Tag Archives: flood relief

U.S. Seeks Unified Condemnation of N. Korea / The Global Fight Against Corruption / Flags for Pakistan

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The U.S. calls for a unified condemnation of North Korea’s attack on South Korea. The stakes are high in the global fight against corruption. The online Encyclopaedia Iranica is putting Iranian history at your fingertips. Since last year, the number of partnerships between American and Russian universities has nearly doubled. And finally, learn what a group of students did to raise awareness and money for flood victims in Pakistan.

U.S. Wants A Unified Message to N. Korea
The Obama administration says China and other countries need to join the United States in sending “a clear, direct, unified message” to North Korea’s leadership that its attack upon the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong was “unwarranted, unhelpful and should cease.” The State Department Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Philip J. Crowley says the attack “was a clear premeditated action by North Korea specifically intended to inflame tensions in the region.”

A Global Effort Against Corruption
Officials attending major international gatherings have vowed to turn anti-corruption commitments into action as the stakes in the global fight against bribery, graft and embezzlement have grown greater.

Iranica: An Online Encyclopedia
Encyclopedias have been around for 2,000 years, but websites like the online Encyclopaedia Iranica are reinventing them. With Encyclopaedia Iranica, the reader can click on any of hundreds of featured entries that pop up randomly on the online version’s home page and also jump from one article to another with a click.

U.S.-Russia University Ties
Since the U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission was formed by Presidents Obama and Medvedev in July, 2009, the number of partnerships between American and Russian universities has nearly doubled.

Flags for Flood Awareness
To increase awareness of conditions in Pakistan and encourage support for its 160 Pakistani alumni, Plymouth State University student leaders covered the New Hampshire campus lawn with 25,000 neon green flags, each representing 800 persons displaced by flooding. They call the display the “Flood of Flags” and it helped raise more than $3,000 for flood relief. At left, student leaders Bryan Funk (left) and Sam Wisel (right) were among the organizers.

U.S. Condemns N. Korean Attack / Climate Change Talks / An Award for Global Fairness

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President Obama is outraged by North Korea’s attack on South Korea. Despite their difficult year, Haitians are preparing to vote in elections this coming weekend. At the U.N. climate change conference COP-16, there is potential for progress. In Pakistan, U.S. flood relief efforts reach a new milestone. Defense Secretary Robert Gates endorses a new plan to create crisis cells. In Indonesia, there’s new research on bird flu. A professor in New York is behind the Encyclopaedia Iranica. And finally, Ela Bhatt receives the first Global Fairness Award.

U.S. Condemns “Outrageous” N. Korean Attack
North Korea’s artillery attack upon a South Korean island is an outrageous act, and the United States is working with other countries in the region to develop a “measured and unified response,” U.S. officials say. Deputy White House press secretary Bill Burton says Obama “is outraged by these actions.” At right, South Koreans read special news editions on the attack.


Haitians Encouraged to Vote
The United States is urging Haitians to exercise their right to vote in Haiti’s upcoming presidential and legislative elections, says U.S. Ambassador to Haiti Kenneth Merten. Haiti’s new leaders will face the challenge of rebuilding the nation of 10 million citizens.

COP-16’s Potential for Progress
Parties to the U.N. climate change conference that begins next week in Cancún should focus on attainable goals that could set the groundwork for a future climate treaty, says U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern. “Rather than insisting on a legal treaty before anything happens, we should move down the pragmatic path of concrete operational decisions,” Stern says.

A Milestone in Pakistan Relief
U.S. flood relief efforts in Pakistan reached a new milestone on November 21, with more than 25 million pounds of relief supplies delivered in Pakistan since U.S. military relief flight operations began August 5, says U.S. Embassy Islamabad.

A Plan for Disaster Response
The United States “wholeheartedly endorses” a plan to create crisis cells that would be on standby to respond in the event of natural disasters across the Western Hemisphere, such as Haiti’s earthquake in January, Defense Secretary Robert Gates says.

Fighting Bird Flu 
The new Indonesian National Laboratory for Infectious Diseases Research in is seeking to better understand and control the avian influenza (bird flu) virus and other dangerous diseases facing Indonesia. Statistics from the World Health Organization show Indonesia has had the largest number of bird flu cases and related deaths worldwide.

The Encyclopaedia Iranica
Ehsan Yarshater, a professor emeritus at Columbia University in New York, came up with the idea for the Encyclopaedia Iranica as a student in the 1930s. In the decades since, Yarshater has made his idea for an English-language encyclopedia a hardbound and online reality as the premier compendium of scholarship on the Iranian world.

Clinton Honors Ela Bhatt
In a ceremony at the Kennedy Center for the Arts, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton conferred the first Global Fairness Award on Ela Bhatt. Bhatt, right, is the founder of the Self-Employed Women’s Association in India, a combination trade union and social movement which now has more than one million members.

Obama in South Korea / Sharing Power in Iraq / Trying to Explain Iran

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President Obama discusses new G20 regulations and urges North Korea to get serious about nuclear disarmament. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton applauds a new Iraq power-sharing deal. In China, clean energy policies are a priority. A new food security fund aims to reduce global poverty. Pakistani Peace Builders help with flood relief. And finally, meet Hooman Majd, an Iranian-American author whose goal is to explain the sometimes baffling Iranian landscape.

G20 Agrees on Regulations, Trade
The Group of 20 major economies agrees to implement tighter financial controls to prevent another global financial crisis and to achieve more sustainable and balanced economic growth. “For the first time, we spelled out the actions that are required … to achieve the sustained and balanced growth that we need,” says President Obama, right.



Obama to N. Korea: Get Serious
North Korea must show “a seriousness of purpose” before nuclear disarmament talks can resume, President Obama says. “We’re not interested in just going through the motions with the same result.” 

In Iraq, New Power Sharing
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton praises Iraq’s new power-sharing agreement, which was struck by rival factions after eight months of negotiations. “Iraq’s political leaders have worked together to agree on an inclusive government that represents the will of the Iraqi people,” says Clinton

Toward A Greener China
China will aggressively pursue clean energy policies for the foreseeable future, driven mostly by the desire to reduce its dependence on overseas energy supplies, according to U.S. experts.

A New Food Security Fund
Partners in the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program is a new fund set up to increase agriculture productivity and reduce poverty. Ethiopia, Niger and Mongolia will receive the fund’s second round of grants totaling $97 million. The fund is supported by the United States, Canada, South Korea, Spain, Australia and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Pakistani Peace Builders
Pakistani Peace Builders (PPB), an independent cultural diplomacy campaign launched in May, aims to counteract American stereotypes and misperceptions of Pakistanis. Following the devastating floods that struck Pakistan in late July, PPB added a humanitarian angle to its cultural mission and cofounded Relief4Pakistan to mobilize flood relief funds.

Explaining Iran
Hooman Majd, an Iranian-American author, has spent years writing about the complicated relationship between the United States and an Iranian political, social and religious landscape that outsiders find baffling. In his latest book, The Ayatollahs’ Democracy, Majd, right, interviews Iranian figures of all stripes to explain a pivotal and dramatic moment in modern Iranian history, the highly contested 2009 election in which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner.