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THE NUMBER OF refugees and others fleeing their homes worldwide has hit a new record, spiking to 65.3 million people by the end of 2015.
Europe’s high-profile migrant crisis, which is its worst since World War II, is just one part of a growing tide of human misery led by Palestinians, Syrians and Afghans.
Globally, approaching 1% of humanity has been forced to flee.
“This is the first time that the threshold of 60 million has been crossed,” the UN refugee agency said.
The Immigrant Council of Ireland said today that it is time for the Irish government to “follow the will of the people by taking action”.
It called on the government to:
The UNHCR and Sports Against Racism Ireland (SARI) will hold the seventh annual Fair Play Football Cup today to mark World Refugee Day, with over 16 teams representing Ireland’s immigrant and refugee communities taking part.
Pressures
The new figures, released on World Refugee Day, underscore twin pressures fuelling an unprecedented global displacement crisis.
As conflict and persecution force growing numbers of people to flee, anti-migrant political sentiment has strained the will to resettle refugees, said UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi.
The willingness of nations to work together not just for refugees but for the collective human interest is what’s being tested today.
The number of people displaced globally rose by 5.8 million through 2015, according to the UN figures.
Counting Earth’s population at 7.349 billion, the UN said that one out of every 113 people on the planet was now either internally displaced or a refugee.
They now number more than the populations of Britain or France, the agency said, adding that it is “a level of risk for which UNHCR knows no precedent.”
Numbers are rising
Displacement figures have been rising since the mid 1990s, but the rate of increase has jumped since the outbreak of Syria’s civil war in 2011.
Of the planet’s 65.3 million displaced, 40.8 million remain within their own country, while 21.3 million have fled across borders and are now refugees.
Palestinians are the largest group of refugees at more than five million, including those who fled at the creation of Israel in 1948 and their descendants.
Syria is next on the list, with 4.9 million refugees, followed by Afghanistan (2.7 million) and Somalia (1.1 million).
Rising conflict, shrinking solutions
A worrying mixture of factors have led to rising displacement and narrowing space for refugee resettlement.
“Situations that cause large refugee outflows are lasting longer,” the agency said, including more than 30 years of unrest in both Somalia and Afghanistan.
New and intense conflicts as well as dormant crises that have been “reignited” are further fuelling the crisis, UNHCR said, pointing to South Sudan, Yemen, Burundi and the Central African Republic, aside from Syria.
Beyond the refugee hotspots in the Middle East and Africa, UNHCR said there were also worrying signs in Central America, where growing numbers of people fleeing gang violence led to a 17% rise in those leaving their homes through 2015.
Faced with a growing need to resettle those facing persecution, the answers are not always obvious.
“The rate at which solutions are being found for refugees and internally displaced people has been on a falling trend since the end of the Cold War,” the UN agency said.
Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council and a senior UN diplomat, said refugees “are the victims of a general paralysis” among nations who are not meeting their responsibilities to the world’s neediest.
Turkey — which struck a controversial deal with the European Union in March to stem Europe’s migrant crisis — hosted the highest number of refugees through 2015 at 2.5 million, mostly Syrians.
Germany received the highest number of asylum requests (441,900) over the 12-month span, demonstrating the country’s “readiness to receive people who were fleeing to Europe via the Mediterranean.”
- © AFP, 2016 - With reporting from Aoife Barry
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The one with the least amount of preservatives in it….
I found a mc Donald’s hamburger under the car seat the other day one Of my kids must of dropped it, it has to be at least 2 months old but by god it did look tasty when I say it look good there was nothing wrong with it once you unwrapped the packaging, S0 I said nothing and gave it to the Hubbie Ha Ha silly old fool ate it too, :)
Jaysus you could of killed him…… Oh I get it you have him well backed
Hilary – I hope he don’t read the journal or your screwed lol
Brennan’s whole grain bread has a shelf life of nanoseconds.
Aldi Brown and pitta breads will go mouldy within two days of opening, I’ve tried everything to slow the process, (including, stupidly, the fridge), nothing seems to slow the process. Their Brown bread is gorgeous. I now open a pack and immediately freeze half of it. This works, but it’s not ideal. Any suggestions?
Slight warming in oven couple days in
@Paul, try a sprinkle of their Solesta Olive oil on your Aldi bread and you will just have to have some more thus eliminating any problems of surplus :-)
In California, where I hail from, bread doesn’t mold for weeks. It goes concrete-hard before it molds. When I got to Ireland, I was shocked (—shocked, I tell you!) to see it mold in mere minutes. Is the climate? It rains from September through April in California, but it still doesn’t yield moldy bread.
I will ponder this puzzle for many years, I’m afraid.
American bread is full of preservatives
Just look at wonder bread the one thing you notice between the two is the freshness of Irish bread
I think it might be that the bread in America contains far more preservatives? P.s I’ve never seen bread mould in minutes, not in Ireland or anywhere else.
More sugar in American bread, gives it a more cake like consistency.
Cakes go hard when they go off, then go mouldy.
American bread, like their chocolate and cheese is over processed sh1te.
Cakes go hard , biscuits go soft make the Jaffa cake a tiny actual cake
American bread is full of crap to stop mould
Processed and preserved! Not just your bread but so many other foodstuffs in the USA!
It partly explains why your are no. 1 in the world… in obesity and overweight!
Mexico is world no1 America is no 2
Thats because in America they put corn syrup or fructose syrup in bread which inhibits mould growth. The shelf life of bread is far extended but American bread can contirbute to obesity and diabetes.
And don’t store it in fridge
Why?
Water molecules detach themselves from the starch molecules and the starch molecules begin to take their original shape and harden again. The cool temperatures of the refrigerator make the dehydration process happen more quickly, specifically, about six times as fast via the process listed above.
vlad,
put down the books, go to the pub nearest to u and get sloshed……………………
So you probably don’t eat bread in your part of the world, Vlad?
he eats breaded fish…………….lol, sorry.
The hotter the bread when packed, the quicker it goes off because it ‘sweats’ more in the packaging and this facilitates the growth of mould. Of course, like any other food, the more preservatives in the product the slower it goes off….so food spoiling quickly is probably a sign it has fewer preservatives.
That’s very interesting Vlad.
My mum always keeps her sliced bread in the fridge, she swears it lasts longer.
Correct, the amylose and amylopectin in the starch in bread hydrogen bond with each other and the starch crystalises when cold and makes the bread hard. This is the process of staling and putting bread in the fridge causes this process to speed up.
Well done to Henrietta. Taking everyday questions and finding a scientific answer is the basis of science. Before we explore the solar system, we need to know the answer to certain things in our own kitchens.
Wow ! Could this be the scientific breakthrough of the century?
And what questions were you asking at her age and trying to find an answer for?
Working out how many times he could do it in one day, like everybody else.
Bernard – I’ve been up there every year for the past 10 years and it elates me to see really innovative projects, but FFS who really gives a sh*t about which gets moldier first? I’m pretty sure its in Louis Pasteur notes if we really wanted to know.
Who really gives a ****.
Well I think the fact that this young girl is concerning herself with why bread moulds or doesn’t is a very good thing for her and hopefully, she will ask herself more questions and try and solve those. That is the basis of the Young Scientist, encouraging young people to ask questions about science and answer them.
Fair play to her
Very creative yet simple
I hope she won something
I’d imagine wine would get ya mowldier than bread?
What kind of “science experiment” is this?
Give the kids some encouragement Margaret, it’s a better type of experiment than the scrotes get up to.
Food science and the discovery and invention of new ingredients is actually one of our most important industries, but don’t let that distract you from criticising the effort and work of a teenager in the area
I’m well aware of the importance of food science but hanging around to see which bread goes mouldy quicker isn’t the sort of stuff you would expect to see at a young scientist competition.
Another exhibition involved doing a survey about people’s feelings regarding climate change. Conclusion? That most people don’t really care. Groundbreaking!
I think we should aim a little higher
than this
It is easier to spot on white bread.
Considering mould is usually white before it is green, I think that might be a tad wrong.
Slow us more female scientists. If you show a male one that is sexiest.
Brown bread does not have more nutrients that white bread apart from fibre..unless you include seeds in the production, which you could just as easily do to white bread.
have your say