Humanitarian

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse LoughreyGet our The Life Cinematic email for freeRussian President Vladimir Putin has handed actor Steven Seagal the Order of Friendship award for his “humanitarian work”.The 70-year-old actor, who also holds a Russian citizenship, has reiterated his support for Putin plenty of times in the past. In fact, last year, a birthday dinner was held in his honour in Moscow.The awarding of the Order of Friendship was announced on the Russian…

Processing Irregular Excel Tables Without Using Hard-coded RulesCreated by DALL-E2 with prompt “A painting of 10 wood tables”. There are 9 tables in the image above.TL;DRAs part of a previous study using data from the Humanitarian Data Exchange, I had to analyze thousands of Excel files where tables within those files were often difficult to parse into database tables. Irregular layouts with merged cells, hierarchical columns, and annotations are difficult to anticipate with rule-based parsing when files originate from…

Responding to humanitarian disasters quickly, better still, anticipating them can save lives . Data is key to this, not just having lots of data, but clean data which is well understood in order to create a clear view of the situation on the ground. In many cases this critical data is stored in hundreds of small spreadsheets, so piecing them altogether can be time consuming and difficult to maintain as new data comes in during a humanitarian incident. Automating the process of data discovery would potentially speed…

Impacts of intimate partner violence in humanitarian settings using an amended ecological framework. Credit: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (2021). DOI: 10.3390/ijerph18136963 Intimate partner violence is pervasive in humanitarian settings and its impacts are far-reaching, finds a new study from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.…

After disasters, damaged water and power infrastructure can turn a localized crisis into a national catastrophe. “When typhoons and earthquakes cause utility infrastructure to collapse, such events turn into large disasters,” says Kasmi. “And downed power systems hamper recovery efforts, when light sources for nighttime rescue operations are extinguished or essential facilities like hospitals and telecommunications systems shut down.” Power beaming, the delivery of energy as wireless beams through aerial platforms, can…

How autonomous weapon system will develop in the future is a major source of contention at the UN The world as we know it is not binary. It is hazy and unclear, full of alternatives and possible consequences, complex, and nuanced. In order to establish and uphold some semblance of order, our societies build laws and cultural standards, yet these systems are frequently open to interpretation and change through time. Although ethical principles have been created in order to close gaps between evolving technologies and…

French Montana puts his money where his mouth is.The Moroccan-born artist has consistently used his platform to promote and fund charitable causes relating to education, immigration, and health. French’s philanthropic work was celebrated Thursday night during the annual Pencils of Promise Gala, where he received the 2022 Innovator Award for humanitarian efforts in Africa.French was recognized for helping raise more than $226 million for healthcare in Uganda, as well as his financial support for the Budondo Suubi “Hope”…

Lil Baby was honored with the Quincy Jones Humanitarian Award at Black Music Action Coalition’s second annual Music in Action Awards Gala, which took place Thursday night at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills.The Atlanta rapper was celebrated for his contributions to racial and social justice. Earlier this year, Lil Baby hosted his third annual Back to School Fest in Atlanta, which provided over 3,000 local children with backpacks, school supplies, haircuts, and other essentials. In addition, Baby joined forces with…

With United Nations confirming that more than 3.3 million refugees have now fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's office has launched a humanitarian aid website helping to find out how to and whom to address the aid.Ukraine's local media outlet, The Kyiv Independent, wrote, "President's Office launches humanitarian aid website. The official website helps to find out how to send and whom to address humanitarian aid. The portal also provides contacts of foreign and Ukrainian humanitarian…

When 5.3 million Ukrainians entered the EU between February and June 2022, alongside life-saving emergency assistance came similarly crucial support: the right to stay and work in the EU for up to three years. This arose out of the recognition that people deserve the chance to make a living in exile—and that doing so can benefit host countries as well. …