's sixth-largest carmaker and its site in Sunderland is the UK's biggest car plant.
"I feel despair, indignation and resentment." said Nissan chief executive Hiroto Saikawa at a news conference. "As the details are disclosed I believe that people will feel the same way as I feel today."
Mr Saikawa said Nissan would now try to "stabilise the situation, and normalise day-to-day operations" for staff and business partners.
It said it had been conducting an internal investigation for several months, prompted by a whistleblower.
According to Japanese media reports, which have not been confirmed, he under-reported an amount totalling 5bn yen ($44m) over a five-year period from 2011.
Mr Saikawa said he believed the misconduct "went on for a long period".
From 2010, Japanese firms have been required to disclose the salaries of executives who earn more than 100m yen.
The carmaker added that it had been providing information to the Japanese Public Prosecutors Office and would continue to do so.
Nissan said it also planned to oust senior executive Greg Kelly, who had been "deeply involved" in the misconduct.
Mr Kelly - who has also been arrested, according to the firm - was described as a close aide to Mr Ghosn. Mr Saikawa said he was able to "exert influence" in the company.
As well as being chairman of Nissan, Mr Ghosn is also chairman and chief executive of Renault and chairman of Mitsubishi Motors.
Mitsubishi said it would propose the removal of Mr Ghosn as chairman.
St Vincent & Grenadines could become global medical marijuana producer
St Vincent and the Grenadines says it’s is on the brink of becoming a globally leading producer of organically certified medicinal cannabis, rivalling any other producer in the entire Western Hemisphere.
It says the expected passing of legislation this month, ensuring tightly regulated guidelines, positions the nation as a powerful Caribbean hub for global medicinal cannabis innovation.
Minister of Agriculture, Industry, Fisheries, Forestry, Labour and Rural Transformation Saboto Caesar said the industry had the potential to positively transform rural livelihoods and communities while changing the lives of patients who suffer from medical conditions that are unresponsive to other treatments.
“The production of cannabis for medicinal purposes provides an excellent opportunity for Small Island States to further diversify possibilities for farmers to secure sustainable livelihoods,” he said.
Minister Caesar said the Government would have more to say with the passing of the legislation, but was now putting the world’s investors on notice of the top 30 benefits for investing in the country.
These include: a tropical climate ideal for extra low-cost ‘outdoor’ cannabis production; over 50 years of experience in cannabis cultivation; more than 2,000 traditional cannabis farmers; availability of arable lands; unique strains of domestically produced cannabis available for scientific research and development; the likelihood of cannabis being VAT exempted since it is an agricultural commodity; an established national bio-pesticide, bio-fertilizer production platform to support organic cannabis production;
accessibility to medicinal cannabis healthcare products and services; international air and sea port connections; and an exotic tourism location, with 32 islands and cays, and over a quarter million cruise ship passenger visits forecast for 2019.
The government said those advantages have put St Vincent and the Grenadines on a solid platform to launch its medical cannabis programme.
LeBron James passes Wilt Chamberlain for 5th on all-time scoring list
LeBron James lit up Staples Center, doing everything for the Los Angeles Lakers in their 126-117 win over the Portland Trailblazers.
It was a historic night for James as he passed Wilt Chamberlain for fifth on the all-time NBA scoring list midway through the fourth quarter with 39 points. James now sits 867 points behind Michael Jordan for fourth and 2,218 points behind Lakers legend Kobe Bryant who is in third.
“When I’m able to do what I love to do, do it at this level, even being mentioned with the greats who have played this game – it just always brings me back to my home town of Akron,” James told ESPN after the game. “And knowing where I’ve come from, knowing how hard it was to get to this point, it’s just never being in satisfied mode.
James finished the game with 44 points – the first Lakers player to do so since D’Angelo Russell in 2017 – and nearly had a triple double on the night with nine assists and 10 rebounds.
The forward started off hot from beyond the arc, making his first five. His sixth attempt was blocked by Portland’s Al-Farouq Aminu late in the third quarter.
But James had his own highlight block block to layup sequence.
It was in the third quarter when James really took over. He had 16 of the team’s 38 points to help the Lakers build on their halftime lead. They extended their lead from four to eight heading into the last 12 minutes.
James would sit out the beginning of the fourth before re-entering with seven minutes left. He took a hard foul to the head a few minutes later, but even that couldn’t stop him from grabbing his moment.
He made all eight of his fourth-quarter free throws, including the two from the flagrant foul on Portland’s C.J. McCollum. With under four minutes left, James tied and then passed Chamberlain after making an and-1 basket and the following free throw.
“I give it all to the man above for giving me these God-given abilities. I’m taking full advantage of them. And then my coaching staff and my teammates throughout these 16 years so far that’s gotten me to this point.”
The crowd appreciated his effort and the history that was made, giving James a standing ovation as the game ended.
After the game, James said that the game ball and they jersey he wore would go to “I Promise”, his recently opened school in Akron.
California wildfire death toll rises to 51
Authorities searching through the blackened aftermath of California's deadliest wildfire have released the names of about 100 people who are still missing, including many in their 80s and 90s, and dozens more could still be unaccounted for.
As the names were made public late Tuesday, additional crews joined the search, and the statewide death toll climbed to at least 51, with 48 dead in Northern California and three fatalities in Southern California.
“We want to be able to cover as much ground as quickly as we possibly can,” Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said. “This is a very difficult task.”
A sheriff's department spokeswoman, Megan McMann, acknowledged that the list was incomplete. She said detectives are concerned they will be overwhelmed by calls from relatives if the entire list is released.
“We can't release them all at once,” McMann said. “So they are releasing the names in batches.” She said the list would be updated.
Authorities have not updated the total number of missing since Sunday, when 228 people were unaccounted for.
Meanwhile, friends and relatives of the missing grew increasingly desperate. A message board at a shelter was filled with photos of the missing and pleas for any information.
“I hope you are okay,” read one hand-written note on the board filled with sheets of notebook paper. Another had a picture of a missing man: “If seen, please have him call.”
Some of the missing are not on the list, said Sol Bechtold, who is searching for his 75-year-old mother, Joanne Caddy, whose house burned down along with the rest of her neighbourhood in Magalia, just north of Paradise, the town of 27,000 that was consumed by flames last week.
Bechtold said he spoke with the sheriff's office yesterday morning, and they confirmed they have an active missing person's case on Caddy. But Caddy, a widow who lived alone and did not drive, was not on the list.
“The list they published is missing a lot of names,” Bechtold said. Community members have compiled their own list.
Greg Gibson was one of the people searching the message board Tuesday, hoping to find information about his neighbours. They've been reported missing, but he does not know if they tried to escape or hesitated a few minutes too long before fleeing Paradise, where about 7,700 homes were destroyed.
“It happened so fast. It would have been such an easy decision to stay, but it was the wrong choice,” Gibson said from the Neighbourhood Church in Chico, California, which was serving as a shelter for some of the more than 1,000 evacuees.
Inside the church, evacuee Harold Taylor chatted with newfound friends. The 72-year-old Vietnam veteran, who walks with a cane, said he received a call last Thursday morning to evacuate immediately. He saw the flames leaping up behind his house, left with the clothes on his back and barely made it out alive.
Along the way, he tried to convince his neighbour to get in his car and evacuate with him, but the neighbour declined. He doesn't know what happened to his friend.
“We didn't have 10 minutes to get out of there,” he said. “It was already in flames downtown, all the local restaurants and stuff,” he said.
The search for the dead was drawing on portable devices that can identify someone's genetic material in a couple of hours, rather than days or weeks.
“In many circumstances, without rapid DNA technology, it's just such a lengthy process,” said Frank DePaolo, a deputy commissioner of the New York City medical examiners' office, which has been at the forefront of the science of identifying human remains since 9/11.
Before the Paradise tragedy, the deadliest single fire on record in California was a 1933 blaze in Griffith Park in Los Angeles that killed 29.
Michelle Obama Begins Arena Tour in Talk With Oprah
Michelle Obama began her 12-stop book tour Tuesday by sitting with Oprah Winfrey before an audience at the home arena of the Chicago Bulls, speaking on everything from piano lessons and washing socks to crying on a plane the day her family moved out of the White House and President Donald Trump moved in.
The crowd of 14,000 roared as the former first lady stepped onto a stage at the sold-out United Center event, which felt part talk show, part political rally and part rock concert, complete with $35 Michele Obama T-shirts emblazoned with her face and the title of her just-released memoir, "Becoming." Family pictures of Barack Obama and their children flashed on a screen over her shoulder as she spoke.
During the more than 90-minute conversation under Bulls' NBA championship banners in Obama's home city, she never directly criticized Trump. Crying on the plane leaving Washington on Inauguration Day 2017, she explained, had nothing to do with Trump.
"When I got on the plane, I sobbed for 30 minutes," she said. "I think it was just the release of eight years trying to do everything perfectly."
Obama turned to her husband, who had just become a former president. "I said to Barack, 'That was so hard, what we just did. That was so hard." She said she didn't mention that episode in her book.
She didn't criticize Trump directly at the event despite direct criticism of him in her book.
She writes in "Becoming" that Trump's "loud and reckless innuendos" about her husband's birth certificate stirred people up and put "my family's safety at risk." And for this," she adds, "I'd never forgive him."
Trump responded last week, saying Michelle Obama "got paid a lot of money" to write that book and they always expect a little controversy." The current president said that he'd never forgive his predecessor for making the country "very unsafe."
When Winfrey, who selected "Becoming" for her influential book club , introduced Obama she referred to the divisive political climate, also without directly naming Trump.
"So many people are feeling uneasy... afraid of the impending darkness," Winfrey told the audience. "But you all being here tonight is a testament to the light."
"Becoming" describes Obama's upbringing on Chicago's South Side and her transition to college at Princeton University. As she does in her book, she recounted Tuesday being raised in a family that struggled economically — but with parents who encouraged her to be successful.
When she was a child, she said her dad would complain to her mother that she wasn't teaching her children how to wash socks, because he had had so few socks growing up that he had to wash them and dry them on a radiator himself.
"My mom said, 'I'm not teaching them how to wash their socks. I'm going to teach them to go to college, so they can buy a washing machine,'" Obama said Tuesday.
She also talked about learning how to play the piano on a rickety one and her surprise at seeing her first piano that was in good condition.
"You mean there are perfect pianos out there?" she recalled thinking. "I didn't even know about it."
The memoir, officially released Tuesday, is already a best-seller. It topped Amazon.com's best-seller list throughout the weekend.
The tour that started in Chicago moves on to Los Angles, Washington, Detroit, Paris and London, and other U.S. cities. It ends next month in New York City.
Tens of thousands of people purchased tickets to Obama's United Center appearance — paying from just under $30 to hundreds or even thousands of dollars for VIP packages. No tickets are available online for some stops.
Although some fans have complained about the high cost, 10 percent of tickets costs are being donated to local charities, schools and community groups.
Sixth fatal accident in Providenciales
TCI’s sixth fatal vehicular accident happened on Tuesday, November 14th, in Leeward along Prince of Wales Drive.
Sources tell RTC that an unnamed pedestrian was struck by a vehicle.
Police sources confirmed that the deceased is an illegal Haitian national. The driver of the vehicle is described as a local person.
Investigations are ongoing to verify the cause of the collision but police sources did confirm that the driver was not speeding.
At this time, no one has been arrested in connection to the incident.
Jamaica PM says nothing to fear about National Identification System
Jamaica Prime Minister, Andrew Holness, has again shot down concerns that citizens' private information will be compromised with the implementation of the National Identification System (NIDS).
Speaking on Sunday night at the Jamaica Labour Party's West Kingston and Area Council One annual conference at Kingston High School, downtown, he argued that there is a distinction to be made between anonymity and privacy.
“If you believe that because the State doesn't know your name, that means that your business is private, you're making a mistake,” he stated, pointing out that people freely provide their information when they, for example, use mobile phones, travel between borders, or open bank accounts, all of which require the divulging of personal and biometric information.
NIDS has been a source of controversy since the Government started to forge ahead with the national civil registry system. Legislators locked horns in both Houses of Parliament for weeks over the provisions, some of which the Opposition insists are unconstitutional.
The Opposition People's National Party now has the Government in court over the matter, even while the Administration continues to roll out activities for implementation of the NIDS.
The Government has also insisted that many of the provisions to which the PNP is now objecting originated from previous drafts of the law crafted by that party.
According to the Opposition, the legislation governing NIDS violates eight of 25 fundamental rights and freedoms.
“I don't know what the big argument is about privacy,” Holness said on Sunday night. “Anonymity is not privacy. Privacy is when the Government sets rules and regulations about what information cannot be shared or can be shared under what circumstances, and defends those rules with integrity.”
He insisted that there are no reasonable grounds on which Jamaicans should harbour fear of a central civil registry. “Yes, you have the potential [for] the Government, who can use your identity, to target you, but dem can do dat anyway. But when you have a Government that is building out your civil registry, it means that we can provide you with so much more service so much more efficiently,” he stated.
The prime minister also told supporters that a unique identity would allow Jamaicans easier access to credit. “So you're selling in the market, you have a good income coming in, but you try go to one of the banks, they can't identify you. Now, with the national ID, you have an identity. That means something. Banks can now consider lending you funds because we know who you are and we know where to find you — so your identity becomes an asset,” he said.
NJS Francis Building facing serious structural issues
Reports reaching RTC indicate the prestigious NJS Francis Building in the nation’s capital, Grand Turk, where important deliberations such as the House of Assembly are held, is experiencing structural failures so significant that portions of the building have now been prohibited from use.
During a recent visit to the NJS Francis Building, which is located on Duke Street, also known as Front Street, RTC noticed cracks in the structure.
In a release yesterday, Monday, November 12th, from the Ministry of Infrastructure, Housing & Planning, more light was shed on the situation.
The release advised the general public that all staff and visitors to the NJS Francis Building should refrain from using the West Balcony, the West Porch and the surrounding area.
The release also advised that persons walking or operating vehicles in the area remain behind the barricades and pay close attention to possible falling debris.
The release added that the Ministry is working diligently to get these issues at the NJS Francis Building resolved.
RTC will continue to track this story, providing more details as they become available.
TROPICAL WAVE FORECASTED TO BRING HEAVY RAINS
DDME ADVISES RTC WEATHER:
The Tropical cyclone formation over the next 5 days will be low. However as a result of the tropical wave, locally heavy rainfall to the TCI is forecasted. The public is encouraged to take all necessary precautions to save lives and protect their property.
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