Tag Archive: politics


Home to breathtaking Victoria Falls and spectacular Safaris, Zimbabwe is an exotic country with incredible landscapes brimming with diverse and exotic wildlife in their native and undisturbed reserves.

Eastern Highlands, the Zambezi Valley, Hwange, and Matobo Hills bear environmentally sustainable wealth due to the lack of mass tourism during in the past decade.

The people have realized the potential of their nation’s resources and their capacity, not only in making profit from sustainable tourism, but revitalizing that offer to build its reputation and establish a standard by taking pride and respecting their environment and their territory’s assets and attributes.

Certainly, it will take time for the country to develop new infrastructure and upgrade the existing deteriorated facilities but the changes that are gradually re-shaping Zimbabwean society are valuable and long-term.

Following that socio-political upheaval, the country faced a brief state of economic sanctions and national moratorium, which may have been a wake-up call as it has emerged stronger and refreshed.

A restored regard and respect for a constructive and efficient social order and promising future generated new collective and individual ambitions.

The music scene reflects a time-honored folk roots that people feel ties them to their heritage and spirituality, which they tend to celebrate and reinforce through communal connections, believing that the music strengthens it.

Many western travelers will appreciate the free spirit of Zimbabweans and their street scene where the warmth of people and the spirit of the community will be felt through music – its ability to unify and pacify people and create a positive attitude.

can-arctic

As an area of growing strategic and economic importance, the navigable passages of the Canadian High Arctic should be unconditionally secure. Uninterrupted monitoring, consecutive patrol, and the capacity to take action when needed are top priority in terms of safeguarding. Economically, an accessible high Arctic passage facilitates maritime trade between Canada and our Northern neighbours. Combine Canada’s sparse Northern population and spotty surveillance of vast territorial waters and the world’s second largest country is limitless.

Moreover, due to bordering international waters, inhospitable climate, and isolation, infrastructure and population density are minimal. The limited availability of community resources, remoteness, and austerity restrict the growth of communities and the development of businesses.

The Canadian Forces have recently become more aware of the need for persistent surveillance of extensive proportions to cover the Canadian waters and the network of passageway within our jurisdiction.
Lack of facilities for a comprehensive and interminable monitoring of the entire area is a factor that can compromise our security.

View full article »

Count on Greenpeace to rock the boat (pardon the pun) for the energy revolution and raise awareness about out ‘addiction to oil’ and the consequences of that on our natural world, the climate, and the future of our planet overall.

In order to make changes and make notable changes, we obviously must all work together for this common goal: and go beyond oil.

Their beyond oil campaign is assertive, direct, and it requires our support in any way possible, as citizens of this world. Spread the word on Twitter, Facebook, oh and hey in the real world as well, among family, friends, colleagues, neighbours, partners, clients, etc.

Even though, as a society we are currently dependent on oil and we realize that getting off that dependence will take time, big businesses can start by investing in clean, renewable energy and not climate-wrecking and environmentally damaging Arctic oil.

You can follow its exploration of a team on board of Esperanza vessel, and check out its frequently updated YouTube channel.

What Will You Do Today?

Oceans day

Today is World Oceans Day – embrace the big blue!

They need protecting and, as they cover 3/4 of our planet’s surface, it’s a very big endeavour, but extremely beneficial to the health of our environment.

WWF urges protection, as “over one billion people rely on oceans for protein, and the demand is only growing, but two-thirds of the world’s marine stocks are fully exploited, over-exploited, depleted or recovering at a slow rate.”

This includes:

- protection of marine ecosystems (full conservation of designated cultural, recreational and industrial uses);

- sustainable fishing (designating ocean zones for compatible uses that are most ecologically appropriate);

- managing shipping and trade (implementing systematic approaches to sustainable international and inter-coastal practices);

- forestallling pollution and toxicity;

- marine spatial planning (long-term benefits to coastal communities and industries);

- improving and managing ocean resources;

- not to mention performance and safety standards and emergency response (or prevention!) of disasters such as oil spills……

WWF is urging action and their Oceans Program is brilliant. Here’s the latest.

Check out a website of Oceans Project for more detailed info on what the ‘celebration’ (action) entails.

Propagandist Art, China

Art is a process of discovering hidden meanings, or hiding meanings that are prohibited from being declared.

When art and politics merge, it becomes a loud voice. It is a strong message, a way of dealing with issues, or a way out of contortion, oppression, a way to find individuality, to declare oneself.

This was the case of communist regime of Mao Zedong in China, during which time the artists had to rely on their creative power and the use of covert schemes to come to grips with, indirectly through their work, the social values that shape their culture.

Their coveted portfolios, containing consumerism, politics and mass media subjected the local art market to a trend reversal, unveiling a promise of a new world with unique techniques and styles, an unfamiliar and bewildering fascination with commercial tendencies, only insofar as it derived from democracy.

In the 90s the art world harboured deep suspicions about ‘meaning’ being accorded a sacred place in art, and power became the deciding factor in producing meaning and achieving influence.

It was confrontational, provoking, deliberate, with clear indications of how art related to and impacted the surroundings, or vice-versa: the artists used their creativity to indicate and portray their feelings about what they experienced on the outside.

Art enabled the public to escape the iron-clad enforcement on their nation, to experience the profound lightness of lawlessness, a visionary sensation of anarchy. An altered sense of space and location, it made them feel like they were travelling, being away and apart from the repression, authority and uniformity.

 

small move, grand gesture

Join the whole world in this movement and shut all your lights off for (at least) 6omin, in tune with the WWF world-wide initiative, 4th year in a row, which is progressively bigger, better, more powerful, and more resonant each year.

SAT, MARCH 27th, 2010 @ 20h30 EST

Be the one to support this cause and join everyone in this sweeping event: show your pledge to climate change by turning off electricity for 1 hour.

This year more countries than ever before have signed on and made a commitment to this approach.

Most big cities will host events honouring the initiative, so take part and add to the budding climatic retaliation.

About a year ago I posted about Vancouver’s promise to make the Winter Olympics more sustainable and environmentally friendly.

The Games are almost here. So what can we expect? What has been done?

* LEED standard is incorporates into design of all venues and supporting locations;

* energy & water efficiency, affordable housing and advanced transportation changes are all upon B.C;

* integrated approach to forecasting, reducing, offsetting the carbon footprint;

* costs and spending have been kept to a reason and visitors will be urged to do the same;

* innovations, innovations, innovations [and their social, economic and environmental significances];

And so much more! And so exciting!

more info

Be ready to cheer: Feb 12-28!!

Recommending

Not really happy with COP15 outcome? The state of international negotiations? The UN??

For a book written 17 years ago a lot of the predictions in it have come true so far. And none of them good… on the contrary – quite scary actually.

Jasper, William. (1992) Global tyranny Step by Step: The UN and the Emerging New World Order

The age-old question: is UN a saint or a devil? Benefitting the people and the planet? Has hidden agendas?

Good read, if a bit too conspirational. You don’t have to (and I suggest not to) believe everything in it, but it’s a proper eye-opener.

download here

International diplomacy, as we’re all very well aware, has its flaws. And there was certainly a bit of a apprehension that the conference will be quite.. dramatic.  But still unpredictable.

The negotiations at Copenhagen were so contentious because of the very real impact the proposals will have, not only for the environment, but also on national economies.

The UN Secretary-General urged all countries to formally sign on to the Copenhagen Accord to start tackling climate change and step up work toward a legally binding treaty in 2010.

He said the UN will seek to streamline the negotiating process, and will encourage world leaders to directly engage in achieving a global legally binding climate change treaty in 2010.

Under the accord, developed countries will finance a 10 billion-dollars-a-year, three-year program starting in 2010 to fund developing nations’ projects to deal with drought, floods and other impacts of climate change, and to develop clean energy.

It also set a “goal” of mobilizing 100 billion dollars a year by 2020 for the same purposes.

Here’s a few comprehensive reviews and viewpoints of the whole affair:

BBC World News

The London Telegraph

The New York Times

The Washington Post

Le Monde Diplomatique

With exactly one hundred days left to the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, time is running short for negotiators who are preparing a new global climate change deal.

The Global Climate Change Week is Sept 21-25.

The experts designate the upcoming symposium in Copenhagen “the most important international gathering since the end of the Second World War”.

Momentum from outside the climate negotiations is going to be crucial. World leaders need to take charge of the process on the basis that climate change is an economic, development and security issue as much as an environmental one.

The goal is get initiatives on the way to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

Full article

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