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USUN - Passage of the Fifth Committee Regular Budget for the 2012-2013 Biennium

Wed, 2012-01-04 22:33 — Kathy Gilbeaux

        

New York, New York - December 29, 2011

The United States is proud to have negotiated, alongside our international partners, a strengthened, more efficient, and more effective United Nations budget that saves the American taxpayers millions of dollars and sets the United Nations on the path of real fiscal discipline and continued reform. Highlights of the 2012-2013 biennium budget include:

· A 5% overall cut in the size of the UN budget. The total budget of $5.153 billion represents the first time in 14 years – and only the second time in the last 50 years – that the General Assembly has approved a regular budget level below the previous biennia’s final appropriation ($5.41 billion in 2010-2011). When factoring in the difference between the likely budget level based on historic patterns and the budget approved last week, this budget represents a savings to American taxpayers of as much as $100 million.

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Mapping Digital Media

Tue, 2011-12-13 10:07 — Kathy Gilbeaux

soros.org - Open Society Foundations

The values that underpin good journalism, the need of citizens for reliable and abundant information, and the importance of such information for a healthy society and robust democracy: these are perennial, and provide compass-bearings for anyone trying to make sense of current changes across the media landscape.

The Mapping Digital Media project, which examines these changes in-depth, aims to build bridges between researchers and policymakers, activists, academics, and standard-setters across the world. It also builds policy capacity in countries where this is less developed, encouraging stakeholders to participate and influence change. At the same time, this research creates a knowledge base, laying foundations for advocacy work, building capacity, and enhancing debate.

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Stanford Social Innovation Review - Collective Impact

Mon, 2011-12-12 23:08 — Kathy Gilbeaux

imagesubmitted by Theresa Bernardo

Illustration by Martin Jarrie

by John Kania & Mark Kramer - Winter 2011

Large-scale social change requires broad cross-sector coordination, yet the social sector remains focused on the isolated intervention of individual organizations. 

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Revealed – The Capitalist Network that Runs the World

Wed, 2011-11-23 22:16 — Kathy Gilbeaux

by Andy Coughlan and Debora MacKenzie - newscientist.com - October 24, 2011

      

The 1318 transnational corporations that form the core of the economy. Superconnected companies are red, very connected companies are yellow. The size of the dot represents revenue (Image: PLoS One)

AS PROTESTS against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protesters' worst fears. An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy.

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Ozcan Receives 2011 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers

Tue, 2011-11-22 09:58 — Kathy Gilbeaux

submitted by Luis Kun

UCLA Engineering

Aydogan Ozcan, associate professor of electrical engineering and bioengineering, has received the country’s highest honor for science and engineering researchers who are at an early stage of their careers.

Ozcan was one of 94 researchers announced by President Obama on Monday, as recipients of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE).

Ozcan’s research is in photonics and its applications in nano- and bio-technology. Most prominently, he has developed new powerful optical imaging and sensing architectures that can be incorporated into mobile phones. Essentially becoming mobile labs, these phones can analyze fluids to test for HIV, malaria, and other infectious diseases in body fluids, or analyze water quality following a disaster. These devices, which are relatively inexpensive to produce, have broad applications for improving health care in resource-poor regions.

I’m very honored to receive the PECASE award,” Ozcan said. “This will support our existing efforts to create smart global health systems through innovative uses of photonics and computational technologies.

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Social Determinants Of Health Conference Releases Final Declaration

Wed, 2011-10-26 12:40 — Kathy Gilbeaux

        

submitted by Mary Suzanne Kivlighan

Kaiser Family Foundation - October 24, 2011

The final document of the World Conference on Social Determinants of Health, which concluded last week in Rio de Janeiro, "calls for better governance for health and development, with transparent decision-making and social participation," and "[g]overnments are urged to develop policies and measure progress towards defined goals," Inter Press Service reports.

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RN Volunteer Opportunities for First Aid Support in Cities Across America

Sun, 2011-10-16 18:05 — Kathy Gilbeaux

    nationalnursesunited.org - RN Response Network - October 13, 2011

As a past volunteer for the Registered Nurse Response Network (RNRN), we wish to thank you again for your desire to help people and communities in need.

Now we are asking for your help again, to join our first aid efforts in cities across the U.S. where Americans are rallying for real solutions to our national economic emergency.

You were there when we dispatched volunteers to assist with the recovery effort following a tsunami in South Asia, a hurricane on the Gulf Coast, Southern California wildfires, the earthquake in Haiti, and with contributions following this spring’s disaster in Japan.

RN volunteers have made a difference on each occasion, even when we have faced huge hurdles, including substantial governmental impediments, for example, to placing volunteers on the ground in Haiti. Yet on each occasion, RNRN did act, and sent as many volunteers as possible in these heroic humanitarian efforts.

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Opinion - Off the Pedestal: Creating a New Vision of Economic Growth

Wed, 2011-10-12 21:38 — Kathy Gilbeaux

by James Gustave Speth - e360.yale.edu - May 31, 2011

The idea of economic growth as an unquestioned force for good is ingrained in the American psyche. But a longtime environmental leader argues it’s time for the U.S. to reinvent its economy into one that focuses on sustaining communities, family life, and the natural world.

Is anything in America more faithfully followed than economic growth? Its movements are constantly watched, measured to the decimal place, deplored or praised, diagnosed as weak or judged healthy and vigorous. Newspapers, magazines, and cable channels report endlessly on it. Promoting growth may be the most widely shared and robust cause in the United States today.

If the growth imperative dominates U.S. political and economic life, what happens when growth hits some serious stumbling blocks?

When I was in school in England, the dean of my college told us when we first arrived that we could walk on the grass in the courtyard — but not across it. That helped me love the English and their language. Here is another creative use of prepositions: there are limits to growth, and there are limits of growth.

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Bin Laden Death: 'CIA Doctor' Accused of Treason

Fri, 2011-10-07 21:58 — Kathy Gilbeaux

BBC News - October 6, 2011

      

Bin Laden was top of the US 'most wanted' list

A Pakistani commission investigating the US raid that killed Osama Bin Laden says a doctor accused of helping the CIA should be tried for high treason.

Dr Shakil Afridi is accused of running a CIA-sponsored fake vaccine programme in Abbottabad, where Bin Laden was killed, to try to get DNA samples.

He was arrested shortly after the 2 May US raid that killed the al-Qaeda chief.

The commission has been interviewing intelligence officials and on Wednesday spoke to Bin Laden family members.

Pakistan, which was deeply embarrassed by the raid, has described the covert US special forces operation as a violation of its sovereignty.

A government commission, headed by a former Supreme Court judge, has been charged with discovering how the US military was able to carry out the raid deep within Pakistan without being detected.

It is also investigating how Bin Laden was able to hide in Abbottabad, a garrison town, for several years.

DNA sought

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By 2030 China's Economy Could Loom as Large as America's in the 1970s

Wed, 2011-09-14 11:38 — Kathy Gilbeaux

The Economist - September 9, 2011

Global Economic Dominance - Spheres of Influence

       

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