World People's Blog

Linked with The Gender and Media Project, with Daughters for loan under fire, … , and also linked with Malawi PeaceWomen already on our blog: with Irene Chaluluka, with Helen Munthali, and with Madam Felister Chinthunzi.

Pilirani Semu-Banda is a journalist contracted by the USAID as Media Specialist for Casals and Associates in Malawi. As a freelancer, Pilirani has won both local and international awards, including the Africa Education Journalism Award. She has also been voted Malawi’s best female journalist twice. (altvoices).

Visit her blog.

A short video-statement about Pilirani Semu-Banda, by USAID to Africa, 0.39 min, 20 Nov 2007.

Malawi: ‘Foreign Traders Are Taking Our Jobs‘, by Pilirani Semu-Banda, December 20, 2007.

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Pilirani Semu-Banda – Malawi

Modern Day Slavery in Malawi Persists in the Name of Culture.

As one of the major tobacco exporters in the world, Malawi derives up to 70 percent of its foreign exchange earnings from tobacco, accounting for five percent of the world’s total exports and two percent of the world’s total production. Tea is the second major foreign exchange earner after tobacco, contributing a nine percent share to the country’s total exports. This little country in southern Africa, 20th in population out of the 54 countries and island kingdoms that make up Africa, ranks only after Kenya, which has almost three times the population, as the second largest producer and exporter of tea in Africa; it is 12th on the world list … (full text).

The Cost of the US Elections on Africa.

She writes: In Nkombanyama, a village in Malawi’s northern district of Chitipa, a 14-year-old girl was saved by a traditional chief as she was about to be married off to a successful farmer. Sadly, her father was using her as currency to settle a debt with the farmer.

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Linked with the Mathematics Genealogy Project, and with Family Tree for Mathematic Scholars.

Retired Minnesota State University-Mankato mathematics professor Harry B. Coonce has proven once again that nature abhors a vacuum. Four years ago, he started a small project that has blossomed into a massive online effort to list all the world’s mathematicians. His reason for starting the Genealogy Project for Mathematicians? The information wasn’t available anywhere else … (full text).

A Labor of Love: the Mathemiatics Genealogy Project.

The Project in the UK: Notes.

the Project on wikipedia.

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Sorry, I found no photo of Harry B. Coonce in the internet.

He has created the Mathematics Genealogy Project of thed NDSU North Dakota State University.

(To access their feature – as participant of the project – you have to login with your ACM Web Account and, if you fullfill their requirements*, click on ‘this link’ of the project).

* to full fill their requirements, Dr. Coonce requests that the following information be sent to him (by mail) for any Ph.D. mathematician not currently included in the list (or for whom there is an incomplete or inaccurate entry):

• The complete name of the degree recipient;
• The name of the university that awarded the doctorate;
• The year in which the degree was awarded;
• The complete title of the dissertation;
• The complete name(s) of the advisor(s).

(full text).

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Shirin Neshat doesn’t quite know where to call home. The 43-year-old artist was born and raised in Iran but moved to the U.S. after high school to study art. When the Islamic Revolution overtook her homeland in 1979, Neshat was exiled and couldn’t return until 11 years later – and the country she went home to bore little resemblance to the one she left … (time.com).

She says: « For a long time I resisted that word, exile. I feel like when you say “exile” it implies a state that is not voluntary like when you leave your country. At the time I made that statement -that was quite a few years ago – I had been traveling to Iran, and I was really proud that I had made the effort to go there. It’s within the last few years that the notion of exile has really started to sink in for me. Every time I tried to go back, there were all these blocks that prevented me. I started, for the first time, to really feel this frustration. Before, it had always been a matter of choice. I made the decision. This time I realized I didn’t have the choice, and I felt really angry and frustrated. Then I said, “Well you know something? I am an artist in exile.” I decided that maybe once I accepted that, other doors would open in my mind in terms of the way I situate myself, in terms of my work, my psychology ». (BelieverMag).

She was also impressed with the museum’s commitment to show the works of artists who have not been seen in the region, including Shirin Neshat, Pipilotti Rist and Bill Viola … (full text, Jan. 9, 2008).

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Shirin Neshat – Iran & USA

Listen the video: The Noam Chomsky / Shirin Neshat / Death Penalty panel, 56.40 min., 09.06.2006 on charlierose.com.

This will be the first time that the subject will be offered as an extensive one-day course and for many art lovers in Dubai, some of the artists to be discussed will be familiar thanks to having exhibited in the city and across the region. These include Farhad Moshiri, Shirin Neshat, Walid Raad, Rabab El-Nemr and Paul Guiragossian. (full text, Jan. 7, 2008).

Universes in Universe.org.

Solo show reviews include: Gert & Uwe Tobias, Mariko Mori, Carlos Amorales, Mary Heilmann, Slater Bradley, Ian Kiaer, Duncan Marquiss, Luisa Lambri, Charlotte Posenenske, Joanne Tatham & Tom O’ Sullivan, Mathieu Mercier, Mark Leckey, Job Kolewijn, Ian Tweedy, Konstantin Kakanias, Enrico Morsiani, Gino De Dominicis, Yael Bartana, Jordan Wolfson, Lorenzo Scotto di Luzio, Shirin Neshat, Jean-Luc Moulène, Sean Snyder, Teresa Margolles, Noriko Yamaguchi. (full text, Jan. 7, 2008).

An Unveiling.

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Linked with SATAN’S CALLING CARD, and with The Language of Stone.

Look at this upcoming event: ‘THE GRAND GATHERING OF SOULS’, SPRING EQUINOX, plus an unique 12 days tour of Egypt … from 19 to 30 March 2008. For Bookings and more detail please contact with Candice Bauval,
and in Egypt with Mohammad Nazmy.

Robert Bauval says: « The controversies that were generated in 1990s have been debated to the hilt. It’s now time to move the discussion onwards. The Orion Correlation Theory (OCT) remains controversial. So be it. The Egypt Code takes the thesis forward to fit the notion of a sky-ground correlation into the overall context and timeframe of pharaonic Egypt. It takes on board many issues that were not dealt with in my previous books, and seeks the common denominator that motivated the 3000 years of pyramid and temple building along the Nile » … (full interview text).

His website: … Please feel free to take a ‘romp’ around my Website, and I hope you find many things that will interest you: Homepage; books; feature articles; photo galleries; links to interesting websites.

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Robert Bauval – Egypt & Belgium

THE EGYPT CODE by Robert Bauval, A Special Review Written by Greg Taylor, June 2006: It is a little difficult to understand why the OCT has been rebuked so ferociously by not only Egyptologists, but also astronomers such as Ed Krupp. The likeness is quite apparent, and there is much to suggest that the ancient Egyptians revered the Orion constellation in particular – even if one day it is ultimately proven incorrect, it still seems a topic well worth some serious discussion. In all likelihood, the orthodox opposition to Bauval’s research comes not so much from that core theory, but from the other subjects associated with him from the ‘alternative history’ genre throughout the 1990s – the Age of the Sphinx controversy, the 10,500 BCE date given by Bauval for the perfect mirror image of the Giza layout to be present in the sky, and the confluence of this date with theories of a lost civilisation (notably the big ‘A’: Atlantis) … (full long text).

Graham Hancock And Robert Bauval, Monuments To Life: a DVD.

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Linked with Connect the World.

He is international expert for new technology /expert international pour nouvelles technologies. He is working with the WSIS project:

• About WSIS;
• WSIS Follow-Up: In the resolution (2006/46) passed on 28 July 2006, entitled “Follow-up to the World Summit on the Information Society and review of the Commission on Science and Technology for Development”, ECOSOC indicated how it will oversee the system-wide follow-up of the Summit outcomes, as requested in the Tunis outputs. This is in the context of the annual consideration by ECOSOC of the integrated and coordinated implementation and follow-up of major United Nations conferences. To this end, ECOSOC decided that the Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD) will assist the Council as the focal point in the system-wide follow-up of WSIS. (full text).
• WSIS Implementation;
• WSIS newsroom.

A french video on ITC & god governance of the internet: Francis Muguet, Expert International TIC, ENSTA, 5.38 min., Oct. 22, 2007.

Muguet.org.

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Francis F. Muguet – France

Relevant websites he’s working with:

• [WSIS CS-Plenary] IMPORTANT: CS input to WSIS, by Dr. Francis MUGUET, Sep. 6, 2004;
• [WSIS CS-Plenary] Virtual Plenary wiki… , by Dr. Francis MUGUET, Jan. 8, 2005;
• [WSIS CS-Plenary] Questions to Digital Solidarity Fund, by djilali benamrane, Nov. 24, 2005;
• [Wsis-pct] Happy New Year, New Copurigh Law in France, by Dr. Francis MUGUET, Jan 11, 2006;
• [Wsis-pct] European Commission – Interactive Policy Making – IPM open source, Dr. Francis MUGUET, Aug. 1, 2007;
• [WSIS Edu] New WSIS Civil Society Working Group on Information, Networks Governance, Dr. Francis MUGUET, Sept. 12, 2007;
• [Future of the Internet workshop] OECD Discussion Forum, Francis F. MUGUET;
• Open Society, Preservation of the Scientific Public Domain, Global Inclusion.

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Linked with CIRET, and with CHARTER OF TRANSDISCIPLINARITY.

To heal, to feel ‘good inside’: today we are living under an all-powerful therapeutic ideology, regressive and consumerist, that infantilises us by trying to exclude all risks. Jacqueline Kelen speaks out against the tyranny of comfort that is attempting to sidestep the human being’s spiritual vocation. A specialist of the myth, the author evokes her heroes, gods and saints in this book. They remind us, with their wounds and their ordeals, that man does not achieve plenitude through facility: Achilles and Ulysses, Lancelot and Tristan, Osiris cut into pieces and Christ crucified; they are all telling us, with the Jacob of the Bible and the Christian and Sufi mystics, that a wound is also an opening; and there is no wound that does not bring us back to the wound of love. (english part of an East-Asian-language website).

Ecoutez sa vidéo ‘La demeure du printemps‘, 2.51 min.

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Jacqueline Kelen – France

… The answers show the difficulty found by most of those interviewed when it came to stating clearly that they became adults when they were well in their 30s. The term “adult” is not accepted, as writer Jacqueline Kelen says: “Being an adult? I prefer the concept of maturity including at least one type of age and expressing the capacity of renewal of the being. There is an expression I like and I hope to experience: ‘Stay in youth’ … ” (page 7/11, full long text).

Her publications: on Bookstores.com (18 books, all in french); on BestBookBuys (10 books, all in french); on amazon (many books, many languages); on chapters.indigo.ca; on a japanese book-selection; on Oxford Journals: French Studies (requires a subscription); on FNAC.com (36 titres).

Sorry, I found only few sites in english … but she is soooo gooood!!

sites en français:

Aimer d’amitié, Comment l’amitié enseigne à aimer.

Ecrivain qui traite dans son oeuvre les thèmes de l’amitié, la solitude, la passion amoureuse, le secret, le sommeil, et revisite de nombreuses figures légendaires comme Ulysse, Mélusine, Lancelot ou la Reine de Saba. Pour elle, les mythes sont des réservoirs de rêves, mais aussi des passeurs de sagesse. (voyages).

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Linked with Trees for life, with Now we are human commodities, with THE ECONOMICS OF EXTINCTION, and with THE SELF-INFLICTED COST OF ECONOMIC MYOPIA.

Chris Maser is a freelance consultant on sustainable forestry. He is the author of some 30 books, some 250 articles, he leads conferences, speeches and workshops. His career spans thirty years as a research ecologist in forest, shrub steppe, subarctic, desert, coastal, and agricultural settings. He was a member of Yale’s Peabody Museum Prehistoric Expedition to Egypt, conducted a three-year coastal survey for the University of Puget Sound, and carried out an eight-year study of old-growth forests with the U.S. Department of the Interior. He has given more than 100 talks throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia. Speaking topics include sustainable forestry, sustainable community development, and resolving environmental conflicts. (full text).

He writes: « I am but one person…. What can I do? The answer is always the same: I can do something. It doesn’t have to be much. It only needs to be done with love and it becomes great, no matter how small it may seem to the giver of the gift. Ours is not to question the size or value of our individual contributions. Our task in life is simply to give from the essence of who we are. Each gift is unique and valuable, and each adds a necessary piece to the whole ». (full long text).

Homepage of his website, and its sitemap.

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Chris Maser – USA

Land-Use Planning for sustainable development.

Trained primarily as a vertebrate zoologist, Chris Maser spent over 25 years as a research scientist in natural history and ecology in forest, shrub steppe, subarctic, desert, coastal, and agricultural settings. He was a research mammalogist in Nubia, Egypt, (1963-1964) with the Yale University Peabody Museum Prehistoric Expedition and a research mammalogist in Nepal (1966-1967) for the U. S. Naval Medical Research Unit #3 based in Cairo, Egypt, where he participated in a study of tick-borne diseases. From 1970 through 1973, he conducted an ecological survey of the Oregon Coast for the University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, Washington. Following that, he was a research ecologist with the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management from 1974-1987 (the last eight studying old-growth forests in western Oregon) and a landscape ecologist with the Environmental Protection Agency 1990-1991). Today Chris is an author as well as an international lecturer, and facilitator in resolving environmental conflicts, vision statements, and sustainable community development. He also an international consultant in forest ecology and sustainable forestry practices. He has written over 270 publications, including more than twenty books about sustainable forestry, resolving
environmental conflict, the various aspects of sustainable community development, natural history of mammals, gardening, and the perpetual consequences of fear and violence in today’s world. He has worked and/or lectured in Canada, Egypt, France, Germany, Japan, Malaysia, Nepal, Slovakia, Switzerland, and throughout the United States. (Read text).

The Seen and Unseen World of the Fallen Tree.

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