Burning Borderlands: Open-Source Monitoring of Conflict-caused Wildfires in Iraq

Iraq is on fire. Since late June, media has reported on wildfires in northern parts of Iraqi Kurdistan among the border with Turkey, along the border with Iran in the northeast and in the southeast of Iraq at the Hawizeh marshes, bordering Iran. A hazardous cocktail of climate change-induced increased summer heat, water shortages, military shelling of various armed groups operating in these areas combined with random human errors and spontaneous outbreaks left the earth scorched. This blog will provide a short open-source based overview based on media reporting on various locations in Iraq combined with the use of satellite imagery provided by the European Space Agencies' Sentinel-2, NASA's Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) suite and commercial imagery provided with by Planet Labs.

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IFSD Pre-PhD course for PhD by prior publication: Different areas covered, including Climate, Sustainable Development and Social Development

Dear all,

Some friends in our network have started an initiative - pre-PhD course for PhD by prior publication, aiming to help well-experienced professional who are willing to start a PhD at reputed institutes in the UK and Australia but do not have much idea about where to start from. I believe many people in this group benefit from this service. For details, please see  www.ifsd.com.au . Please free free to share this news in your network.

regards,

Tek

Key features of the course are: 

- the course enables mid- and early career professionals to get ready for PhD by prior publication

- IFSD course runs anywhere between 6 months to 18 months, depending on the amount of publication to be done

- After the IFSD course, students will be enrolled at a university in Australia or the UK

- the fees for IFSD range from USD 3000-7000, and the University fee ranges from USD 5000-25,000 depending the rank and type of the university. Altogether, it about 25% of the cost of conventional PhD. 

- total time duration of PhD Enrolment at the university will be between 6 months to 18 moths, with majority completing in 12 months

- IFSD course is totally online or through distance learning. Students can do most of the university part online and from distance, but they need to appear at the university for the final exam. 

This course is suitable for people in the academia, research institutions, NGOs, and the government agencies. Anyone who has done good research, has data but not yet published can benefit from the course. 

For well published and smart professionals, it could be as fast as 6 months of university enrollment to get a PhD!