Good News Agency – Year XI, n° 183
Weekly – Year XI, number 183 –
25th February 2011
Managing Editor: Sergio Tripi, Ph. D.
Good News Agency carries
positive and constructive news from all over the world relating to voluntary
work, the work of the United Nations, non governmental organizations and
institutions engaged in improving the quality of life – news that doesn’t “burn
out” in the space of a day. It is
distributed free of charge through Internet to 10,000
media and editorial journalists in 54 countries and to 3,000 NGOs and 1,600
high schools, colleges and universities. It is an all-volunteer
service of Associazione Culturale
dei Triangoli e della Buona
Volontà Mondiale, an
educational charity associated with the United
Nations Department of Public Information. The Association has been recognized by UNESCO as “an actor of the global movement for a culture of peace” and it is a
member of the World Association of Non Governmental Organizations.
International
legislation – Human rights – Economy
and development
– Solidarity
Peace and
security – Health – Energy and Safety – Environment and
wildlife
Religion and spirituality – Culture and education
The 2008 Convention
comprehensively bans the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of cluster
munitions, sets strict deadlines for clearance of contaminated land and
destruction of stockpiles of the weapon, and includes groundbreaking provisions
for assistance to victims and affected communities. A total of 108 countries
have signed the treaty, which entered into force as binding international law
on 1 August 2010. Its historic First Meeting of States Parties was held from
9-12 November 2010 in Lao PDR – the most heavily cluster-bombed country in the
world.
http://www.stopclustermunitions.org/news/?id=2844
3 February – The United
Nations today launched an action plan to combat piracy off the Somali coast,
calling for greater support from national navies to fight a “global menace”
that threatens not only international trade but the world body’s delivery of
vital food aid to millions of hungry people. One of the prime objectives of the
new plan is “to promote greater levels of support from, and coordination with,
navies” off Somalia, where patrols by the European Union, the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization and UN member states already provide “vital protection” for
UN vessels delivering logistical support to the African Union force in
Mogadishu, which seeks to help stabilize the war-torn country, and for UN food
shipments to the 2.4 million Somalis who urgently need it.
Beyond promoting greater
support from navies, the plan’s priorities include boosting anti-piracy
coordination and co-operation among countries, regions, organizations and
industry, through information-sharing and military and civil efforts; and
helping countries to build capacity in piracy-infested regions in order “to
deter, interdict and bring to justice” the perpetrators.
Invigorating
rural economies: IFAD annual meeting draws to a close with a call for greater
youth involvement in agriculture and business growth
In opening the meeting
yesterday, the Fund’s President, Kanayo F. Nwanze, told delegates that IFAD is taking steps to create
more vibrant rural economies, which in turn will propel the agency’s rural poverty
reduction efforts. In his keynote address to the Governing Council, Kofi Annan, Chairman of the
A plenary panel discussion on
Saturday, “Feeding future generations: young rural people today – prosperous,
productive farmers tomorrow,” moderated by former CNN International presenter Tumi Makgabo, provided an interactive discussion on the critical challenges rural youth face
and how their energy can be tapped to help create more vibrant rural economies.
Feeding future generations:young rural people today – prosperous, productive
farmers tomorrow
18 February - Education
International, working together with other Global Unions, is ready to bring and
share their expertise at the UN Commission on the Status of Women (UNCSW).
“Access and participation of women and girls to education, training,
science and technology, including for the promotion of women’s equal access to
full employment and decent work” is the main theme of the 2011 session of the
UN CSW. The joint trade union delegation is formed by almost 90 delegates from
all regions; out of these, 27 participants from 15 education unions will
represent Education International. A joint statement “From the
Classroom to the Workplace – Positioning Women for Decent Work in the Knowledge
Economy” was submitted to the UN in
November 2010.
It will be the first time that gender,
education and decent work are included as priority themes in the UNCSW working
agenda. Global Unions have been building up this momentum over more than 20
years. Joining trade union forces for advocacy, networking and working in
solidarity were raised as key aspects for success at the workshop session
“Advocacy: Can UN Women close the equality gap?”, organised
at EI’s First World Women’s Conference – On the Move
for Equality, which took place in January 2011 in Bangkok. Participants
discussed the role of the new UN Women agency and developed strategies for
making teachers’ voices heard in the international arena. http://www.ei-ie.org/en/news/show.php?id=1524&theme=gender&country=global
16 February - Education International and its affiliates have participated in workshops on
early childhood education and child labour in western
Africa at the World Social Forum which has been held in
Making their interventions, EI affiliated teacher unionists from SYNESP
(Benin); SYNTER (Burkina Faso); BUPL (Denmark); GEW (Germany); GNAT (Ghana);
NAGRAT (Ghana);SNEB (Niger), FESEN (Togo), joined members of EI’s Senegalese affiliates and EI’s
Africa Region staff to discuss policies to enhance early childhood education,
as recommended by the Education for All (EFA) program and the UN Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs). Participants agreed that
unions in western
http://www.ei-ie.org/en/news/show.php?id=1523&theme=educationforall&country=global
Indigenous
people wins ruling against Chevron
The
American oil company Chevron was recently ordered to pay $8.2bn after years of
environmental damage in the Amazon in
By Tine Johansen
16 February – “This is a big
day for the environment and for the rights of indigenous people in the Amazon,”
says Per Ranestad, NPA’s
regional director in
The ruling against Chevron is
the largest relating to oil drilling. According to NPA’s
partner in Ecuador ”Frente de
Chevron has already appealed
the ruling. The documentary Crude, which is based on 600 hours of recording,
documents how comprehensive and overwhelming the contamination is. (…)
http://www.npaid.org/en/News_Archive/?module=Articles;action=Article.publicShow;ID=16825
On
the protection of children and women,
10 February – During a visit
to
Geneva Call initiated a
dialogue in Lebanon on these initiatives, and meetings were held in Beirut and in
the refugee camps of Ain al-Hilwah, Mar Elias and Miye Miye with high-level
representatives from Hamas, Fatah,
the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Islamic Jihad, the Coalition
of Islamic Forces in Ain al-Hilwah refugee camp, and
the Palestinian security forces of the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. There
were productive exchanges of views in which all those present acknowledged the
need for Geneva Call's work and expressed their willingness to pursue further
dialogue on these areas ofhumanitarian concern. Geneva
Call looks forward to further productive exchange in due course.
IFAD
and
Minister Trinidad Jiménez García-Herrera said the
Spanish Food Security Cofinancing Facility Trust Fund
will consist of a €285.5 million loan from the Government of Spain combined
with a grant of €14.5 million to be committed during the years 2011 and 2012.
The loan maturity will be 45 years, including a grace period of five years,
with funding to be aligned with the policies and practices of IFAD.
“
The financial arrangement
between IFAD and
http://www.ifad.org/media/press/2011/11.htm
Afghan
almonds offer farmers high-value market opportunity
Agroforestry
initiative provides 33,000-plus saplings, training to farmers
February 18 – The quality and
taste of Afghan almonds attract a premium price on the world market, especially
in
IDEA-NEW provided more than
33,000 saplings of four popular almond varieties: Satar
Baye, Qambari, Qahar Baye and Zareer Baye. Providing the
orchard with four varieties helps ensure good pollination of the trees and
better production. IDEA-NEW agriculture
staff regularly monitored the saplings’ growth throughout the activity’s cycle
to observe progress. Toward the activity’s completion, however, some villages
experienced security concerns and monitoring became difficult. Still, staff
managed to monitor 76 of the orchards planted on 65.6 ha of the 100 ha planted.
Of the 20,792 saplings planted in these 76 orchards, 92 percent of them
survived— welcome news for the participant farmers.
ACDI/VOCA implements the
USAID-funded IDEA-NEW with partners DAI and Mercy Corps.
IFAD
provides US$28 million to help boost dairy production and improve herders’
living conditions in
Currently, the high potential
of the livestock sector is threatened by external factors such as international
market fluctuations, harsher climatic conditions and water availability, low
animal productivity, high cost of feed and the underdevelopment of value-added
products. “The project promises to achieve important gains in animal
productivity, volume of production, quality of collection and processing and
market outreach,” said Abdelhamid Abdouli,
IFAD’s Country Programme
Manager for Syria. The participatory
approach to be followed by the project will assist the target group in forming
community-based associations, such as farmers’ marketing associations, herders’
associations and village “Sanduq” committees, to
provide rural microfinance services, etc. These associations will play a vital
role in implementing project activities.
http://www.ifad.org/media/press/2011/7.htm
New
project won:
February 9 – ACDI/VOCA will
provide expert training in value chain approaches to financial services at two
regional knowledge-sharing events in
USAID officers will attend
seminars that review financial sector fundamentals such as examining enabling
environments and financial infrastructure needs through a value chain finance
framework. Topics will include information systems, microfinance and nonbank instruments.
ACDI/VOCA experts will
collaborate with colleagues at Chemonics to design
and facilitate participatory exercises to guide attendees through the process
of mapping financial needs in value chains, assessing available finance supply
and diagnosing constraints.
USAID attendees will increase
their understanding of strategies and mechanisms to finance food security-related
productivity investments. They also will emerge from the seminars with a
preliminary road map for designing new programs based on specific
ACDI/VOCA is a leader in
implementing programs that use a value chain approach to maximize program
impact and ensure sustainability of efforts.
Red
Cross helps hundreds of thousands of people affected by
By Mahieash
Johnney – IFRC, Communications & Information
Manager in
17 February – In the most
recent wave of flooding 18 people were killed, 22 were injured and three remain
missing. An estimated 30,000 homes have been partially or totally damaged and
the massive cost of rebuilding infrastructure such as roads, bridges and
culverts is still being calculated.
Since the floods first began
four months ago, the Sri Lanka Red Cross Society (SLRCS), supported by the
International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC),
has managed to assist over 800,000 people. Stranded families have been
evacuated by boat, cooked food and dry rations have been distributed, wells
have been cleaned and thousands of flood evacuees have been provided with
medical care and first aid services. “It has been a mammoth task to bring back
a sense of normality to people in the devastated areas” says
On its part, the IFRC launched
a 4.62 million CHF Appeal (4.8 million USD, 3.5 million Euros) to provide
emergency assistance to over 75,000 people (15,000 families). This also
includes cash grants to help restore livelihoods and rebuild damaged homes over
the next 12 months. However, so far only 20 per cent of the Appeal target has
been met.
http://www.ifrc.org/Docs/News/11/11021701/index.asp
By
Rotary International News, 15
February – The initiative of a Rotaractor and the
determination of a past Rotary International director helped secure a donation
of US$568,000 from Mercedes-Benz Brazil to support Rotarian disaster recovery
efforts in Chile.
Ana Carolina Silvestre da Costa, a Rotaractor and former
Rotary Youth Exchange student, has been working in the internal communications
department for
The Mercedes-Benz donation
more than doubled the amount available to Rotary clubs through the Foundation's
Rotary Chile Recovery Fund, set up after a powerful earthquake in February 2010
devastated parts of
http://www.rotary.org/en/MediaAndNews/News/Pages/110216_news_mercedesbenz.aspx
HELP
USA & Newark Mayor Cory Booker break ground
Public-private
partnership will provide 56 units of rental housing for veterans and low income
families
At
The Clinton Hill facility will
include computer rooms, a fitness center, meeting
rooms, and community service space. The latter will provide space for programs
that will serve veterans, other tenants, and members of the local community.
These programs will be operated by HELP USA and by Newark-based service providers.
http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/31624-HELP-USA-Newark-Mayor-Cory-Booker-Break-Ground
To help kick-start
agricultural production, Red Cross staff will give each family 20 kg of
groundnut seed and a further 20 kg of seed for fast-growing rice. Five hundred
other families of fishermen will receive the gear they need to resume their
livelihood.
To carry out such a
large-scale operation in these circumstances, it has been necessary to get the
help of the local population to repair roads and two airstrips. The operation
will continue until March, with dozens of flights a day into the area and hard
work by a large number of National Red Cross Society volunteers.
http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/news-release/2011/congo-kinshasa-news-2011-02-14.htm
CPI
helps raise funds for school for the deaf in
Posted by: Karen Matthee
February 14 – CPI organized a
fundraiser event to support a needy School for the Deaf in
The school is a public, free,
Ministry of Education-certified, co-educational facility located in the Khair Khana neighborhood
of
Closing the school for three
months would certainly have jeopardized the progress of the more than 300
students currently enrolled and create obvious financial difficulties for the
school's highly dedicated teachers (most of whom are women). While the
Subsequently, the staff of the
http://clearpathinternational.org/cpiblog/archives/001025.php
Cambodian
& Thai Red Cross help thousands during cross-border military clashes
Stephen Ryan, Asia Pacific zone
office
14 February – Recent
hostilities in the border region between
Thanks to their strong
grassroots networks and links with local communities, both National Societies
have been able to react rapidly to the needs on the ground and have been
working in close cooperation with their respective local and national
authorities to ensure the best use of resources, Shelter as well as relief items
(food and non-food) have been provided to those in need on both sides of the
border. In Cambodia and Thailand, the National Societies’ headquarters sent
teams to the affected regions early on to assess the needs of their local
branches and evaluate how best to support them.
http://www.ifrc.org/docs/news/11/11021003/index.asp
Rotary
Rotary India Humanity
Foundation, an arm of Rotary International, will pump in Rs.75 crore over the next three years for 5,000 surgeries on
under-privileged children suffering heart diseases in the country.Disclosing
this at the launch of the Foundation’s programme “Saving Little Hearts”, Rotary
International president Kalyan Banerjee
said the number of surgeries may also reach 7,500 within the three-year period.“We are committed to doing at least 5,000 heart
surgeries over the next three years, and most probably we will take this number
up to 7,500,” he said.
The programme has been
formulated and designed to ease the suffering and give normal life to children
suffering from congenital heart diseases.“Among the
children in need for urgent medical treatment, 60,000 to 90,000 need immediate
surgery to stay alive. Unfortunately, most of these cases are among those
children who are below the poverty line and cannot avail of these expensive
surgeries.” he said.“With
each of these surgeries costing between Rs. 1,00,000 to Rs. 2,50,000 and the
parents generally earning about Rs. 3,000 monthly,
the surgeries remain beyond their reach,” he added.
The next three years will
witness a fund output of Rs. 215 crores,
including the money allotted for the programme “Saving Little Hearts”. “Besides
the heart surgeries, we are also concentrating on other areas in healthcare,
education, environment, empowerment, disaster management and polio
eradication,” said Rotary International director Shekhar
Mehta.
http://www.thehindu.com/health/policy-and-issues/article1480908.ece
Italian
Red Cross responds to influx of Tunisian migrants
By Joe Lowry and Giovanni Zambello
14 February – Italian Red
Cross is responding to the influx of migrants from
The migrants are predominantly
young men, over 30 of whom are reported to have
drowned on route. Over 1,000 have been transferred to the mainland, in
http://www.ifrc.org/Docs/News/11/11021401/index.asp
A
brash hedge-fund manager applies his tactics to philanthropy
By Caroline Preston
February 6 - A few years ago,
Cheryl L. Dorsey was hosting a lunch for Echoing Green Foundation, the
social-entrepreneurship fund she runs, when a man she had never met before
approached her. “If Echoing Green is as good as you say it is, I’ll commit
$1-million and get involved,” she recalls him saying. Not too long after, the
then $2.6-million
That kind of move is
quintessential William A. Ackman. The 44-year old
hedge-fund manager is well known in the financial world for his brash brand of
activist investing, by which he has amassed a fortune that Forbes magazine last
year estimated at $700-million. (Mr. Ackman declined
to confirm whether that is accurate.)He’s not yet a familiar name in
philanthropy—but that could change. (...)
Through a foundation they
created in 2006, Mr. Ackman and his wife, Karen, plan
to eventually give away most of their wealth. Last year, they donated
$58-million to the Pershing Square Foundation, whose name reflects Mr. Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management, the hedge fund
he started in 2004. The contribution, along with $1.3-million they gave to 50
other nonprofits, puts the Ackmans in the No. 17 spot
on The Chronicle’s list of the most-generous donors.The
foundation is awarding grants at that same fast clip, pledging $84.3-million so
far. (…)
http://philanthropy.com/article/A-Brash-Hedge-Fund-Manager/126211/
Palestinian premier willing to
discuss reunification with Hamas
Ramallah, February 21 - Palestinian Prime
Minister Salam Fayyad on Monday said he is willing to
travel to the Gaza Strip to discuss forming a unity government with the
Islamist Hamas movement. Fayyad last week submitted
his government's resignation to Palestinian President Mahmoud
Abbas, who promptly asked him to form a new
government.
Speaking to reporters at his
office in Ramallah, Fayyad said that his initiative
calls for reunifying the West Bank and
D. R. Congo rebel leader
abandons armed group under UN demobilisation scheme
17 February - The United
Nations peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have
reported that a senior member of one of the most troublesome armed groups in
the eastern region of the country has turned himself in under the demobilisation programme run by
the mission. Lieutenant-Colonel Samuel Bisengimana,
also known as Sam Mutima-Kunda, a village chief and
influential figure in the Forces démocratiques de
Liberation du Rwanda (FDLR) - formed by Rwandan
ethnic Hutus linked to the 1994 genocide - defected this week after year-long
negotiations, according to the mission (MONUSCO).
The mission said his defection
under the terms of its Disarmament, Demobilization, Reintegration,
Rehabilitation and Repatriation (DDRRR) programme
dealt a serious blow to the FDLR, which he served as a member of the high
command. His defection follows the extraction from the FDLR of three other
fighters with the rank of major last month. Last year, 1,881 FDLR rebels,
including 64 officers, opted for voluntary surrender and disarmament under the
MONUSCO demobilisation programme.
World’s largest security body
vows to boost cooperation with UN
15 February – The world’s
largest regional security organization, embracing 56 States stretching from the
Laying out the chairmanship’s
priorities, he listed tangible progress in addressing protracted conflicts;
improved implementation of media freedom commitments; strengthening OSCE
response to trans-national threats; enhancing its role in the area of energy
security; and promoting tolerance education throughout the area.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=37537&Cr=regional&Cr1=organization
On 10 February MAG’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) experts working in Puntland, Somalia, destroyed more than deadly 380
Anti-Personnel (AP) mines and Anti-Tank (AT) mine fuses – the largest single
destruction of mines MAG has done since starting work in the troubled region in
2008. Senior local Police Commanders handed the mines to MAG’s
Technical Field Managers (TFM’s) during a visit to
the northern coastal town of
The authorities in
http://www.maginternational.org/news/somalia-largest-haul-of-mines-destroyed/
North and
9 February - North and
The vote was the culminating
point of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) ending two decades of
civil war between the North and the South that killed some 2 million people and
drove an estimated 4.5 million others from their homes, and Mr. Menkerios noted that “against the odds” the Sudanese
Government not only contributed to holding the referendum but accepted its
outcome. http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=37501&Cr=sudan&Cr1=
Project
HOPE and
Project HOPE
medical volunteers provide lifesaving training to improve care for sick and
vulnerable in
The HOPE medical volunteers
are training local staff to improve emergency room care, triage, and medical
procedures in local facilities that are sometimes hampered by a lack of staff
and equipment to treat the critically ill. Patients from infancy to the elderly
seeking treatment for fever, malaria and other treatable illnesses will also
receive care.
http://www.projecthope.org/news-blogs/press-releases/project-hope-and-us-navy.html
End
Polio Now messages heading your way
February 17 – 'End Polio Now'
is the call that accompanies the final steps to the eradication of polio. On 23
February, iconic monuments around the world will be lit up with this phrase.
On a small island of the
Throughout the week of 23
February, Rotary clubs and districts will also be illuminating iconic landmarks
around the world with the End Polio Now message. The landmarks include the Trevi Fountain in Rome, Italy; the parliament building in
The Hague, Netherlands; the soccer stadium in Cape Town, South Africa; a gate
at the Lantern Festival in Taiwan; Kanazawa Castle in Kanazawa, Japan; the
government building in Karachi, Pakistan; the planetarium in Seoul, Korea; the
Globe of the Mall of Asia in the Philippines; and the Charminar
in Hyderabad, India.
By the time the world is
certified polio free, Rotary's contributions to the global polio eradication
effort will exceed US$1.2 billion. In addition millions of dollars of 'in-kind'
and personal contributions have been made by and through local Rotary Clubs and
Districts for polio eradication activities. Of even greater significance has
been the huge volunteer army that has been mobilised by Rotary International.
Hundreds of thousands of volunteers at the local level are providing support at
clinics or mobilising their communities for immunisation or polio eradication
activities. More than one million Rotarians worldwide have contributed towards
the success of the polio eradication effort to date.
http://www.polioeradication.org/Mediaroom/Newsstories.aspx
Bloodless male circumcision to boost
HIV prevention in Rwanda
16 February - The Rwandan government plans to
expand its national voluntary male circumcision programme
using a new device, the PrePex system, which
officials say saves both time and money. The PrePex
system works through a special elastic mechanism that fits closely around an
inner ring, trapping the foreskin, which dries up and is removed after a week.
A study conducted by the Rwandan Ministries of Defence
and Health in 2010 found the device to be safe and effective."You
don't need a sterile environment, you don't need anaesthetic,
you don't need to use an operating theatre," Agnes Binagwaho,
permanent secretary in
Tanzania: Artists use music to
promote maternal health
10 February - A group of artists from the
Goal number 5 of the eight globally agreed
anti-poverty Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
calls for the reduction of maternal mortality deaths by three quarters, and the
attainment of universal access to reproductive health services by the target
date of 2015. The song produced at the end of the Arts and Advocacy workshop
calls on world leaders to pay greater attention to the rights of women and
girls, and urges the people of
10 February – Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)
has mobilized significant resources, particularly human resources, to address
the cholera epidemic that broke out in
This was the first time
Haitian health workers had ever dealt with cholera, as the country has never
experienced it before. MSF provided training to improve treatment.
Since the epidemic began in late
October 2010, MSF teams have treated more than 110,000 patients across the
country. Nearly 7,500 Haitians and 430 international employees are implementing
MSF's programs in field and are responsible for
battling cholera.
http://www.msf.org/msf/articles/2011/02/haiti-cholera-treatment-and-prevention-training.cfm
New
HOPE for
On
World Cancer Day,
Millwood, Virginia,
An estimated 45,000 new cases
of pediatric cancer occur each year in
Project HOPE is creating ambitious programs to enhance the capabilities
of the pediatric oncology program at SCMC.
http://www.projecthope.org/news-blogs/press-releases/new-hope-for-chinas-child.html
(top)
February 18,
ADRA’s two-month water
trucking intervention will provide safe drinking water to more than 1,290
households, or 7,700 people, in seven villages in Puntland’s
Nugaal region, giving priority to infants, children,
women and the elderly. This response is intended as a life saving measure to
prevent deaths from dehydration, reduce the risk of water-related diseases, and
provide for minimal cooking and personal hygiene.
The current drought has turned
the humanitarian situation precarious, and the resilience of the local
populations remains highly threatened, according to ADRA Somalia. Although the
latest drought is affecting most of
http://www.adra.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=11236&news_iv_ctrl=1141
Reducing
poverty by growing fuel and food
New
FAO study shows integrated food and energy crops work for poor farmers
Benefiting
the climate - Integrating food and energy production can also be an effective
approach to mitigating climate change, especially emissions stemming from land
use change. By combining food and energy production, IFES reduce the likelihood
that land will be converted from food to energy production, since one needs
less land to produce food and energy. Additionally, implementing IFES often
leads to increased land and water productivity, therefore reducing greenhouse
gas emissions and increasing food security.
Enhancing IFES practices will
contribute to the progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), including MDG 1 to end poverty and hunger and MDG 7
on sustainable natural resource management, FAO said.
http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/51165/icode/
DOE (U.S. Department of
Energy) announced on February 16 up to $5 million in funding to support
Graduate Automotive Technology Education (GATE) Centers
of Excellence. GATE Centers of Excellence will focus
on educating a future workforce of automotive engineering professionals who
will gain experience in developing and commercializing advanced automotive
technologies. The funding will help to achieve President Obama's
goal of putting 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2015, a plan
designed to reduce oil consumption by about 750 million barrels by 2030.
The GATE Centers
of Excellence will provide graduate level inter-disciplinary education in
critical automotive technology areas including: advanced combustion engines,
storage systems, hybrid propulsion and control systems, and lightweight
materials. The goal of the GATE Centers for
Excellence is to overcome technology barriers to the development and production
of cost-effective, high-efficiency vehicles for the
https://www.fedconnect.net/fedconnect/?doc=DE-FOA-0000442&agency=DOE
Assessing
agriculture's potential to mitigate global warming
Norway
and Germany support FAO's work to fill data gaps on
greenhouse gas emissions, create planning tools
Rome,15 February - The
governments of Norway and Germany have committed a combined total of $5 million
in support of an FAO programme to improve global information on greenhouse gas
emissions from agriculture and more accurately assess farming's potential to
mitigate global warming. The improved data acquired by FAO's
Mitigation of Climate change in Agriculture (MICCA) programme will be made
available via an online global knowledge base that will not only profile
greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture but will also identify best
opportunities for mitigating global warming through improved farming practices.
"Data variations in existing assessments, as well as information gaps,
pose a real challenge in terms of making the most of the agriculture sector's
significant potential to sequester atmospheric carbon," said Marja-Liisa Tapio-Bistrom,
coordinator of the FAO MICCA Programme.
Having access to improved data
will give governments, development planners, farmers and agribusinesses a tool
they can use to access international funding for mitigation projects and design
and implement policies, programs and practices intended to reduce agriculture's
GHG emissions, increase the amount of carbon sequestered on farms.
"Climate-smart"
farming practices can increase productivity and improve resilience to changing
weather and climate patterns while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/51042/icode/
3rd
Annual International Conference on Religion, Conflict, and Peace:
Walking
The Talk To Compassion And Harmony - April 8-10,
An
international forum promoting Inter-religious and Intra-religious dialogue
The spiritual experience is
both uniquely individual and universal, tapping into our deepest, most inner
self, while connecting us to the oneness with all. How each of us chooses our
own sometimes quite different path on this common journey can highlight an
appreciation for the rich diversity of human sacred practice, while at the same
time setting the stage for the potential hazards of elitism, competition,
polarity, and even animosity that paradoxically negate the core message of
unity, and hamper us on that journey.
Religious intolerance,
marginalization, scapegoating, and related conflict
are not new experiences, whether in the
Understanding how these
elements and conditions arise, how they compromise, contradict, and even
threaten original spiritual intent, and how they wound relationships between
and within religious communities, is essential to learning practical methods
for appreciating diversity and achieving harmony and peace in today's rapidly
shrinking and increasingly inter-dependant world community. The RCP Conference
seeks to create an engaged, inclusive dialogue to consciously explore together both broader historical dynamics, implications, and possible
remedies, and more recent specific manifestations playing out around us in
society today.
http://www.cbiworld.org/Pages/Conferences_RCP.htm
International
Mother Language Day, 21 February
Mother
language instruction “a powerful way to fight discrimination” says UNESCO
Director-General
“We know how important
education in the mother language is for learning outcomes,” declared Irina Bokova, Director-General of
UNESCO, on the occasion of International Mother Language Day, 21 February 2011.
“Mother language instruction is a powerful way to fight discrimination and
reach out to marginalized populations.”
“Projects on Linguistic
Diversity and New Technologies”, UNESCO’s IMLD information meeting, will
feature debates on ICTs and bilingual education. Amidou Maïga and Papa Youga Dieng, programme
leaders at Department of Education and Training Organisation
internationale de
Celebrated annually since
2000, International Mother Language Day provides an occasion to recognize the
vital importance of languages in education and to mobilize efforts in favour of multilingualism and linguistic diversity.
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-educationsystems/languages-in-education
Communication
from the Commission: early childhood education and care: providing all our
children with the best start for the world of tomorrow
17 February -
Complementing the central role
of the family, ECEC has a profound and longlasting impact
which measures taken at a later stage cannot achieve. Children's earliest experiences
form the basis for all subsequent learning. If solid foundations are laid in
the early years, later learning is more effective and is more likely to
continue life-long, lessening the risk of early school leaving, increasing the
equity of educational outcomes and reducing the costs for society in terms of
lost talent and of public spending on social, health and even justice systems.
The flagship initiative ‘Youth
on the Move’ as part of the EU's overarching Europe
2020 Strategy highlights the role of creativity and innovation for our
competitiveness and for the preservation of our standards of living in the
longer term. Against this background, it underlines that we must offer all our
young people the chance to develop their talents to the fullest possible
extent. http://ec.europa.eu/education/school-education/doc/childhoodcom_en.pdf
Rebuilt
center renews hope for Nahr
El Bared Youth
On January 21, ANERA staff,
students and teachers, friends, non-profit partners gathered in Nahr El Bared camp in northern
For 23 years, NAVTSS was a
place of learning and fun, where impoverished and underprivileged youth of the
refugee camp could study and learn like other kids their age elsewhere in
That ended in 2007 when fierce
fighting between militants inside the camp and the Lebanese Army left the center and most of the camp in ruins. For the next two
years, the center’s students returned to the
destroyed skeleton of a building and cleared out some of the rubble, sifting
through their personal belongings to find some semblance of normalcy in the
chaos. NAVTSS tried to continue its training classes inside the damaged
building, but any semblance of a normal education was difficult in the
atmosphere of destruction and conflict.
OXFAM, the
British-based non-profit, helped kick-start the rebuilding process by making
repairs to three of the center's classrooms. ANERA joined the
effort by meeting with the NAVTSS directors and together developing a plan to
rebuild the entire learning center to its
pre-conflict state.
The center’s
reconstruction was completed in 2010. NAVTSS now boasts newly equipped
classrooms, training courses and activities. Classes include nursing,
electrical work, carpentry, car mechanics, refrigeration and heating, nursery
teacher training, IT, secretarial skills and carpentry with aluminum.
http://www.anera.org/ourWork/commEcoDev/NewVocationalTrainingCenterNahrElBared.php
Young
musicians compete to perform at the World Children’s Festival on The National Mall across from the
Washington, February 14 –
Melody Street, LLC of Hollywood, CA and the International Child Art Foundation
(ICAF) DC launched an online music contest today for young musicians and
amateur groups in the United States and internationally to win the opportunity
to perform on the “World Stage” at the 4th World Children‟s
Festival (WCF) to take place on The National Mall across from the U.S. Capitol
on June 17-19, 2011.
Held every four years as the
“Olympics” of children's creativity and co-creation, the WCF has, since 1999,
evolved into the largest international children's celebration and a permanent quadrennial
event in our Nation's Capital.
The music contest offers young
musicians ages 6 to 16 the chance to showcase their talents on a national and
global stage. The contest also offers all children the opportunity to select
their favorite musicians and music groups and vote
for them so they are among the 25 finalists selected to perform at the WCF. The
submission of videos by young musicians and voting by their young fans opened
today > http://melodystreet.com/icaf/
http://www.icaf.org/pdfs/Press_Release_MS_ICAF%202-14-2011.pdf
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