Good News Agency – Year IV, n° 14
Weekly - Year IV, number 14 – 14
September 2003
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
–Environment and wildlife
Religion and spirituality – Culture and education
Reflections:
WHY THE UN IS INDISPENSABLE
Vienna, 3 September (UN
Information Service) -- In his first visit to the United Nations Office on
Drugs and Crime(UNODC) in Vienna, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of
Foreign Affairs of Turkey, Mr. Abdullah Gül, reiterating his country’s
long-standing call, stressed the need for continuing international cooperation
against the trafficking of opiates -- affecting his country and neighbouring
states -- and in combating other forms of organized crime, terrorism, human
trafficking and corruption. (…)
The two sides agreed to
strengthen their partnership by developing a range of technical activities to
prevent drug abuse in the country, strengthening Turkey’s national drug control
capacities and expertise, increasing cooperation against organized crime and
terrorism, and promoting law enforcement training of government officials from
Turkey and other governments in the region. The Turkish International Academy
against Drugs and Organized Crime (TADOC), created with UNODC support, has
become a success story in international cooperation against drugs (…)
http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/press_release_2003-09-03_1.html
Vienna, 25 August (UN
Information Service) -- The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
(UNODC) has just added another project to fight narcotics to its largely
expanded portfolio of 20 projects -- worth US$38 million -- in the fight
against illicit drugs in Afghanistan. Antonio Maria Costa, UNODC Executive
Director, and Ali Ahmad Jalali, the Afghan Minister of Interior, signed an
agreement in Kabul on Sunday to help establish a new drug interdiction
department within the Ministry. (…)
In a meeting late Sunday in
Kabul, Hamid Karzai, President of the Afghanistan Transitional Authority,
reiterated his government’s commitment to enforcing the drug control measures,
including the eradication of opium poppy fields and the destruction of illicit
drugs-processing laboratories. President Karzai and Mr. Costa agreed on the
need for the international community -- including major development
institutions -- to help Afghan farmers, not only to grow commercial crops, but
also develop the infrastructure in the largely poor rural areas of the country.
UNODC projects in Afghanistan
cover four major areas of drug control. (…)
http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/press_release_2003-08-22_1.html
1 September - The Declaration
of the Rights of Man and documents pertaining to slavery in the Caribbean are
among the 23 documentary collections from 20 countries selected for inscription
on the Memory of the World Register of library and archive material during a
three-day meeting of the International Advisory Committee (IAC) of UNESCO’s
Memory of the World Programme in Gdansk, Poland, that ended Saturday.
Twelve new countries enter the
Register: Barbados, Brazil, Chile, France, Kazakhstan, Luxembourg, Netherlands,
Saudi Arabia, Serbia and Montenegro, Tajikistan, Thailand, and Uruguay. A total
of 91 properties from 45 countries are inscribed on the Memory of the World
Register, which was established in 1997 to preserve and promote documentary
heritage of universal value. (…)
4 September - A new
partnership is bringing together 80 women from farming households in Saramej
and Lernantsk in Armenia's northern Lori region to raise organic crops and
produce dairy products. A non-profit organization they are setting up will help
members increase incomes and gain new skills and also ensure food security for
the communities' most vulnerable families.
A joint initiative by UNDP
Armenia, the local Spitak Farmers' Association and Heifer International
Armenia, the partnership will help the communities make progress towards the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), targets agreed on by world leaders to end
severe poverty and achieve other key education, health and other social
objectives.
Community organizations can
get funding through the UNDP partnership programme for innovative projects such
as this that support one or more of the eight MDGs. The partnerships provide a
flexible framework for combining the efforts of community associations, civil
society groups, international agencies and the Government. (…)
http://www.undp.org/dpa/index.html
Werner Fornos of the Rotary
Club of Washington, D.C., USA, is the 2003 United Nations Population Award
laureate in the individual category. Fornos is president of the D.C.-based
Population Institute, a nonprofit organization that strives "to achieve a
world population in balance with a healthy global environment and resource
base."
Established by the UN General
Assembly in 1981, the award honors those who have made outstanding
contributions toward promoting better awareness and understanding of population
issues and sustainable development. It comes with a diploma and a US$12,500
cash prize.
Presenting the award, Nane
Annan, lawyer, children's author, and wife of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, described Fornos
as "one of the best-known and most active leaders on global population
issues."
The Family Planning
Association of Kenya, a volunteer-based nongovernmental organization, won the
award in the institutional category.
Rome, 4 September - Bangladesh
will send over 30 field technicians and experts to the Gambia to work with
local experts, as part of a quadripartite agreement signed between the two
countries, funded by the Islamic Development Bank and supported by FAO, the
agency announced today.
The agreement is part of FAO's
South-South Cooperation Programme, a global initiative which aims to strengthen
cooperation among developing countries at different stages of development to
improve agricultural productivity and ensure access to food for all.
Financed by the Islamic
Development Bank, Bangladesh will send 5 experts and 28 field technicians to
the Gambia over a two or three-year period.
They will work on small-scale
rural projects to improve water management and bolster the production of foods
such as cereals, fruit and vegetables, small animals and fish.
The project is one element in
a broader programme to improve the country's food security. (…)
http://www.fao.org/english/newsroom/news/2003/21879-en.html
Brussels, 3 September - The
European Commission has adopted the Tacis Regional Action Programme 2003 with a
total budget of Euros 36.5 million. In 2003, TACIS regional priorities are
three key cross border themes: protecting the environment (E 8 million),
promoting investment in infrastructure networks (E 17.5 million, and fighting
crime (E 11 million). The TACIS Regional Programme is the main EC instrument
for promoting co-operation between NIS countries, namely Armenia, Azerbaijan,
Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Mongolia, Russian
Federation, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan (…)
The European Union has
provided over E 5.200 billion to the Newly Independent States through the Tacis
programme over the period 1992 to 2002. Nearly E 500 million (just under 10%)
has been provided through Tacis regional co-operation programmes over that
period, through around 120 projects. Since 1996, support for regional
co-operation has concentrated on three areas: networks, environment and justice
and home affairs. (…)
Brussels, 3 September - The
European Commission has signed a E205 million aid programme with the Democratic
Republic of Congo in implementation of the Cotonou Agreement. The programme
lays down the main guidelines for aid in 2003 and 2004.
At the signing Mr Poul
Nielson, the member of the Commission responsible for development and
humanitarian aid, said:
"This programme follows
on the heels of the long-awaited inauguration of the interim government. The
signing of this document demonstrates the will of the European Commission to
support the Democratic Republic of Congo throughout the awkward transition to
democracy and lasting peace both within its borders and throughout the Great
Lakes region. (…)” The programme's key components are health, debt relief,
institutional support for democratisation, constitutional reform and the
strengthening of the rule of law.
2 Septeber - The ICRC completed a series of operations on
28 August between the east and west of the country to reunite 94 unaccompanied
children with their families.
Between 17 and 28 August, an
ICRC DC-3 made six flights between Goma and the capital Kinshasa, transporting
a total of 94 children (82 from Goma to Kinshasa and 12 in the other
direction). Prior to these flights, Red Cross staff had ensured that the
children involved were properly registered and making the trip of their own
free will.
The children were aged between
11 months and 18 years; almost half were less than 13 years old. Among them was
five-year-old Loleka, the youngest of eight children, who was orphaned shortly
after birth. She was given into the care of her aunt in Kinshasa, who had made
a tracing request two years ago, which resulted in Loleka being found in
Kalemie, in northern Katanga. This is an example of the achievements of a
tracing system that regularly finds missing persons sought by their loved ones
and forwards Red Cross messages back and forth between people and relatives
separated by the fighting. In all, 650 Congolese children have been reunited
with their families this year. Almost 2,000 are still waiting their turn.
1 September - With a new
school year starting today, the ICRC is distributing clothes to particularly
vulnerable residents in Chechnya and to the poorest of the families in
Ingushetia who have been driven from their homes by the fighting.
In Ingushetia the distribution
has been under way for some time for 6- to 14-year-olds from the neediest
families. Some 10,000 sets of clothes (shoes and pullovers, plus trousers for
boys and skirts for girls) have been given to particularly large families,
families led by single parents with disabilities, etc. Similar sets are being
delivered in Chechnya. This one-time distribution is in addition to the food
and other essential items which the ICRC supplies on a regular basis.
Buying a new piece of clothing
for a child to wear at the beginning of the school year is a custom in the
Caucasus: there is an element of celebration, with new clothes signifying the
family’s well-being and respectability. This operation thus helps spare
displaced people and particularly vulnerable residents an extra burden on their
severely limited budgets.
3 September - While many
children regard trips to the dentist as unpleasant but routine, some
lower-income kids rarely, if ever, see the inside of a dental office. And for
many older adults, just arranging transportation to the dentist can be nearly
impossible.Seeking to fill this gap is the Tooth Mobile, a joint effort of the
six Rotary clubs of Anne Arundel County, Maryland, USA — which collectively
raised the funds needed for the dental-office-on-wheels project — and the
Dental Health Services Division of the county's Department of Health. (…)By
combining their fundraising expertise the clubs raised US$90,000, allowing the
clubs to exceed their original pledge and fully cover the cost of the van and
its dental equipment.
Joining the Tooth Mobile
project as a third partner was the Pharmaceutical Division of Dentsply, the
world's largest manufacturer of dental products. The Division donated $15,000
toward the cost of the van, and committed to provide dental disposables such as
filing materials, X-Ray film, and cleaning supplies for the life of the
program. (…)
Each preschooler receives an
oral screening, cleaning, toothbrush and paste, and tooth care tips. Seniors
receive oral cancer screenings and education plus vouchers for discounted
dental services. Patients with more extensive needs are referred to the dental
clinics and community dentists. (…)
http://www.rotary.org/newsroom/newsbasket/index.html
28 August - A new coalition —
with participation from international agencies, donors, civil society, and
private sector and the Government — is working on strategies to improve
Ethiopia's food security within two to three years. It hopes to end the
recurrent crises brought on by drought and difficulties in getting assistance
to those in need.
Ethiopia reduced the
percentage of its 67 million people who are undernourished from 59 per cent to
44 per cent during the 1990s, making progress towards the Millennium
Development Goals target for 2015 of halving the proportion of people suffering
from hunger. The coalition aims to contribute to this effort.
Over the last two years the
Government and development partners have engaged in consultations on the
problem, and these culminated in a forum in June that brought together Prime
Minister Meles Zenawi and other top officials and representatives of the UN and
other international agencies, donor countries, civil society and the private
sector. They agreed to form a Coalition for Food Security in Ethiopia to foster
partnerships to take action to lessen the impact of droughts, improve
livelihoods and ensure that communities have adequate food supplies. (…)
http://www.undp.org/dpa/index.html
Recent events around the globe have jeopardized the spirit of
multilateral cooperation and peace-building, causing some voices to question
the very relevance of the United Nations.
Despite these challenges, the Organization continues to play an
essential role in ensuring human security and dignity through common commitment
and international solidarity.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan has stated that: “Achieving human security requires a dynamic, innovative
partnership among the United Nations, governments and non-State actors.”
The fifty-sixth Annual
Conference of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), “Human Security and
Dignity: Fulfilling the Promise of the
United Nations” will highlight
these issues and give civil society organizations a forum to express their ideas
about human rights, people’s empowerment and global well-being. Organized by
the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) Section of the United Nations
Department of Public Information (DPI), in cooperation with the Executive
Committee of NGOs associated with DPI, the Conference is open only to
representatives of NGOs associated with DPI, those in consultative status with
the United Nations through the Economic and Social Council or those working
with United Nations agencies and programmes or with United Nations Information
Centers and Services.
Close to 350 Rotarians from
Nordic countries and other parts of the world met on 13 August in Stockholm,
Sweden, to discuss Rotary's peace initiatives at the RI Presidential
Celebration on Peace and Tolerance. The fifth of 15 mini-conferences focused on
just one aspect of Rotary: reinvigorating Rotarian commitment to international
understanding, goodwill, and peace.
RI President Jonathan
Majiyagbe reminded participants in a keynote address that international
understanding has been a goal of Rotarians since the earliest days of "our
organization. Everything we do — improving our communities, promoting
international fellowship, carrying out humanitarian service — supports a world
of peace and tolerance."
The celebrations will take a brief break in
September, but will begin again on 13 October in Seoul, Korea, where the focus
will be on Rotary Foundation Support. On October 25, a celebration will take
place in Antibes-Juan les Pins, France, where the theme will be Inter Country
Committees. And Rotary Centers for International Studies in peace and conflict
resolution will be the topic of the 1 November celebration in Bradford,
England.
Friday, 29 August - The UNDP
Programme of Assistance to the Palestinian People is appealing to the
international community for US$18 million in emergency aid for communities
affected by Israel's construction of a series of walls, fences, trenches and
barriers, commonly known as the "separation wall," in the West Bank.
Begun a year ago and winding
175 kilometres so far, the wall has encircled and isolated many Palestinian
cities and villages.
The funds will be used for
land reclamation, construction of agricultural roads, improving water supplies,
revamping health care and education, strengthening municipal and village
councils, as well as other infrastructure projects to be developed in
consultation with communities. The work will generate over 200,000 jobs. (…)
http://www.undp.org/dpa/index.html
1 September - As of last week,
Kabul residents can call an ambulance. A new service has been set up with the support
of the Norwegian Red Cross, and last week the ICRC handed over to the Ministry
of Public Health five ambulances donated by the Kuwait Red Crescent Society
(traduzione: dalla Società della Luna Rossa in Kuwait)
Until now, Kabul has had no
permanent system for calling an ambulance, leaving the sick and injured at
risk. The ambulance service forms an important addition to ICRC health projects
in Afghanistan, and will focus on surgery, trauma management and first aid. The
control room is at the Ibn Sina Emergency Hospital, which the ICRC has
supported throughout decades of conflict in Kabul.
Few people in Kabul have
phones at home, so radio call points have been installed at 20 locations around
the capital, enabling the public to call for assistance. Drivers and nurses
have been recruited and staff have received training.
3 September - Young people may
be given to rebelling against authority, but they do listen to their peers.
This was the premise upon which the Rotaract Club of Montpellier, France, based
its project to stop drunk-driving among the city's youth.
On 23 August, members of the
club launched the "Alcool + Volant = Cocktail Perdant!" (Alcohol +
Driving = Bad Combination) with an awareness campaign about the consequences of
driving "under the influence" at Havana Night, a local discotheque.
Assisted by management and staff at the dancehall, Rotaractors handed out
tickets to patrons, whose names were automatically entered in a draw for a DVD
player. The only condition for claiming the winning prize was a breathalyzer
test at departure time to confirm that a designated driver was not drunk.
The campaign, which began at
10:00 pm, lasted until 6:30 am the following morning. From around 4:00 am, a
team of Rotaractors, assisted by management and staff at the dancehall,
distributed literature that explained the importance of controlling blood
alcohol level.
Close to 700 young people were
reached on the inaugural campaign. No alcohol-related accidents were reported by
the police that night.
http://www.rotary.org/newsroom/newsbasket/index.html
Monrovia, 29 August - The
first mass immunization measles campaign following the cessation of hostilities
in Liberia will be launched today in Tubmanburg, Bomi County, by UNICEF and its
partners. Tubmanburg is a base of the
Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), one of the two rebel
groups in Liberia, and is home to thousands of displaced persons, the majority
of whom are women and children, from Gbarpolu and Lofa Counties.
While Bomi County has been
largely inaccessible for immunization services since the end of February 2003,
Gparpolu and Lofa Counties have had no access to immunization since 2000.
The seven-day campaign in
Tubmanburg is targeting 42,000 children, aged between six months and 15
years. Three mobile immunization teams
will administer the measles vaccines. Children aged six months to five years
will also receive Vitamin A to help build up resistance against diseases such
as measles, respiratory tract infection, and diarrhoea.
To ensure the success of the
campaign. UNICEF has enlisted the support of opinion leaders and health workers
in Tubmanburg in the mobilization and sensitization of the local population.
(…)
http://www.unicef.org/media/media_13718.html
29 August - Luanga (Angola) --
The success of national immunization campaigns against polio and measles in
reaching every corner of Angola shows that it is possible to provide health
care to all Angolans, said Dr LEE Jong-wook, Director-General of the World
Health Organization (WHO) today. Dr Lee stressed that despite significant
challenges, the polio and measles programmes had laid the groundwork to reach
children in even the most difficult and inaccessible areas. (…)
Since the 4 April 2002
ceasefire in Angola, WHO, UNICEF, NGOs and the other partners have been
supporting the country by providing a minimum health care package including
vaccinations, HIV, malaria, TB, leprosy, trypanosomiasis and other disease
control activities. Other health partners include the European Union, USAID,
Italy, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Japan among others
which have provided primary health care services for hundreds of thousands of
Angolans as they returned home. (…)
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/releases/2003/prangola/en/
Lusaka, 26 August – In one of the biggest health campaigns in
Zambia’s history, nearly 5 million children between the ages of 6 months and 14
years were successfully vaccinated against measles. During a Measles Campaign
Awards ceremony on 21 August, the Minister of Health, Dr. Brian Chituwo,
announced that 4,955,647 children had been immunized, representing coverage of
108 per cent (Target: 4,600,916). The National Measles Campaign, which was held
from 7-13 June, is part of a larger global effort to halve the number of
measles deaths by 2005.
Through the efforts of 17,710
committed volunteers at 3,795 vaccination posts, all types of transport were
used, including bicycles, canoes and ox carts, to reach inaccessible rural
areas. One of the major challenges of the campaign was to persuade resistant
religious communities in remote parts of the country to vaccinate their
children. This was possible due to the partnerships formed with traditional
leaders, administrative authorities, the Church, NGO leaders, and the
military. (…)
http://www.unicef.org/media/media_13707.html
26 August - Full plane load
with 63 tons of relief materials arrives in Monrovia today. MSF currently has
30 international and over 300 Liberian staff members - in addition to 600
MSF-supported public health workers - working in Liberia.
Monrovia - MSF intensifies its
activities in Liberia and continues exploratory missions in areas inaccessible
to humanitarian aid since the beginning of the fighting. (…)
To support this increase in
operations, a chartered 747 of 63 metric tons of emergency aid arrived today
for Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, where hundreds of thousands of displaced
civilians continue to live without adequate food, water or health services.
This cargo of logistic, food, and medical materials are destined for the
hospitals and health facilities run by the international medical humanitarian
organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).
Last week, MSF opened a mobile
clinic in Tubmanburg in Bomi county and has been providing over 250
consultations a day for a population of approximately 15,000 displaced people
and residents who have not had access to medical care since the fighting
started. (…)
World Bank
urges renewed international commitment to combat desertification at Convention
in Havana
September 3 - The World Bank
yesterday called upon all stakeholders - both rich and poor countries alike -
of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) to do more
to address land degradation and take concrete implementation actions that are
required to meet the objectives of the Convention. The call came at the Sixth
Session of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention to Combat
Desertification currently taking place in Havana, Cuba.
According to the United
Nations, drought and desertification threaten the livelihoods of over 1 billion
people in more than 110 countries around the world who depend on land for most
of their needs, and usually the world's poorest in over one hundred countries
are threatened. Desertification is a worldwide problem directly affecting 250
million people and a third of the earth's land surface or over 4 billion
hectares. (…)
Gland, Switzerland, 1
September - A new study by World Bank-WWF Alliance for Forest Conservation and
Sustainable Use shows that protecting forest areas provides a cost-effective
means of supplying many of the world’s biggest cities with high quality
drinking water, providing significant health and economic benefits to urban
populations.
The new report, Running Pure,
shows that more than a third of the world’s 105 biggest cities — including New
York, Jakarta, Tokyo, Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro, Los Angeles, Barcelona, Nairobi,
and Melbourne — rely on fully or partly protected forests in catchment areas
for much of their drinking water.
Well-managed natural forests
minimize the risk of landslides, erosion, and sedimentation. They substantially
improve water purity by filtering pollutants, such as pesticides, and in some
cases capture and store water. According to the report, adopting a forest
protection strategy can result in massive savings. It is, for example, much
cheaper to protect forests than to build water treatment plants. In New York,
the adoption of such a strategy will be seven times cheaper than building and
operating a treatment plant. (…)
Bangkok, Ulaanbaatar, 22
August - The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Mongolian
Ministry of Nature and Environment today signed a framework agreement to
support sustainable development and environmental protection in the fabled
North-East Asian country.
Home to warlord Genghis Khan,
whose 13th century empire stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Pacific
Ocean, Mongolia’s territory remains the world’s 17th largest. The land-locked
nation’s 2.4 million people are spread over an area similar to that of Alaska,
or nearly three times the size of France (one of the lowest population
densities in the world of 1.5 people per sq km).
Mongolia’s unique and varied
environments – including super-arid desert, moist taiga forest, rolling steppe
grasslands and glaciated alpine peaks - provide refuge to some of the last
populations of endangered snow leopard, Argali sheep, wild ass, saiga, bacterian
camel and Gobi bear. (…)
( Clean Up the World, Australia )
21 August – Across North
America, friends, family, neighbours, communities and people of all ages and
walks of life are uniting to combat polluted waterways, declining water quality
and the growing amount of waste during this year's Clean Up the World campaign.
In Arkansas the Queen of Clean
is teaching school children about rubbish and recycling accompanied by Bagman,
a cartoon character portraying a typical bag of household rubbish.
Dressed in a litter strewn
jacket and tiara the Queen performs a theatrical presentation which teaches
children how to take small steps in their everyday lives to take care of their
local environment; and Bagman is the star of a video presentation following his
life as a bag of rubbish, from the household to landfill. "It is vitally
important for young children to understand environmental issues and this
campaign is a great, fun way of getting the information out there," said
Ian Kiernan, AO Chairman and Founder of Clean Up the World. (…)
The 2003 Clean Up the World
weekend, 19-21 September, will be an opportunity for volunteers from around the
world to celebrate year round environmental achievements and will be a time of
action as volunteers get physical and clean up their local area. (…)
Rivers, lakes, streams,
creeks, oceans and coastlines will be targeted when communities across Central
and South America unite for the 2003 Clean Up the World weekend on 19-21
September.
Twenty five thousand
volunteers across Venezuela will participate in a ‘World Day of Beaches’
focussing on cleaning up over 235 marine areas.
The beach theme continues in
Brazil with the launch of an environmental television program that will run for
one-year educating people about preventing rubbish problems on beaches.
Now in it’s 11th year, the
Clean Up the World campaign mobilises over 40 million volunteers from more than
100 countries each year to clean up, fix up and conserve their local
environment.
“I encourage individuals and
communities in Central and South America to register for free as Members of
Clean Up the World and join the millions of people that are working together to
look after our waterways and beaches,” said Ian Kiernan AO, Chairman and
Founder of Clean Up the World.“ I believe individuals can make a big difference
in helping solve the world’s environmental problems. The strength in unity of
the 40 million people who participate in this campaign clearly illustrates how
deeply people care about the environment they are living in,” Mr Kiernan said. (…)
This United
Nations Day provides an opportunity for individuals, organizations and nations
to create practical acts of Peace on a shared date. The International Day of Peace can be used to highlight the Decade
for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World, 2001 to
2010.
Key peace and inter-faith organizations, together with the United
Nations, are calling for houses of
worship and sacred spaces around the world to be used for 24 hour vigils for a
culture of peace. The Meditation Room at the United Nations will be the setting
for one such Vigil.
Intuition In Service and the UN Days & Years Meditation Initiative
are co-ordinating a 24 hour global vigil of meditation and prayer for a culture
of peace. Look at the web site (www.intuition-in-service.org) to see how you and your group can participate in this meditation focus
using the Great Invocation, the World Peace Prayer, May Peace Prevail on Earth,
or a peace prayer of your choice. Every 15 minutes for a 24 hour period,
prayers will be used by participants from different parts of the world.
http://www.wethepeoples.org/intl_day_peace.php
http://www.intuition-in-service.org
9 September - New data
released by UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics (UIS) on the occasion of
International Literacy Day (September 8), show improvement over the past decade
in adult literacy rates for several of the world’s high population countries,
including Brazil, China, Egypt and Pakistan. According to national estimates
based on census data, compiled for 40 countries, China made the greatest gains,
with the literacy rate of the adult population (15 years and over) climbing
from 78 percent in 1990 to 91 percent in 2000. In Egypt, the rate rose from 44
percent in 1986 to 56 percent in 1996 and, according to recent reports, has
risen further since. Brazil posted an increase of six percentage points from 80
percent in 1991 to 86 percent in 2000, and Pakistan, between 1994 and 1998, saw
a rise from 39 to 42 percent.
These four countries,
especially China, also showed improved literacy rates for women. In Brazil, the
data shows that there are now slightly more literate women than men. This is
also the case for Belize, Honduras, the Philippines and the Seychelles. The
Central African Republic (CAR), one of the few countries in Africa to report
adult literacy rates, saw them increase from 34 percent to 49 percent in the
decade to 2000. As with Egypt and Pakistan, however, there remains a gap of
more than 20 percentage points between literacy rates for men and women. (…)
Jerusalem, 1 September - About
one million students returned to school today in the West Bank and Gaza Strip
after a summer break during a “Back to School” campaign supported by UNICEF.
In partnership with the
Palestinian National Authority’s Ministry of Education and Higher Education
(MOEHE), UNICEF resumed its campaign to prepare thousands of children for the
resumption of classes in a region battered by a damaged economy and severe
mobility restrictions.
In the run-up to the opening
of the schools today, UNICEF assisted impoverished families by distributing
more than US$170,000 worth of supplies. These include uniforms and backpacks
(containing stationary and writing materials) to 10,000 children who are most
affected by the current crisis in the West Bank and Gaza. Using TV spots, billboards,
posters and leaflets, UNICEF has supported a media campaign to encourage
parents to send their children back to school.
This month also marks the
start of an ambitious UNICEF training programme for more than 2000 teachers
focusing on life skills based education. (…)
http://www.unicef.org/media/media_13753.html
Innovations
in Education: The Arts and Science Partnership
Symposium
- Doha, Qatar, 19-20 October
Innovations In Education is an
exciting series of symposiums hosted by the Qatar Foundation to promote sharing
of cutting edge research in education. The goal of this series is to open a
forum for international scholars to explore the implications of their research
to practical educational applications. The series will attempt to promote
public awareness of the significance of sound research to educational policy
making and curriculum design.
The first symposium will bring
together a leading team of experts and curriculum designers to discuss the
impact of scientific research on the relationship between artistic and
scientific creativity. The symposium will be held at the Virginia Commonwealth
University (VCU) Doha Campus in the Education City, Doha, Qatar on October
19-20, 2003. (…)
The Qatar Foundation has
envisioned Education City, a center of educational excellence in the region,
where international scholars from prestigious universities share research and
educate students in fields of critical importance to the GCC region.
http://www.innovationsineducation.org/qatar/qatar.html
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WHY THE UN IS INDISPENSABLE
by Sergio Tripi
The debate on the UN, which has already been ongoing for several years,
has been strongly accentuated in recent months. Often people talk about it
without knowing the subject thoroughly and thoughts and judgements are
expressed more from hearsay than from real knowledge, attentive reflection and
intimate conviction. But on a subject like this, to which the very system of
cohabitation among the peoples of the Earth is linked, it is necessary to
proceed with caution and to examine the question in at least some depth.
In a little less than sixty years (two generations) since the Organization
of the United Nations was founded, the
world has changed drastically. With more than 120 new nations on the scene, the
geopolitical map has had to be redrawn: it has been observed ever more clearly
that the national economies now depend on the global economy; human rights have
emerged with an ever deeper universal meaning; and humanity, also through
problems of ecology (a science for which not even the word existed until two
decades ago) is slowly opening to a new awareness: that of its intrinsic unity
in its very diversity. However, the nations continue to be jealous of their
national sovereignty and do not concede to the UN, their own creation, either
the necessary delegation of authority or the necessary resources to allow it to
perform a decisive and timely role in international crises. As Member States,
the nations are not yet disposed to allocate a decent fraction, though minimal,
of their wealth for the development of the poor countries. Still today, the
design outlined in the 1970 North-South Commission, in which the industrialized
countries were asked to give 0.7% of their gross national product (less than
one percent!) to defeat hunger, disease and poverty, is still perhaps at the
halfway point. And the impasse of authority has been clear in recent months, in
which the decision-making conflict of the Security Council concerning Iraq
clearly highlighted how far the most crucial decisions depend on the political
will to confer on the UN the necessary delegation of authority, without which the
consequence can unfortunately be foreseen: action is taken without the United
Nations.
The crucial point, then, is this: can one do without the UN? I maintain
that the UN is not only necessary, but indispensable. To examine this view in
the necessarily restricted context of a journalistic article, let us consider
only some of the many dramatic crises which the whole world has to face:
terrorism and international security, illiteracy, the poisoning of the
environment, illness.
With regard to terrorism, during his latest visit to Switzerland the
President of Italy, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi affirmed: “No State, or group of
States, can find, in isolation, effective answers to the challenges of
terrorism” and to this end hoped for the strengthening of the United Nations
and its “operational instrumnts”. Floods of words are being written about
terrorism and the recurrent element, especially in recent times, has been that this terrible world threat must be
dealt with by the whole world community. In fact, could we ever imagine that
this terrible scourge, expressing a perverse homicidal fanaticism that finds
proselytes in the terrible social conditions which the world continues to
foster, can be healed by something less than the entire community of the
planet? Remembering the founding Charter of the UN, President Ciampi made this
concise observation: “It would be a strident contradiction, if a vision of
international reality, which arose in a world which hardly knew the concept of
interdependence, should be blocked in a world of reciprocal, growing, economic,
political and cultural interdependence.” Can one ever doubt the thought that,
in an interdependent world, the long-term reply to terrorism must express new
forms of synergy between nations both at the level of safety and at the level
of endemic causal situations like hunger, deprivation of human rights, extreme
poverty and illiteracy, which condemns children (yes, the very future of the
world!) to a life without hope?
When, last spring, 110 million people in the world demonstrated for
peace, their motivation made clear an exceptional fact: the conscience of these
people, in fact the conscience of this significant part of public opinion,
rejected war as being by now an anachronistic instrument, if used by single nations
or groups of nations, even to respond to extreme threats. Their conscience
asked for collective security to be defended with all the means of control
available and unequivocally indicated that, in case an action of force was in
the end considered necessary, this should be conducted under the control of the
United Nations, the only institution
which could respond to the request for a global legitimacy. This is the
good news which has arisen from these recent events: the conscience of a very
significant part of public opinion is changing and recognizes the value of
globalization when is is based on the new principles of unity in diversity and
sharing. It is a grassroots conscience, which cannot be ignored or overridden
by governments without their very operations being questioned; it is a
conscience which is rapidly spreading and is directing priorities and choices
towards the affirmation of the new values and the repudiation of old methods.
It is the globalization of the new values expressed by those institutions which
pass over sectorial interests and address themselves to the search for the
common good and its defence.
The European Parliament has adopted a resolution for increasing
resources for international development cooperation, to be allocated to
instruction. Undoubtedly, a measure of far-sighted solidarity. But the dramatic
statistic is that today at least 113 million children in the world do not
attend school, and of these two-thirds are girls (yes, the mothers who will
bring up the new generation …). Mani Tese, an Italian non-governmental
organization of which Italy can be proud, tells us that the sum which the world
spends in three days for the war industry would be sufficient to send them all
to school for ten years. Who, if not the UN, will be able to speak for them?
Who, if not the UN, will have the moral authority and the global capacity to
press for a shift from the fateful direction that things are taking?
For the environment, the same argument applies: can we imagine that the
adoption of effective anti-pollution measures can be less than global? Can we
have a partial greenhouse effect? Can a nation or a group of nations adopt
solutions like the spots of a leopard on the surface of the planet, trusting in
the right direction of the wind to maintain its safety? Come on, let’s not
joke. The search for alternative energies and measures for the protection of
the environment have to be considered globally in order to be applied globally,
even if gradually and with implementation programmes which take account of the
different regional and local situations. To protect short-sightedly the
interests of some industrial sectors, some nations can put off the adoption of
the parameters indicated at Kyoto at the UN Conference on the Environment, but
they cannot deny the necessity and the validity of these parameters without
losing their credibility and putting the health of their own citizens at risk.
As to health, before the summer SARS made dramatically clear the
inconsistency of territorial boundaries, the need for coordinated scientific
research and the urgency of a global health reaction. It is a treacherous
syndrome: a nasty lung infection which, up till now, has been characterized by
a mortality rate of around 15%. When it has been defeated, it will have been by
the interdependent response that the global community is increasingly putting
into practice with the coordination and guidance of the World Health
Organization. And AIDS? What can be said of this terrible threat which has been
defined “a time bomb”? The mobility of the inhabitants of the planet has made
the spread of the disease of the century dramatic, which will be defeated only
if, with the support of WHO, the most recent medicines, like the so-called
“retroviral” ones, are made available to the peoples of the planet, all the
peoples, even those poor ones who cannot afford them. In order to deal with
serious diseases like AIDS, tuberculosis or malaria, a significant step has been taken in
the right direction: the agreement signed at the end of August in Geneva by the
146 nations who make up the World Trade Organization allows the poor countries
to import at low cost generic medicines produced by other countries, “legally”
copying those protected by a patent. Bu if this is not followed by action, we will have defended
short-sightedly the interests of pharmaceutical research, but we will not have
stemmed the spread of a planetary scourge which requires a global answer
outside sectorial interests. Not to mention the vaccinations costing a few
cents for illnesses which in the western world are now laughable but which
decimate infants in the Third World. UNICEF has made considerable conquests,
but they are as yet insufficient on account of limited means. So who, if not
the UN, will be able to change these situations once and for all?
When the common good requires a renunciation of national sovereignty,
the nations are tested and nationalistic egoism is put face to face with the
need for international cooperation. Before the world community, this then is
the question which dominates all the others: will the sovereign nations be
disposed to renounce their nationalistic interests and limited objectives with
the aim of working together to establish a world of peace and progress? The
pessimists among us will say no. The realists will say that there is no other
choice and the sooner the better; and if this conviction prevails, if
delegation of authority and adequate
resources are provided with the intention of seeking the common good, then the
right measures will also be found for reforming this Organization
constructively, which is not perfect, but necessary, or rather indispensable.
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Next issue: 26 September.
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It is a free of charge service of Associazione
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non-profit educational organization chartered in Italy in 1979. The Association
operates for the development of consciousness and supports the activities of
the Lucis Trust, the Club of Budapest, the Earth Charter, Radio For Peace
International and other organizations promoting a culture of peace in the
‘global village’ perspective based on unity within diversity and on
sharing. Via Antagora 10, 00124 Rome, Italy. E-mail: s.tripi@tiscalinet.it
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