Features: UNESCO

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08-10-2004In December 1999, UNESCO Courier was talking to Wangari Muta Maathai, 2004 Nobel Peace Prize
"If you want to save the environment you should protect the people first", such is the message of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Kenyan environmental campaigner Wangari Muta Maathai. More

24-09-2004Timbuktu mobile radio battles locust hordes
For the past month, the people of Timbuktu in Mali have been battling hordes of locusts that are destroying their crops, with the help of a suitcase radio donated by UNESCO in 2001. “The suitcase radio is very, very important in this struggle against the locusts,” explained radio technician Mahi Touré, “we broadcast daily crisis programmes from the suitcase, retransmitted on all four radio stations in Timbuktu, to tell people where to go and to organize the fight against the invading swarms.” More

25-06-2003Human genetic data: towards an international declaration
Human genetic data will soon have a set of ethical guidelines - governing their collection, processing, storage and use - in the form or an international declaration developed by a Drafting Group of UNESCO’s International Bioethics Committee. This text will presented for adoption by the Organization’s General Conference in October 2003. Before that, it will be examined by a committee of governmental experts, who will meet at UNESCO Headquarters from June 25 to 27. More

12-05-2003The International Bioethics Committee
Ten Years of Activity
Paris – The discovery of the double helix structure of DNA in 1953 by Francis Crick and James Watson, is celebrating its 50th anniversary. This fundamental breakthrough – which provided the basis of genetic engineering and biotechnology – is featured on the programme for a meeting of UNESCO’s International Bioethics Committee, taking place in Paris from May 12 to 14. The committee itself will be celebrating ten years of activity. More

12-03-2003Capturing Carbon?
The amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere has been rising steadily since the beginning of the industrial age. As one of the most important ‘greenhouses gases’, atmospheric CO2 is a major contributor to global warming. Recent initiatives to slow the rate of warming, such as the Kyoto protocol, focus on reducing emissions (eg. from factories and automobiles). More

04-02-2003Scientific cooperation in the Middle East takes a step forward with the Sesame Centre
Paris - The SESAME Project (International Centre for Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East) has just reached two important landmarks: the first cornerstone of the Centre has been laid and seven of its members have accepted the statutes of the project. More

16-08-2002BREAKING THE SILENCE SURROUNDING THE SLAVE TRADE
Paris - The International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition will be commemorated on August 23 this year in a new light: the international recognition in 2001 of the transatlantic trade of slaves as a crime against humanity breached the wall of silence which for so long surrounded the biggest deportation in history. More

17-07-2002FREE ACCESS TO 2,000 MIT COURSES ONLINE: A HUGE OPPORTUNITY FOR UNIVERSITIES IN POOR COUNTRIES
Paris - Professors and lecturers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have agreed to post on the Internet, free of charge for all the world’s higher education institutions and students, the contents of the courses given at this prestigious US university - lectures, tests, assignments, textbooks, reading materials, bibliographies, simulations, experiments, demonstrations and study programmes. More

15-07-2002SAVING THE JUDAEO-SPANISH LANGUAGE AND CULTURE
Paris - Five hundred and ten years after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain by the Catholic Monarchs in a decree dated March 31, 1492, some 150,000 people around the world still speak the Judaeo-Spanish language. More

24-06-2002IRON IN AFRICA: REVISING THE HISTORY
Paris - Africa developed its own iron industry some 5,000 years ago, according to a formidable new scientific work from UNESCO Publishing that challenges a lot of conventional thinking on the subject. More

11-06-2002THE UNESCO INSTITUTE FOR EDUCATION TURNS 50
Paris - The UNESCO Institute for Education (UIE) today celebrates its 50th anniversary on June 14th: a half a century of working for those that the world's formal education systems have left by the wayside. More

10-06-2002Afro@digital, AN AFRICAN DOCUMENTARY ON THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION IN AFRICA
Paris - Despite the North-South gap, the information technology revolution has become a daily reality in many African countries, where the internet, mobile telephones and digital video cameras are being used with extraordinary creativity and versatility. More

31-05-2002DIGITAL INFORMATION POSES PROBLEMS FOR CONSERVATIONISTS
Paris - An increasingly large share of the information produced today in practically all areas of human activity is compiled digitally and is designed to be accessed on computers.
But this enormous trove of digital information may well be lost unless specific techniques and policies are developed to conserve it. More

31-05-2002SYNCHROTRON FACILITY OPENS THE WAY FOR CO-OPERATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Paris - UNESCO has given the green light to a science initiative that could help promote peaceful co-operation in the Middle East, by constructing an international synchrotron radiation centre in Jordan. More

30-04-2002Michael Schumacher : UNESCO Champion for Sport
Paris - German Formula One racing driver Michael Schumacher has been named a UNESCO Champion for Sport. At a ceremony at UNESCO's Headquarters on April 15 to mark his nomination, Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura paid tribute Schumacher's role in "the promotionof sport, his contribution to UNESCO's educational action in favour of young people all over the world, and his dedication to the Organization's ideals." More

30-04-2002International Year of the Mountain - CONSERVATION PAYS OFF FOR FARMERS IN SWISS ALPS
Entlebuch (Switzerland) - The Alpine region of Entlebuch in the canton of Lucerne officially became Switzerland's second UNESCO biosphere reserve, at an inauguration ceremony on Saturday 25 May in the presence of Swiss President, Kaspar Villiger. More

28-04-2002ONE MAN'S STRUGGLE FOR PRESS FREEDOM
Harare, Zimbabwe - Zimbabwean editor Geoffrey Nyarota is the winner of this year's UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize.* Andrew Meldrum in Harare spoke to Nyarota about his fight for a free press. More

24-04-2002LOCAL CONTENT ON THE INTERNET: THE CHALLENGE FOR THE SOUTH
Paris - On the Internet, you can listen to a poem in Quechua with a translation and take a course to learn the language of these Indians of South America (http://www.andes.org). Or get an update on the fight by the Ogiek people to keep their homes in theMau Forest of Kenya where they have lived for centuries (http://www.ogiek.org). More

28-02-2002UNESCO DIRECTOR-GENERAL WARNS OF LOOMING WATER CRISIS
Paris - On World Water Day, March 22, UNESCO's Director-General warns of a looming water crisis and states that "if water is in crisis, development is in crisis too". He insists that "only by integrating scientific and ethical principles with socially sound practices can we secure a sustainable 'water world' for generations to come." More

28-02-2002KIM PHUC - THE POWER OF FORGIVENESS
Paris - She's the little girl in the picture. Kim Phuc was nine years old on June 8, 1972, when her village, Trang Bang, in South Vietnam was bombed. Burned by napalm, she ran down the road screaming in fear and pain. Associated Press photographer Nick Ut captured all the war's horror in this picture, which was published around the world and contributed to ending the conflict. More

31-01-2002SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICA’S WORLD HERITAGE SITES
Paris - Four of the 31 new sites added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List in December 2001 are in Sub-Saharan Africa – Tsodilo (Botswana), the Royal Hill of Ambohimanga (Madagascar), the old town of Lamu (Kenya) and the tombs of the Buganda kings at Kasubi (Uganda). South Island was attached to the Kenyan natural heritage site of the Lake Turkana National Parks, inscribed in 1997. Africa now has 57 cultural, natural and mixed heritage sites in 22 countries, as part of the world total of 721 sites in 124 countries. More

31-01-2002CHEICK MODIBO DIARRA: AIMING FOR EXCELLENCE
Paris - Cheick Modibo Diarra, UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador since 1998, is a leading African scientist. He is an interplanetary navigator with NASA (USA) and has become world-famous, especially through his work on the Pathfinder probe, which landed on Mars in July 1997 after a journey of 497 million km. More

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