Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice — and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.
This post has been out before but I think it’s so good that I post it again. Please look at it!
At the recent London Conference on Afghanistan, Afghan women expressed concerns that peace talks with the Taliban means sacrificing hard-earned rights.
At an international conference in London last week, seventy countries pledged to back Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s plan to negotiate and reconcile with some Taliban.
Despite reassurances from Karzai and western allies that reconciliation will not betray hard-won gains in social and political freedom, much of the rhetoric from power players at the summit gave civil society observers the impression human rights –and especially the rights of Afghanistan’s women– will be on the negotiating table. Read more
Bill and Melinda Gates have pledged $10 billion in a bid to save millions of lives during the next decade with vaccines. The funds will support efforts to provide vaccinations for diseases such as measles, diphtheria and polio, and develop new vaccines.
Vaccines already get more financing from the Gates Foundation than any other cause, and Mr. Gates said no money would be shifted away from other projects, like improved crops, assistance to small businesses and, on the domestic front, schools and libraries. Instead, he and Warren Buffett will increase their annual gifts to the foundation, and about 30 percent of all spending, up from 20 percent, will be for vaccines.
A report assembled by the Rights and Resources Initiative and conservation partners argues the failure to reach a concrete initiative at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen demonstrates the West does not have an adequate plan to implement or enforce Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, its program for curbing deforestation.
Though REDD has attracted billions in pledges, critics say corruption in heavily forested nations could lead to indigenous peoples being deprived of their rights — one reason the report recommends indigenous forest populations should be tasked with monitoring the forests.
It would seem like fairly simple logic: If you want to help protect the environment, help save the forests. Huge amounts of carbon dioxide are stored in plants and the soil beneath them. So, clearing forests using slash-and-burn techniques only succeeds in releasing harmful CO2 and methane gas into the atmosphere.
Read more on: Der Spiegel (Germany) (English online version)
The Hope for Haiti Now global telethon is also an extraordinary digital album including performances by lots of famous artists, along with a bonus track from Jay-Z, Bono, the Edge and Rihanna. You can also own the two-hour telethon video.
All proceeds from album and video sales will go to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, Oxfam America, Partners in Health, Red Cross, UNICEF, United Nations World Food Programme and Yele Haiti Foundation.
That’s what former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton both asked as the devastating impact of the earthquake in Haiti became clear. This question brought them to a place they both know well, the Oval Office. There they met with President Obama and agreed to lead a major fundraising effort for relief: the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund.
