By Mariana Osihn

ROME, 25 March 2013 - Italy has moved to empower its leaders to make better informed decisions to reduce the country's overall disaster risk.

The government is in the process of establishing a national disaster loss database in the wake of last year's devastating series of earthquakes and after-shocks that caused EUR13 billion of losses.

The disaster, in the Emilia-Romagna, Lombardia and Veneto regions, resulted in the loss of a stock of Parmesan cheese that alone was worth an estimated EUR200 million.

The Italian Ambassador to Jordan, Patrizio Fondi, has visited the Syrian refugee camp in Zaatari to deliver medical supplies for the Italian-Jordanian field hospital. The supplies will be used to treat respiratory illnesses, diabetes, high blood pressure, reproductive health and children’s conditions, as requested by the hospital’s director.

Supplies of equipment and prefabricated modules

Natural Disasters in Asia

Analyses of EM-DAT disaster statistics for the last decades provide us with insights on the trends and patterns of disaster occurrence and impact, both globally and in individual continents, regions and countries. From 2002 to 2011 worldwide, a total of 3,800 disasters killed over 1 million people, affected 2.5 billion others and caused US$ 1,453 billion of economic damages.

The refugee emergency and food crisis are what most concern the European Union in Mali. The alarm was sounded by Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva upon her return from a mission to Bamako and Burkina Faso, one month on from her last visit.

Italian Development Cooperation has donated food and medical supplies to the population of the Lake Turkana region in north-western Kenya, where communities are suffering extreme conditions and serious shortages of basic supplies.

The Italian donation, of 150,000 euros, was used to buy 74 tons of corn, 47 tons of beans and 22,000 litres of cooking oil. The medical supplies donated include antibiotics, an incubator and equipment for maternity and paediatric services.

Help for about 8200 people

01/01/2013 13:07 GMT

ROME, Jan 01, 2013 (AFP) - An immigrant's body washed up on a beach in Sicily on Tuesday after two boat landings from North Africa in two days, including one in which dozens of migrants were forced to swim ashore by the crew.

The body was found near the seaside village of Tre Fontane, the same area where Italian border police said they had tracked down 48 undocumented migrants on Monday and Tuesday after two separate landings.

11 December 2012

New help from Italy for the Syrian refugees. A emergency humanitarian flight has airlifted 8 generators, 100 multi-purpose tents with heat-cold insulation for the winter, and 2000 blankets to Amman. The supplies, for Syrian refugees currently in refugee camps in Jordan, were delivered to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), which will distribute them over the next few days.

Support amounting to €7.5 million

Italy renewed its pledge to support the consolidation of the Syrian opposition to the Assad regime, as well as to “seek to alleviate the serious humanitarian crisis” and gave its consent to the “concrete solidarity” initiative with Turkey involving the deployment of Patriot missiles for the “exclusive defence” of the southeastern borders of NATO. “We are extremely concerned over the Syrian crisis and consider entirely unacceptable the suffering inflicted on the civilian population.

• Seismologists convicted of manslaughter

• Earthquake early warning “nearly impossible”

• No protocols to communicate seismic risk

BANGKOK, 4 December 2012 (IRIN) - The recent conviction in Italy of seismologists on manslaughter charges, based on their failure to warn residents about a 2009 earthquake, could have serious repercussions for earthquake preparedness, experts say.