R.P. Joe Smith served as District Attorney for Umatilla County and is the former chair of the Oregon Democratic Party. He was the Executive Assistant to the Speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives and held a short interim position in the Oregon House of Representatives. An active lawyer in a private practice.
Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi is planning to travel to Norway and, possibly, the United Kingdom, for her first trip outside Myanmar in 24 years — a span during most of which the pro-democracy leader spent in detention.
The European Union has struck a preliminary agreement to suspend most sanctions against Myanmar in recognition of reforms that allowed Suu Kyi to win election to parliament this month.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s willingness to travel abroad shows her growing confidence in the reform process and Burma’s President Thein Sein, the BBC’s Jonah Fisher in Thailand reports.
The choice of Norway as the first country to visit is a natural one, as Ms Suu Kyi still has to formally accept the Nobel Peace Prize she was awarded back in 1991, our correspondent adds.
Read more on: Reuters and BBC
Dr. Jonathan Foley focusses on the complex relationship between global environmental systems and human civilization, using computer models to analyze changes in land use, ecosystems and resources around the world. After 15 years at the University of Wisconsin, Foley is now a professor and McKnight Presidential Chair in the Department of Ecology and director of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota.
A photo essay captures the moments when lights were switched off at world landmarks Saturday, between 8:30 and 9:30 p.m., to highlight global climate change as part of Earth Hour 2012.
Source: The Guardian (London)
Donald Sadoway is working on a battery miracle — an inexpensive, incredibly efficient, three-layered battery using “liquid metal.”
The problem at the heart of many sustainable-energy systems: How to store power so it can be delivered to the grid all the time, day and night, even when the wind’s not blowing and the sun’s not shining? At MIT, Donald Sadoway has been working on a grid-size battery system that stores energy using a three-layer liquid-metal core. With help from fans like Bill Gates, Sadoway and two of his students have spun off the Liquid Metals Battery Corporation (LMBC) to bring the battery to market.
A new type of microfinance oriented specifically for small farmers in Kenya, Rwanda and Burundi is being proposed by the One Acre Fund, which aims to let farmers choose from services including training, credit, and insurance. On average the services, which are not free, help farmers quickly triple their harvests and double their profits.
Traditional microfinance has never been particularly well suited to agriculture. With variable incomes that typically rise after harvests and taper off during the off-season, farmers are unable to keep up with the inflexible payment schedules that come with most microloans.
In response, the One Acre Fund is proposing a new type of microfinance designed specifically for Africa’s small farmers. More on: The Christian Science Monitor
Vote Helmi and ENO Song about forests to be heard in Rio +20 Summit, Brazil! Global Rockstar organised a contest for children and youth where they sing about environment. Winner will go to Rio and perform his/her song.
Mission seems impossible . But WE CAN DO IT. We need your vote. Together we can make a difference.
Vote Helmi as follows:
Thanks in advance!
ENO Team
P.S. Vote For Helmi’s Facebook page
Nigeria intends to supply 10 million households with cleaner burning cookstoves by 2020, some half a million within the next year. Radha Muthiah, executive director of the Global Alliance, said: “We feel the time is right and the time is indeed now with the launch of the Nigerian Alliance as well to arrest this silent killer in homes of half of the world population.” Nearly 100,000 Nigerians die annually from diseases traced to toxic smoke from rudimentary cookstoves, or approximately 5% of the global tally, according to the Alliance.
The Coordinator of the Nigerian Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, Ewah Eleri, said the target is to see Nigeria equipped with 10 million clean cookstoves by 2020, beginning with half a million within the next 12 months.
Read more on: Google/Agence France-Presse
A new UN report chronicles what it calls a “striking pattern of violations of fundamental human rights” in Iran, highlighting a drastic rise in executions from fewer than 100 in 2003 to more than 650 in 2011, and the sustained abuse of students, women, journalists and religious minorities.
“This is just the beginning of a process at the U.N. level to reveal and address the many aspects of gross and systematic human-rights violations in Iran,” said Hadi Ghaemi, the director of the New York-based International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. “It is not going to help Iran gain any friends or support at a time when it’s facing so much international pressure.”
Read more on: The Wall Street Journal
