Good News Agency – Year III, n° 21
Weekly - Year III, number 21 –
14 December 2002
Managing Editor: Sergio Tripi,
Ph. D.
Rome Law-court registration
no. 265 dated 20 June 2000.
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. Editorial research by Fabio Gatti. Good News Agency is
published in English on one Friday and in Italian the next. It is distributed free of charge through
Internet to the editorial offices of more than 2,400
media in 46 countries, as
well as to 1,000 NGO.
It is a service of Associazione Culturale dei Triangoli e della
Buona Volontà Mondiale, NGO associated with the United Nations Department of Public
Information.
International legislation
– Human rights – Economy
and development – Solidarity
Peace and security
– Health – Energy and
Safety
Environment and wildlife – Culture
and education
Canada
ratifies the Kyoto Climate Protocol
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, December 10 (ENS) - The Parliament of
Canada voted today to ratify the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change, bringing the treaty to limit greenhouse gases one
step closer to entry into force. Environmentalists cheered the vote, but
industry remains opposed to the binding emissions limits. (...)
The Kyoto Protocol becomes law
when a minimum of 55 countries covering at least 55 percent of 1990 greenhouse
gas emissions have ratified. Canada's vote brings the total to 98 countries,
covering 40.7 percent of greenhouse emissions.
Russia's ratification,
expected to take place in June 2003, will see the agreement take effect
globally. (...)
http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2002/2002-12-10-02.asp
West
African states and the UN identify gaps in the joint fight against human
trafficking
Vienna, 6 December (UN
Information Service) -- The Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS)
and West African experts called for immediate action by States to implement the
sub-regional Plan of Action against trafficking in human beings. The ECOWAS/UN
Office on Drugs and Crime Joint Expert Group Meeting, which
was held in Lomé, Togo, at the ECOWAS Fund Conference Center from 2 - 3
December 2002, adopted a series of recommendations which underline the need for
urgent legislative and institutional measures, such as the ratification of
international conventions, the criminalization of trafficking in human beings,
the establishment of National Task Forces and special law enforcement units or
the adoption of bilateral cooperation agreements to facilitate repatriation of
victims. (...)
http://www.undcp.org/odccp/press_release_2002-12-06_1.html
UN
rights expert salutes Timor Leste's adoption of Migrant Worker's Treaty
New York, Dec 11 - A United
Nations human rights expert today hailed the adoption by Timor-Leste of a
global treaty protecting migrant workers and their families, a move that gave
the accord the force of international law. Gabriela Rodriguez Pizarro, the UN's
Special Rapporteur on the question of the human rights of migrants, said the
entry into force of the Convention on the Protection of Migrant Workers and
their Families "is a great success for all those who have voiced the
suffering of migrants and who have campaigned for the establishment of an
international legal framework for the protection of the human rights of
migrants."
Yesterday, Timor-Leste became
the twentieth country to sign on to the Convention, which was adopted 12 years
ago by the UN General Assembly. (...) According to the Special Rapporteur, the
Convention "offers a holistic approach to the human rights of migrants and
summarizes in a single instrument a broad gamut of rights, including civil,
political, economic, social and cultural rights."
Security
Council debates measures to protect civilians in armed conflict
New York, December 10 - As the
United Nations Security Council discussed measures to protect civilians in
armed conflict, UN officials today stressed the urgency of finding practical
ways to improve the safety of individuals and provide for them after the
fighting has ended.
Speaking at the outset of the
Council's meeting, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the question is among the
most urgent, and most important, for the Council and for the UN as a whole in
addressing the effects of fighting around the world. (...)
Noting that today is Human Rights Day, the Secretary-General also emphasized the "unambiguous linkage" between improving the security of the individual person and securing and sustaining peace and preventing violent conflict, calling for practical measures and a clear path from policy to implementation. "We need to move forward and develop a more systematic approach to this issue," he said, urging a solid structure through which analysis and policy, and an awareness of best practices, can be translated immediately into action that makes a difference in people's lives. (...)
At a press conference on 17 December, ECLAC will present: Preliminary
Overview of the Economies of Latin America and the Caribbean 2002
9 December - José Antonio Ocampo, Executive
Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), will offer a press
conference to present the Preliminary Overview of the Economies of Latin
America and the Caribbean 2002, next Tuesday 17 December,
at 11 am, at ECLAC
headquarters in Santiago, Chile, Raúl Prebisch Room (Av. Dag Hammarskjöld s/n,
Vitacura).
This publication, one of the most important prepared
by this regional commission of the United Nations, includes official data
through 30 November and analyses economic trends and estimates for all of 2002.
Projections for 2003 will also be presented.
The report summary and a Power Point presentation will
be available on 17 December in Spanish and English on our web site, www.eclac.cl or www.eclac.org , from GMT 15:00 hours on (noon, Chile time).
UN Volunteers use Internet to boost business in
Ecuador
9 December - United
Nations Volunteers (UNV) are harnessing the Internet to help start new businesses, ranging
from canning and freezing fish to artisans joining forces to market wooden
crafts, in a new initiative in Esmeraldas Province in north-west Ecuador.
The project, in cooperation with UNDP, is expanding to
eight more provinces through alliances with local partners. It aims to promote
business start-ups and local development to create jobs and reduce poverty.
There are more than 2,000 fishing families in Esmeraldas selling on the local
market at low prices, for example, and the project is helping them find other
markets.
The initiative is vital to the province's economic,
social and cultural development, said Ernesto Estupiñan, Mayor of Esmeraldas,
the provincial capital. "It will help create a business culture in the
province," he said. (...)
http://www.undp.org/dpa/index.html
9 December,
Rome/Abuja -- African leaders will
seek better ways to spearhead regional food security programmes at a high-level
meeting in Abuja on 11-12 December.
In addition to
President Obasanjo of Nigeria, eight Heads of State or their representatives
are invited to the Abuja meeting in their quality of chairpersons of
Africa's Regional Economic Organizations. (...) Dr Omar Kabbaj, President of
the African Development Bank (ADB), Dr. Jacques Diouf, Director-General of the
UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Prof. Wiseman Nkuhlu, Chairperson
of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) Steering Committee, and
high-ranking officials from African Regional Economic Organizations,
representatives of Farmers Associations and multi-bilateral development and
financial agencies will participate in the meeting
which is jointly organized by the NEPAD steering committee, ADB and FAO.
Ways and means to
harmonize the activities of the regional economic organizations with the NEPAD
Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) are on top of
the agenda. Discussions will focus on the role of the regional economic
organizations and how to secure their commitment to agriculture, particularly
in agricultural trade facilitation, food safety measures to protect the
consumers in the Continent and to promote agricultural trade, and regional
support to national food security and agricultural development efforts.
Participants will
also discuss cooperation between regional and international financial
institutions in support of increased investments in agricultural and rural
development. (...)
http://www.fao.org/english/newsroom/news/2002/11920-en.html
In developing countries, only a small fraction of
domestic production of fruits and vegetables is processed despite the fact that
tremendous potential exists for global marketing. (...) UNIDO studies reveal
that skills for a systematic approach to project formulation is a major
constraint in tapping opportunities and taking judicious investment decisions.
Responding to the situation, a training programme on
Industrial Project Preparation and Appraisal (IPPA) with a special focus on
Fruit and Vegetable Processing Sector has been planned.
The programme is offered by the Inter-Regional Centre
(IRC) for Entrepreneurship and Investment Training created by United Nations
Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and Government of India at
Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDI). This is the thirteenth
programme in the series. (...)
http://www.unido.org/it/doc/5220
Livestock
survey started in Afghanistan
3 December 2002,
Rome/Kabul - A national livestock census has started in Afghanistan.
More than
30 000 villages and farming communities will be visited over the coming
months to provide detailed information on the number of animals and livestock
production practices, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO).
FAO is conducting
the survey in close cooperation with the government of Afghanistan and
non-governmental organizations, with financial assistance from the government
of Italy. (...)
http://www.fao.org/english/newsroom/news/2002/11520-en.html
Beirut, 1 December - The
United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) will be
launching the Arabic version of "Visible Hands" in a press conference
to be held on Monday the 2nd of December 2002 at 11:00 am at the United Nations
House, Riad Solh Square, Beirut.
"Visible Hands", a
report of the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development
(UNRISD), explores recent efforts to reassert the value of equity and social
cohesion in an increasingly individualistic world. Markets in themselves have
no capacity to imagine or create a decent society for all. Only the
"visible hands" of governments and public spirited people can do
that. Too much confidence in the "invisible hand" of unregulated
markets has been matched by too little understanding of the necessary relation
between public policy and development. Efficient markets require the
contributions of a well-run public sector. They require a healthy and
well-informed population. They require the social stability that grows out of
democratic governance and an acceptable level of public provision. (...)
http://www.escwa.org.lb/information/press/escwa/2002/1dec.html
5 December - On 1
and 2 December the ICRC distributed aid to displaced people living in three
camps near the city of Skardu, in Pakistan's Northern Areas.
The aid, consisting of blankets, shawls, quilts, soap,
kitchen utensils, stoves and kerosene, was handed out to 291 families (some
1,700 individuals) in the presence of local and regional officials.
The displaced people had left their villages along the
line of control in May owing to continuous shelling. (...) "This
distribution was especially crucial as the temperatures are now falling below
zero", said Muhammad Ali, an elder from one of the affected villages in
the Gultari sector. "We hope that the authorities will live up to their
promise to find us houses until the spring, when, if all goes well, we can
return to our villages ".
The delivery of aid was delayed for a week owing to
landslides that cut off the Karakorum highway leading to Skardu after an
earthquake, followed by numerous aftershocks, hit the Astore region on 21
November. The ICRC trucks carrying the aid were the first to be allowed to use
the road again once it had been cleared.
http://www.icrc.org/Web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/5GJL4F?OpenDocument&style=custo_final
5 December - Helping women to resettle and rebuild their lives after
years of conflict is a priority for the ICRC in Sierra Leone. In 2002
the organization provided agricultural assistance for 415 women's associations
in Kono and Kailahun districts, in the eastern part of the country, in
cooperation with the Sierra Leone Red Cross Society and the Ministry of
Agriculture. The community-based vegetable-farming project was specifically
designed to improve the living standards of women and enhance their ability to
generate income.
Prior to the delivery of the assistance, participants
were taught how to prepare a nursery and where to locate a garden. They also
learned about pest control and soil conservation and received information on
marketing and other production issues. The package received by each group
consisted of imported and local vegetable seed, hoes, shovels, metal buckets,
machetes and wheelbarrows. Over 8,000 women are estimated to have benefited
from the project.
In 2000 and 2001, 971 women's associations (71,442
beneficiaries) received similar assistance in the Western Area, Bombali,
Tonkolili, Koinadugu, Kambia, Port Loko, Bo, Pujehun and Kenema districts.
http://www.icrc.org/Web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/5GJL5K?OpenDocument&style=custo_final
Relief food convoy arrives in Southern Somalia, despite major security
obstacles
Nairobi, 3
December – The UN
World Food Programme has condemned major obstacles imposed by various local
authorities and militiamen in Somalia while recently transporting by road 700
tonnes of relief food to southern Somalia. The 24 truck convoy, which departed
from the Port of Merca on 17 November and arrived only yesterday, was delayed
at over 40 checkpoints, turning the typically three-day journey into a 21-day
odyssey. “What should have been a quick and hassle-free operation, has instead
taken three weeks of long and painstaking negotiations,” said Robert Hauser,
WFP Country Representative for Somalia. “It is indicative of the extreme
difficulties in conducting relief work in this part of Somalia.” (...)
The food aid to be distributed over the next week in the Bay and Bakool
regions will be given to Mother and Child Health Centers (MCH) where WFP
provides food rations to poor families with malnourished children, reaching
some 1,600 families (9,600 beneficiaries).
The food is also being distributed in support of community based
food-for-work projects, benefiting some 12,000 people to whom food is given in
return for work on rehabilitation projects, such as the construction of water
catchments. (...)
http://www.wfp.org/newsroom/frontpage/index.html#
$4.75 million granted to CARE and Save the Children to relieve African
food crisis exacerbated by HIV/AIDS
Seattle, December 3 - CARE and Save the Children have
received grants totaling $4.75 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation to help avert famine in southern and eastern Africa. More than 22
million people -- 14 million in southern Africa and at least 8 million in
eastern Africa -- are at risk of disease, malnutrition, or starvation resulting
from severe droughts and the HIV/AIDS pandemic. (...)
The scarcity of food in southern Africa is a result of
multiple factors, including lack of rainfall, depleted supply of grain
reserves, and low production levels of maize and fertilizer. A high incidence
of HIV/AIDS in most of the region also has contributed to the crisis. The
majority of grant funds will support efforts by Save the Children and CARE to
meet immediate human needs and lay the groundwork for rebuilding assets and
livelihoods. (...)
CARE and Save the Children used foundation funding
earlier this year to distribute food and to develop a surveillance system that
helps determine nutritional and food supply needs in Malawi. With this new
grant, the organizations will continue to work together to identify the
nutritional needs of families already weakened by the HIV/AIDS pandemic in
Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. By training community health workers and
volunteers in recognizing nutritional deficiencies, Save the Children, and CARE
hope to limit the number of individuals at risk of disease and death.
http://www.careusa.org/newsroom/pressreleases/2002/dec/12032002_gates.asp
New, creative
website to help wipe out poverty and save the rainforests.
Gareth Ford-Williams, a
happily married father of two from Ramsbottom, Lancashire, U.K., is the driving
force behind a new website which aims to help alleviate third world poverty and
slow down the destruction of the rainforests. Earlier this year, a six-year-old
girl asked her father: "Why do people go hungry and babies die when we've
got lots of food in our country?" Gareth decided to look at ways in which
he and Molly could make a difference to some of the world's biggest problems,
and help others do the same. "I don't want my kids to grow up thinking
there's nothing they can do to help the world, even a little bit. There's
always something you can do, it's just finding it. That is where the idea for
the website, www.makethatdifference.com, came from."
He decided to launch a portal to bring together
free donation websites; helping people to donate for free to a number of
charities simply by clicking on Internet links. The concept is simple: you (the
Free Donator) visit the charity website and are invited to click on a free
donation button. When you do so, you are exposed to a few sponsorship messages
for commercial websites. The funds raised from this form of advertising is paid
directly to the charity from the sponsors. The Free Donator is informed of what
click will contribute: for example, 1 bowl of rice to a street child in Brazil
that would otherwise go hungry. There's no catch, absolutely nothing; you part
with no money and the charity gets essential funds.
"Through our website it
takes just a few minutes to reduce the amount of suffering in the world and
help protect our children's future. I believe that alone it can feel hard to
help the world, but if we all push together we can move mountains. www.makethatdifference.com is one place we
can all push together and make a difference in people's lives and the future of
our planet. Caring a little more can genuinely cost nothing. It's the drop of
water idea: a few drops make a puddle, but millions can make an ocean."
For more information, contact Gareth Ford-Williams and Molly at garethfw@care2.com
Rotarians in India help reduce
impact of deafness on poor rural students
The Rotary Club of Nanganallur, India, completed two Matching Grant
Projects on November 14th -- Jawaharlal Nehru's birthday, celebrated as
children's day. One of the projects is providing group hearing aid systems to
Jeevan Gnaodhaya high school for deaf at Chengalpattu, Tamilnadu, India; the
other project is providing Science Laboratory equipments to upgrade the school
to a higher secondary school level.
Thru
these two Projects - that were carried out also with the financial assistance
of Rotary Club of Davenport, Iowa, USA, and the Rotary Foundation - about 120 poor hearing impaired students are
brought at par with other children studying in other regular high schools, thus
allowing them to reduce their mental and moral suffering and to improve their
future employment opportunities.
Project contact:
K.S.Srinivasan, Rotary Club Nanganallur, India, nanganallurkss@rediffmail.com
Business
meeting in Croatia fosters regional links and reconciliation
12 December - A regional
business meeting held recently in Vukovar, Croatia, has set the stage for wider
commercial cooperation, marking an important step in overcoming the bitter
legacy of conflict during the past decade. More than 120 representatives of
companies and Chambers of Commerce from four former Yugoslav republics -
Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia - gathered for the
business-to-business event organized by UNDP and the local Chamber of Commerce.
They agreed to urge their governments to ease customs regulations and
procedures in the region to encourage cross-border commerce.
The participants plan to hold
further meetings on a regular basis to strengthen economic cooperation, and
have scheduled the next for early April in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia.
Vukovar, in eastern Croatia,
reflects both the region's past and hopes for a brighter future: it lies at the
crossroads of many traditional trading routes and was the scene of atrocious
war crimes a decade ago. (...)
http://www.undp.org/dpa/index.html
Second
Global Summit on Peace through Tourism: Geneva, Switzerland, February 5-8, 2003
Continuing to build a
"Culture of Peace through Tourism" and harnessing the world's largest
industry as a leading force for poverty reduction are the aims of the Second
Global Summit on Peace Through Tourism to be held in Geneva, Switzerland,
February 5-8, 2003, at the International Conference Centre. From this historic
setting, a "Government - Industry - Donor, and NGO Round-Table"
will feature leaders from these four key sectors exchanging ideas, and reaching
consensus, on a coordinated strategy for poverty reduction.
Summit Outcomes will include a
"21st Century Agenda for Peace through Tourism"; a
beginning government - industry - donor - NGO collaborative strategy for the
role of tourism in poverty reduction; Youth Travel initiatives; Educational
Initiatives; Travel & Tourism related micro-enterprise initiatives; pilot
projects that empower local communities to achieve jobs with dignity and
sustainable futures; and the dedication of a Dag Hammarskjold International
Peace Park as a legacy of the Summit. The Summit is being organized by the
International Institute for Peace through Tourism in partnership with the World
Travel & Tourism Council.
The International Institute
For Peace Through Tourism (IIPT) is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to
fostering and facilitating tourism initiatives which contribute to
international understanding and cooperation, an improved quality of
environment, the preservation of heritage, and through these initiatives,
helping to bring about a peaceful and sustainable world.
The World Travel & Tourism
Council is the global business leaders forum. Members are chief executives from
all sectors of the industry. The mission of the Council is to raise awareness
of the industry's importance and to work with governments to create and implement
policies that can unlock the industry's potential to generate economic growth
and create jobs.
A $7 million gift to immunization; UNICEF to produce special greeting
cards.
New York / Athens, 6 December - UNICEF and the
Cultural Olympiad, a new international organization set up to highlight the
relationship between sports and culture, today began a partnership that will
give over 1 million children a better chance of growing up free from disability
and disease.
The Cultural Olympiad announced today that it will
donate US $7 million to UNICEF's global immunization efforts, enabling UNICEF
to reach 1.4 million children with life-saving vaccinations in poor, rural and
hard-to-reach communities.
In exchange for the donation, UNICEF will gear its
2003 holiday greeting cards and 2004 spring greeting cards to themes related to
sports and culture, conveying the spirit of goodwill and cross-cultural
understanding that the Cultural Olympiad was created to promote. (...)
http://www.unicef.org/newsline/02pr71.htm
Washington, DC, USA — 2 December 2002 - In recognition of his role in
establishing Rotary International as the catalyst to eradicate polio from the
Western Hemisphere, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) today presented
Dr. Carlos Canseco of Monterrey, Mexico with the Public Health Hero of the
Americas Award. This one-time award is part of PAHO’s centennial celebration, and recognizes eleven
individuals who have made invaluable contributions to public health in the
Americas.
While President of Rotary International in 1984-85,
Dr. Canseco worked with Dr. Albert Sabin, the inventor of oral polio vaccine,
to establish Rotary’s PolioPlus program, which aims to immunize the children of the world
against polio by 2005 - Rotary’s centennial anniversary.
As a result, Rotary, in partnership with PAHO,
contributed US$38.5 million in PolioPlus funds and countless volunteer hours to
the national immunization programs in 27 countries in South and Central America
and the Caribbean. Grants required the participation of Rotary clubs, and in
each country, Rotary members brought different approaches and levels of
support. (...)
http://www.rotary.org/newsandinfo/presscenter/releases/147.html
2 December, Washington
D.C. -- Former Senator
Sam Nunn, Co-Chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, and Dr Gro Harlem
Brundtland, Director-General of the World Health Organization, today announced
the formation of a rapid outbreak response fund to strengthen the global
response to infectious disease outbreaks, whether naturally occurring or from
the release of biological weapons. The WHO-NTI Emergency Outbreak Response Fund
will ensure that response teams can be on the ground within 24 hours of a
detected outbreak – wherever it occurs around the globe.
“Crucial hours lost in the early days of a disease
outbreak can mean the difference between a handful of cases and a major
epidemic,” said Dr Brundtland. “As soon as an outbreak occurs, it is critical to get people on the
ground as soon as possible. This revolving fund will enable WHO to provide
medical experts and equipment immediately.” (...)
The WHO-NTI Emergency Outbreak Response Fund,
established in the amount of $500,000, removes immediate financial barriers to
an urgent response and will allow the WHO to mobilize immediately. Until the
establishment of the WHO-NTI Emergency Outbreak Response Fund, no contingency
funds were readily available to respond to international public health
emergencies.
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/releases/pr92/en/
(top)
Vienna, 3 December - Key experts from the IAEA and
around the world will brief the media on Wednesday, 4 December on how a unique
nuclear technique is saving lives. Know as tissue banking, the technique
irradiates tissue grafts and bone to be used for transplants and in treating
burn victims.
The IAEA has helped establish
66 tissue banks around the world and has invested millions of dollars in the
program. Over 200,000 grafts from donors have been produced for the program.
Recently, medical authorities in the United States began looking into adopting
similar irradiation techniques following a number of cases of contamination of
medical tissue used for transplant. (...)
http://www.iaea.org/worldatom/Press/P_release/2002/med-advise_035.shtml
Launch
of the International Year of Freshwater
Paris, December 10 - The International Year of Freshwater, 2003, will receive its official launch at a ceremony at the United Nations in New York on December 12. The aim of the year is to raise awareness of the importance of protecting and managing freshwater. The UN General Assembly resolution proclaiming the Year was initiated by the Government of Tajikistan and supported by 148 other countries.
In a message to be issued at
the ceremony, UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura says that "water
can be an agent of peace, rather than conflicts, and UNESCO is looking at ways
that will allow this century to be one of 'water peace' rather than 'water
wars'. By developing principles and methods to manage this resource efficiently
and ethically, while respecting related ecosystems, we move a step closer to
the goal of sustainable development."
One of the main events of the
International Year of Freshwater (IYFW) will be the 3rd World Water Forum, to
take place in Kyoto (Japan), March 16-23. The Forum is timed to coincide with
World Water Day, held on March 22 each year. At the Kyoto meeting, the
World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP), a collaboration between 23 UN agencies
involved in freshwater and hosted by UNESCO, will present its World Water
Development Report. (...)
UNEP calls for an industrial transformation to
reduce wastes
Geneva/Nairobi, 9 December - Ministers and government
officials are attending a major conference in Geneva from 9 - 13 December to decide
on further action to alleviate the burdens imposed on society and the
environment by hazardous and other wastes. The agenda features the launch of a
unique partnership with major mobile-phone manufacturers, a ministerial
roundtable on "e-wastes" and the release of new data on global trends
in waste generation and transport.
The Sixth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties
(COP 6) to the Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movement of Hazardous
Wastes and Their Disposal will consider a strategic plan running through the
year 2010 aimed at accelerating concrete action to protect human health and the
environment from hazardous wastes.
The Meeting also expects to adopt technical guidelines
on the disposal and recycling of lead-acid batteries, plastic wastes,
biomedical and healthcare wastes, and obsolete ships. (...)
http://www.unep.org/Documents/Default.asp?ArticleID=3188&DocumentID=275
International
effort results in new tool to calculate greenhouse gas emissions of pulp and
paper mills
Washington, DC and Geneva Switzerland, December 2 -
The American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA) and the International
Council of Forest and Paper Associations (ICFPA) in association with the World
Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), and the World Resources
Institute (WRI) today announced the development of a methodology for
calculating greenhouse gas emissions from pulp and paper mills. The calculation
tool will serve as a simple unified industry approach to emissions accounting.
"The development of this
innovative calculation tool is another example of the forest products industry
taking the worldwide lead in developing simple, transparent methods to
calculate greenhouse gas emissions,” said W. Henson Moore, AF&PA president
and chief executive officer. “The tool can be used on any scale, from determining
emissions from a specific mill, from a specific company, or for our industry as
whole."
World Heritage has pride of place at UN Headquarters in New York
Paris, December 6 - The travelling photo exhibition of
UNESCO's world heritage sites - Our Past, Our Future - organized jointly by
UNESCO and the Chinese Permanent Delegation to the United Nations, was
inaugurated on December 4 at UN Headquarters in New York, where it will be on
show until January 31. The exhibition of large colour prints by internationally-known
photographers shows the cultural diversity of our planet. It showcases in
particular the riches of cultural heritage in Algeria, China, France, Jordan,
Peru and Russia.
The opening of the exhibition in New York was part of
a day of debate at the 57th session of the UN General Assembly devoted to the
current UN Year for Cultural Heritage, which UNESCO has been coordinating
throughout the UN system. (...)
http://www.unesco.org/bpi/eng/unescopress/2002/02-104e.shtml
African parliamentarians join forces to strengthen education
Dar-es-Salaam, December 3 - African parliamentarians
from 45 countries have joined forces to strengthen education across the
continent, in the quest to achieve education for all by 2015, the goal set at
the World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal (April, 2000).
They will work through the new Forum of African
Parliamentarians for Education (FAPED), created at a five-day meeting that
ended in Dar-es-Salaam today. During the meeting the participants defined the
new Forum's strategies and goals, established the secretariat - which will be
housed at UNESCO's office in Dakar, Senegal - and set out a four-year programme
and budget. They also adopted the Declaration of Dar-es-Salaam, which
recognizes education as "the biggest challenge for Africa, the key to
progress, individual and social well-being and peace" and that
"ignorance and illiteracy are obstacles to development and the constitution
of democratic societies." (...)
http://www.unesco.org/bpi/eng/unescopress/2002/02-100e.shtml
Major Campaign to Get Girls into School in 25 Priority Countries
Dar Es Saalam / Geneva, 3 December – Declaring that “the education of girls is key to real progress in
overcoming poverty,” UNICEF today announced a major initiative to get girls into school in
25 priority countries, mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.
Speaking to a meeting of African education ministers
here, UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy announced the “25 by 2005” campaign to eliminate gender disparities in primary
and secondary education. The campaign, which includes 15 countries in Africa,
focuses on countries where girls are furthest behind – and where progress would make a real impact. Bellamy
said UNICEF is prepared to do whatever is necessary to help the countries meet
the goal of gender equality in education by 2005. (...)
The Millennium Development Goals agreed to by all the
Member States of the United Nations have set 2005 as the first milestone,
seeking to end gender disparities in primary and secondary education by the end
of that year. (...)
http://www.unicef.org/newsline/02pr69education.htm
Journalists form Food Security Network
Nairobi, 22 November - More than one hundred Journalists from twenty
English-speaking African countries resolved to form the Network of African
Journalists on Food Security (NAJFS) to highlight the need for the continent to
be able to feed itself. The Network was formed at the end of a two-day workshop
on Food Security and Sustainable Development held at the United Nations Complex
in Gigiri, Nairobi, Kenya, from 21-22 November 2002.
The workshop was organized by
the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, UN-HABITAT and the Coalition of
African Organizations on Food Security and Sustainable Development (COASAD), to
create awareness among participants on the need to fight against the scourges
of food insecurity, famines and malnutrition affecting much of Africa.
According to the Journalists in their resolution, “Africa today is faced with multifaceted developmental
and social problems with food insecurity, famine and HIV/AIDS posing serious
threats to millions of lives”. They stated that it was their moral, professional and social
responsibility to address these prevailing problems, focusing on how they can
use their communication and advocacy skills to alleviate the problem. (...)
http://www.unhabitat.org/press2000/journalistsnetwork.asp
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